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 ORATIONS 
 
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 BRITISH ORATORS 
 
 INCLUDING BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES 
 
 WITH A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY 
 JULIAN HAWTHORNE 
 
 REVISED EDITION 
 
 VOLUME II 
 
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 THE 

 
 Copyright, 1900, 
 By THE COLONIAL PRESS.
 
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 V. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PACE 
 
 William Pitt » 
 
 On His Refusal to Negotiate With Bonaparte 3 
 
 George Canning , , 55 
 
 On Granting Aid to Portugal . . . . 57 
 
 Daniel O'Connell 77 
 
 On the Rights of Catholics 79 
 
 Robert Emmet 91 
 
 Protest Against Sentence as a Traitor 93 
 
 Thomas Chalmers 101 
 
 God's Sympathy for Man 103 
 
 Lord Palmerston (Henry John Temple) 117 
 
 Arbitration , 119 
 
 Lord John Russell 131 
 
 The Church of Ireland 133 
 
 The Earl of Derby (Edward Henry Smith Stanley) 157 
 
 Life and Culture , 1 59 
 
 John Henry, Cardinal Newman 175 
 
 The Immortality of the Soul 177 
 
 Richard Cobden 185 
 
 On the Effects of Protection 187 
 
 Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield 211 
 
 On the Political Situation 213 
 
 Henry Edward, Cardinal Manning 229 
 
 On Progress - - 231 
 
 William Ewart Gladstone 251 
 
 On Domestic and Foreign Affairs 253 
 
 The Established Church in Ireland „ 283 
 
 John Bright 333 
 
 Peace and War 335 
 
 Dean Stanley (Arthur Penrhyn Stanley) 347 
 
 Funeral Oration on Lord Palmerston 349 
 
 Lord Salisbury (Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne Cecil) 359 
 
 One-Man Power 361 
 
 Canon Farrar (Frederic William Farrar) 381 
 
 Funeral Oration on General Grant 383 
 
 iii
 
 ON HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE 
 WITH BONAPARTE 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM PITT
 
 WILLIAM PITT 
 1759— 1806 
 
 William Pitt the younger was remarkable for the precocity of his 
 powers, as well as for the superiority of the powers themselves. His 
 life lasted but forty-seven years, yet he was for some twenty-three years 
 practically the ruler of England, and died in the harness ; the inter- 
 regnum of the Addington ministry, 1801 to 1804, was made up of his 
 supporters. His career did not begin until the American Revolution 
 was practically over ; but had he been able to deal with it, it is prob- 
 able that the example of his great father, as well as his sympathy with 
 Burke, not to speak of his own generous and magnanimous character, 
 would have prompted him to favor the contentions of the colonists. 
 But as it was, his life was passed in the struggle with Napoleon ; and 
 his death was thought to have been hastened by his grief at the vic- 
 tories of the latter over the combined armies, culminating with the rout 
 of Austerlitz. In addition to his foreign policy, however, Pitt gave 
 vigorous attention to internal affairs ; and was severe in repressing the 
 Jacobins ; while his effort to remove some of the Roman Catholic dis- 
 abilities, being opposed by the King, led to his resignation from office 
 in 1801. 
 
 For a man thoroughly honorable, and devoted to the public weal ; 
 pure in life, public and private ; and endowed with signal abilities, Pitt 
 incurred more and bitterer enmities than any contemporary public man. 
 He was hated on the Continent with a virulence which could not be sur- 
 passed ; and his political opponents in England were hardly less un- 
 measured in their abuse of him. The cause of this is probably to be 
 sought in the austerity of his personal bearing, the lack of lightness and 
 sunshine in his nature, his preoccupation with affairs, to the exclusion 
 of all those relaxations and common human sympathies which make 
 men acquainted with one another, and form the real basis of their 
 friendly communion with one another. Pitt was solitary, dry, forbid- 
 ding, proud, and uncongenial ; he took everything seriously, and felt to 
 the full his own enormous responsibilities. The formality and loftiness 
 of his manners, his impatience of opposition, his indifference to the sen- 
 sibilities of others, and the secrecy with which he hedged about most 
 of his acts, combined to raise up foes and to give plausibility to slan- 
 ders. Probably no man who has attained equal eminence, and whose 
 deeds have been so consistently honorable and patriotic, has met during 
 his lifetime with so much misrepresentation and obloquy. But history 
 has done him justice as one of the great men of England. 
 
 A great orator he could hardly be termed, especially when compared 
 with the mighty genius of some of his contemporaries and immediate 
 predecessors. But all that he said had weight and point, and tended 
 to the making of history. One of his most interesting speeches was de- 
 livered in the House of Commons on February 3, 1800, defending his 
 refusal to negotiate with Bonaparte for a peace with France.
 
 ON HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH 
 
 BONAPARTE 
 
 SIR : I am induced, at this period of the debate, to offer my 
 sentiments to the House, both from an apprehension that 
 at a later hour the attention of the House must neces- 
 sarily be exhausted, and because the sentiment with which the 
 honorable and learned gentleman [Mr. Erskine] began his 
 speech, and with which he has thought proper to conclude it, 
 places the question precisely on that ground on which I am most 
 desirous of discussing it. The learned gentleman seems to as- 
 sume as the foundation of his reasoning, and as the great argu- 
 ment for immediate treaty, that every effort to overturn the 
 system of the French Revolution must be unavailing ; and that 
 it would be not only imprudent, but almost impious, to strug- 
 gle longer against that order of things which, on I know not 
 what principle of predestination, he appears to consider as im- 
 mortal. Little as I am inclined to accede to this opinion, I am 
 not sorry that the honorable gentleman has contemplated the 
 subject in this serious view. I do, indeed, consider the French 
 Revolution as the severest trial which the visitation of Provi- 
 dence has ever yet inflicted upon the nations of the earth ; but 
 I cannot help reflecting, with satisfaction, that this country, even 
 under such a trial, has not only been exempted from those 
 calamities which have covered almost every other part of Eu- 
 rope, but appears to have been reserved as a refuge and asylum 
 to those who fled from its persecution, as a barrier to oppose its 
 progress, and perhaps ultimately as an instrument to deliver 
 the world from the crimes and miseries which have attended it. 
 Under this impression, I trust the House will forgive me, if 
 I endeavor, as far as I am able, to take a large and comprehen- 
 sive view of this important question. In doing so, I agree with 
 my honorable friend [Mr. Canning] that it would, in any case, 
 be impossible to separate the present discussion from the former 
 
 3
 
 4 PITT 
 
 crimes and atrocities of the French Revolution ; because both 
 the papers now on the table, and the whole of the learned gen- 
 tleman's argument, force upon our consideration the origin of 
 the war, and all the material facts which have occurred during 
 its continuance. The learned gentleman [Mr. Erskine] has 
 revived and retailed all those arguments from his own pam- 
 phlet, which had before passed through thirty-seven or thirty- 
 eight editions in print, and now gives them to the House em- 
 bellished by the graces of his personal delivery. The First 
 Consul has also thought fit to revive and retail the chief argu- 
 ments used by all the opposition speakers and all the opposition 
 publishers in this country during the last seven years. And 
 (what is still more material) the question itself, which is now 
 immediately at issue — the question whether, under the present 
 circumstances, there is such a prospect of security from any 
 treaty with France as ought to induce us to negotiate — cannot 
 be properly decided upon without retracing, both from our own 
 experience and from that of other nations, the nature, the causes, 
 and the magnitude of the danger against which we have to 
 guard, in order to judge of the security which we ought to 
 accept. 
 
 I say, then, that before any man can concur in opinion with 
 that learned gentleman ; before any man can think that the sub- 
 stance of His Majesty's answer is any other than the safety of 
 the country required ; before any man can be of opinion that, to 
 the overtures made by the enemy, at such a time and under 
 such circumstances, it would have been safe to return an 
 answer concurring in the negotiation — he must come within one 
 of the three following descriptions : He must either believe that 
 the French Revolution neither does now exhibit nor has at any 
 time exhibited such circumstances of danger, arising out of the 
 very nature of the system, and the internal state and condition 
 of France, as to leave to foreign powers no adequate ground of 
 security in negotiation ; or, secondly, he must be of opinion 
 that the change which has recently taken place has given that 
 security which, in the former stages of the Revolution, was 
 wanting; or, thirdly, he must be one who, believing that the 
 danger exists, not undervaluing its extent nor mistaking its 
 nature, nevertheless thinks, from his view of the present pres- 
 sure on the country, from his view of its situation and its pros-
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 5 
 
 pects, compared with the situation and prospects of its ene- 
 mies, that we are, with our eyes open, bound to accept of 
 inadequate security for everything that is valuable and sacred, 
 rather than endure the pressure, or incur the risk, which would 
 result from a further prolongation of the contest. 
 
 In discussing the last of these questions, we shall be led to 
 consider what inference is to be drawn from the circumstances 
 and the result of our own negotiations in former periods of the 
 war ; whether, in the comparative state of this country and 
 France, we now see the same reason for repeating our then 
 unsuccessful experiments ; or whether we have not thence de- 
 rived the lessons of experience, added to the deductions of rea- 
 son, marking the inefficacy and danger of the very measures 
 which are quoted to us as precedents for our adoption. 
 
 Unwilling, sir, as I am to go into much detail on ground which 
 has been so often trodden before ; yet, when I find the learned 
 gentleman, after all the information which he must have re- 
 ceived, if he has read any of the answers to his work (however 
 ignorant he might be when he wrote it), still giving the sanc- 
 tion of his authority to the supposition that the order to M. 
 Chauvelin [French minister] to depart from this kingdom was 
 the cause of the war between this country and France, I do 
 feel it necessary to say a few words on that part of the subject. 
 
 Inaccuracy in dates seems to be a sort of fatality common 
 to all who have written on that side of the question ; for even 
 the writer of the note to His Majesty is not more correct, in 
 this respect, than if he had taken his information only from the 
 pamphlet of the learned gentleman. The House will recollect 
 the first professions of the French Republic, which are enu- 
 merated, and enumerated truly, in that note. They are tests 
 of everything which would best recommend a government to 
 the esteem and confidence of foreign powers, and the reverse of 
 everything which has been the system and practice of France 
 now for near ten years. It is there stated that their first prin- 
 ciples were love of peace, aversion to conquest, and respect for 
 the independence of other countries. In the same note it seems, 
 indeed, admitted that they since have violated all those prin- 
 ciples ; but it is alleged that they have done so only in conse- 
 quence of the provocation of other powers. One of the first of 
 those provocations is stated to have consisted in the various out-
 
 6 PITT 
 
 rages offered to their ministers, of which the example is said to 
 have been set by the King of Great Britain in his conduct to M. 
 Chauvelin. In answer to this supposition, it is only necessary 
 to remark that before the example was given, before Austria 
 and Prussia are supposed to have been thus encouraged to com- 
 bine in a plan for the partition of France, that plan, if it ever 
 existed at all, had existed and been acted upon for above eight 
 months. France and Prussia had been at war eight months be- 
 fore the dismissal of M. Ch; uvelin. So much for the accuracy 
 of the statement. 
 
 I have been hitherto commenting on the arguments contained 
 in the notes. I come now to those of the learned gentleman. 
 I understand him to say that the dismissal of M. Chauvelin was 
 the real cause, I do not say of the general war, but of the rupture 
 between France and England ; and the learned gentleman states 
 particularly that this dismissal rendered all discussion of the 
 points in dispute impossible. Now I desire to meet distinctly 
 every part of this assertion. I maintain, on the contrary, that 
 an opportunity was given for discussing every matter in dispute 
 between France and Great Britain as fully as if a regular and 
 accredited French minister had been resident here; that the 
 causes of war which existed at the beginning, or arose during the 
 course of this discussion, were such as would have justified, 
 twenty times over, a declaration of war on the part of this 
 country ; that all the explanations on the part of France were 
 evidently unsatisfactory and inadmissible, and that M. Chau- 
 velin had given in a peremptory ultimatum, declaring that if 
 these explanations were not received as sufficient, and if we 
 did not immediately disarm, our refusal would be considered 
 as a declaration of war. After this followed that scene which no 
 man can even now speak of without horror, or think of without 
 indignation ; that murder and regicide from which I was sorry 
 to hear the learned gentleman date the beginning of the legal 
 government of France. 
 
 Having thus given in their ultimatum, they added, as a further 
 demand (while we were smarting under accumulated injuries, 
 for which all satisfaction was denied) that we should instantly 
 receive M. Chauvelin as their ambassador, with new credentials, 
 representing them in the character which they had just derived 
 from the murder of their sovereign. We replied, " He came
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 7 
 
 here as the representative of a sovereign whom you have put to 
 a cruel and illegal death ; we have no satisfaction for the in- 
 juries we have received, no security from the danger with which 
 we are threatened. Under these circumstances we will not 
 receive your new credentials. The former credentials you have 
 yourself recalled by the sacrifice of your king." 
 
 What, from that moment, was the situation of M. Chauvelin? 
 He was reduced to the situation of a private individual, and was 
 required to quit the kingdom under the provisions of the Alien 
 Act, which, for the purpose of securing domestic tranquillity, 
 had recently invested His Majesty with the power of removing 
 out of this kingdom all foreigners suspected of revolutionary 
 principles. Is it contended that he was then less liable to the 
 provisions of that act than any other individual foreigner, whose 
 conduct afforded to government just ground of objection or 
 suspicion? Did his conduct and connections here afford no 
 such ground ? or will it be pretended that the bare act of refus- 
 ing to receive fresh credentials from an infant republic, not then 
 acknowledged by any one power of Europe, and in the very act 
 of heaping upon us injuries and insults, was of itself a cause 
 of war? So far from it, that even the very nations of Europe 
 whose wisdom and moderation have been repeatedly extolled for 
 maintaining neutrality, and preserving friendship with the 
 French Republic, remained for years subsequent to this period 
 without receiving from it any accredited minister, or doing any 
 one act to acknowledge its political existence. 
 
 In answer to a representation from the belligerent powers, in 
 December, 1793, Count Bernstorff, the minister of Denmark, 
 officially declared that " it was well known that the National 
 Convention had appointed M. Grouville minister plenipotentiary 
 at Denmark, but that it was also well known that he had neither 
 been received nor acknowledged in that quality." And as late 
 as February, 1796, when the same minister was at length, for 
 the first time, received in his official capacity, Count Bernstorff, 
 in a public note, assigned this reason for that change of con- 
 duct : " So long as no other than a revolutionary government 
 existed in France, His Majesty could not acknowledge the min- 
 ister of that government ; but now that the French constitution 
 is completely organized, and a regular government established 
 in France, His Majesty's obligation ceases in that respect, and
 
 8 PITT 
 
 M. Grouville will therefore be acknowledged in the usual form." 
 How far the Court of Denmark was justified in the opinion that 
 a revolutionary government then no longer existed in France 
 it is not now necessary to inquire ; but whatever may have been 
 the fact in that respect, the principle on which they acted is clear 
 and intelligible, and is a decisive instance in favor of the propo- 
 sition which I have maintained. 
 
 Is it, then, necessary to examine what were the terms of that 
 ultimatum with which we refused to comply? Acts of hostility 
 had been openly threatened against our allies ; a hostility 
 founded upon the assumption of a right which would at once 
 supersede the whole law of nations. The pretended right to 
 open the Scheldt we discussed at the time, not so much on ac- 
 count of its immediate importance (though it was important 
 both in a maritime and commercial view) as on account of the 
 general principle on which it was founded. On the same ar- 
 bitrary notion they soon afterward discovered that sacred law 
 of nature which made the Rhine and the Alps the legitimate 
 boundaries of France, and assumed the power, which they have 
 affected to exercise through the whole of the Revolution, of 
 superseding, by a new code of their own, all the recognized 
 principles of the law of nations. They were, in fact, actually 
 advancing towards the republic of Holland, by rapid strides, 
 after the victory of Jemappes, and they had ordered their gen- 
 erals to pursue the Austrian troops into any neutral country, 
 thereby explicitly avowing an intention of invading Holland. 
 They had already shown their moderation and self-denial by in- 
 corporating Belgium with the French Republic. These lovers 
 of peace, who set out with a sworn aversion to conquest, and 
 professions of respect for the independence of other nations ; 
 who pretend that they departed from this system only in con- 
 sequence of your aggression, themselves, in time of peace, while 
 you were still confessedly neutral, without the pretence or shad- 
 ow of provocation, wrested Savoy from the King of Sardinia, 
 and had proceeded to incorporate it likewise with France. 
 These were their aggressions at this period, and more than these. 
 They had issued a universal declaration of war against all the 
 thrones of Europe, and they had, by their conduct, applied it 
 particularly and specifically to you. They' had passed the decree 
 of November 19, 1792, proclaiming the promise of French sue-
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 9 
 
 cor to all nations who should manifest a wish to become free ; 
 they had, by all their language as well as their example, shown 
 what they understood to be freedom ; they had sealed their 
 principles by the deposition of their sovereign ; they had applied 
 them to England by inviting and encouraging the addresses of 
 those seditious and traitorous societies, who, from the begin- 
 ning, favored their views, and who, encouraged by your for- 
 bearance, were even then publicly avowing French doctrines, 
 and anticipating their success in this country — who were hail- 
 ing the progress of those proceedings in France which led to the 
 murder of its king ; they were even then looking to the day 
 when they should behold a National Convention in England 
 formed upon similar principles. 
 
 And what were the explanations they offered on these differ- 
 ent grounds of offence? As to Holland: they told you the 
 Scheldt was too insignificant for you to trouble yourselves 
 about, and therefore it was to be decided as they chose, in 
 breach of positive treaty, which they had themselves guaranteed, 
 and which we, by our alliance, were bound to support. If, how- 
 ever, after the war was over, Belgium should have consolidated 
 its liberty (a term of which we now know the meaning, from the 
 fate of every nation into which the arms of France have pen- 
 etrated) then Belgium and Holland might, if they pleased, settle 
 the question of the Scheldt by separate negotiation between 
 themselves. With respect to aggrandizement, they assured us 
 that they would retain possession of Belgium by arms no longer 
 than they should find it necessary to the purpose already stated, 
 of consolidating its liberty. And with respect to the decree of 
 November 19, 1792, applied as it was pointedly to you, by all 
 the intercourse I have stated with all the seditious and traitorous 
 part of this country, and particularly by the speeches of every 
 leading man among them, they contented themselves with as- 
 serting that the declaration conveyed no such meaning as was 
 imputed to it, and that, so far from encouraging sedition, it 
 could apply only to countries where a great majority of the peo- 
 ple should have already declared itself in favor of a revolution : 
 a supposition which, as they asserted, necessarily implied a total 
 absence of all sedition. 
 
 What would have been the effect of admitting this explana- 
 tion? to suffer a nation, and an armed nation, to preach to the
 
 io PITT 
 
 inhabitants of all the countries in the world that they themselves 
 were slaves and their rulers tyrants ; to encourage and invite 
 them to revolution by a previous promise of French support to 
 whatever might call itself a majority, or to whatever France 
 might declare to be so. This was their explanation ; and this, 
 they told you, was their ultimatum. 
 
 But was this all? Even at that very moment, when they 
 were endeavoring to induce you to admit these explanations, to 
 be contented with the avowal that France offered herself as a 
 general guarantee for every successful revolution, and would 
 interfere only to sanction and confirm whatever the free and 
 uninfluenced choice of the people might have decided, what 
 were their orders to their generals on the same subject? In 
 the midst of these amicable explanations with you came forth 
 a decree which I really believe must be effaced from the minds 
 of gentlemen opposite to me, if they can prevail upon themselves 
 for a moment to hint even a doubt upon the origin of this quar- 
 rel, not only as to this country, but as to all the nations of 
 Europe with whom France has been subsequently engaged in 
 hostility. I speak of the decree of December 15, 1792. This 
 decree, more even than all the previous transactions, amounted 
 to a universal declaration of war against all thrones, and against 
 all civilized governments. It said, wherever the armies of 
 France shall come (whether within countries then at war or at 
 peace is not distinguished) in all those countries it shall be 
 the first care of their generals to introduce the principles and the 
 practice of the French Revolution ; to demolish all privileged 
 orders, and everything which obstructs the establishment of 
 their new system. 
 
 If any doubt is entertained whither the armies of France 
 were intended to come ; if it is contended that they referred 
 only to those nations with whom they were then at war, or 
 with whom, in the course of this contest, they might be driven 
 into war ; let it be remembered that at this very moment they 
 had actually given orders to their generals to pursue the Aus- 
 trian army from the Netherlands into Holland, with whom 
 they were at that time in peace. Or, even if the construction 
 contended for is admitted, let us see what would have been its 
 application, let us look at the list of their aggressions, which was 
 read by my right honorable friend [Mr. Dundas] near me.
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE n 
 
 With whom have they been at war since the period of this 
 declaration? With all the nations of Europe save two (Sweden 
 and Denmark), and if not with these two, it is only because, 
 with every provocation that could justify defensive war, those 
 countries have hitherto acquiesced in repeated violations of 
 their rights rather than recur to war for their vindication. 
 Wherever their arms have been carried it will be a matter of 
 short subsequent inquiry to trace whether they have faithfully 
 applied these principles. If in terms this decree is a denuncia- 
 tion of war against all governments ; if in practice it has been 
 applied against every one with which France has come into con- 
 tact ; what is it but the deliberate code of the French Revolu- 
 tion, from the birth of the republic, which has never once been 
 departed from, which has been enforced with unremitted rigor 
 against all the nations that have come into their power ? 
 
 If there could otherwise be any doubt whether the applica- 
 tion of this decree was intended to be universal, whether it ap- 
 plied to all nations, and to England particularly ; there is one 
 circumstance which alone would be decisive — that nearly at the 
 same period it was proposed [by M. Baraillon], in the National 
 Convention, to declare expressly that the decree of November 
 19th was confined to the nations with whom they were then at 
 war; and that proposal was rejected by a great majority, by 
 that very Convention from whom we were desired to receive 
 these explanations as satisfactory. 
 
 Such, sir, was the nature of the system. Let us examine a 
 little farther, whether it was from the beginning intended to 
 be acted upon in the extent which I have stated. At the very 
 moment when their threats appeared to many little else than the 
 ravings of madmen, they were digesting and methodizing the 
 means of execution, as accurately as if they had actually fore- 
 seen the extent to which they have since been able to realize 
 their criminal projects. They sat down coolly to devise the 
 most regular and effectual mode of making the application of 
 this system the current business of the day, and incorporating it 
 with the general orders of their army; for (will the House 
 believe it!) this confirmation of the decree of November 19th 
 was accompanied by an exposition and commentary addressed 
 to the general of every army of France, containing a schedule 
 as coolly conceived, and as methodically reduced, as any by
 
 12 PITT 
 
 which the most quiet business of a justice of peace, or the most 
 regular routine of any department of state in this country could 
 be conducted. Each commander was furnished with one gen- 
 eral blank formula of a letter for all the nations of the world ! 
 
 The people of France to the people of , Greeting, " We are 
 
 come to expel your tyrants." Even this was not all ; one of 
 the articles of the decree of the fifteenth of December was ex- 
 pressly " that those who should show themselves so brutish 
 and so enamored of their chains as to refuse the restoration of 
 their rights, to renounce liberty and equality, or to preserve, re- 
 call, or treat with their prince or privileged orders, were not 
 entitled to the distinction which France, in other cases, had 
 justly established between government and people; and that 
 such a people ought to be treated according to the rigor of war, 
 and of conquest." Here is their love of peace; here is their 
 aversion to conquest ; here is their respect for the independence 
 of other nations ! 
 
 It was then, after receiving such explanations as these, after 
 receiving the ultimatum of France, and after M. Chauvelin's 
 credentials had ceased, that he was required to depart. Even at 
 that period I am almost ashamed to record it, we did not on our 
 part shut the door against other attempts to negotiate, but this 
 transaction was immediately followed by the declaration of war, 
 proceeding not from England in vindication of her rights, but 
 from France, as the completion of the injuries and insults they 
 had offered. And on a war thus originating, can it be doubted 
 by an English House of Commons whether the aggression was 
 on the part of this country or of France ? or whether the mani- 
 fest aggression on the part of France was the result of anything 
 but the principles which characterize the French Revolution? 
 
 What, then, are the resources and subterfuges by which those 
 who agree with the learned gentleman are prevented from sink- 
 ing under the force of this simple statement of facts? None 
 but what are found in the insinuation contained in the note from 
 France, that this country had, previous to the transactions to 
 which I have referred, encouraged and supported the combina- 
 tion of other powers directed against them. 
 
 Upon this part of the subject, the proofs which contradict 
 such an insinuation are innumerable. In the first place, the 
 evidence of dates ; in the second place, the admission of all the
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 13 
 
 different parties in France ; of the friends of Brissot, charging 
 on Robespierre the war with this country, and of the friends 
 of Robespierre charging it on Brissot, but both acquitting Eng- 
 land ; the testimonies of the French government during the 
 whole interval, since the declaration of Pilnitz and the pretended 
 treaty of Pavia ; the first of which had not the slightest rela- 
 tion to any project of partition or dismemberment ; the second 
 of which I firmly believe to be an absolute fabrication and 
 forgery, and in neither of which, even as they are represented, 
 any reason has been assigned for believing that this country had 
 any share. Even M. Talleyrand himself was sent by the con- 
 stitutional king of the French, after the period when that con- 
 cert which is now charged must have existed, if it existed at 
 all, with a letter from the King of France, expressly thanking 
 His Majesty for the neutrality which he had uniformly ob- 
 served. The same fact is confirmed by the concurring evidence 
 of every person who knew anything of the plans of the King 
 of Sweden in 1791 ; the only sovereign who, I believe, at that 
 time meditated any hostile measures against France, and whose 
 utmost hopes were expressly stated to be, that England would 
 not oppose his intended expedition ; by all those, also, who knew 
 anything of the conduct of the Emperor or the King of Prussia ; 
 by the clear and decisive testimony of M. Chauvelin himself in 
 his despatches from hence to the French government, since pub- 
 lished by their authority ; by everything which has occurred 
 since the war ; by the publications of Dumourier ; by the publi- 
 cations of Brissot ; by the facts that have since come to light 
 in America, with respect to the mission of M. Genet, which 
 show that hostility against this country was decided on by 
 France long before the period when M. Chauvelin was sent 
 from hence, besides this, the reduction of our peace establish- 
 ment in the year 1791, and continued to the subsequent year, 
 is a fact from which the inference is indisputable ; a fact which, 
 I am afraid, shows not only that we were not waiting for the 
 occasion of war, but that, in our partiality for a pacific system, 
 we had indulged ourselves in a fond and credulous security, 
 which wisdom and discretion would not have dictated. In ad- 
 dition to every other proof, it is singular enough that, in a 
 decree, on the eve of a declaration of war on the part of France, 
 it is expressly stated, as for the first time, that England was
 
 i 4 PITT 
 
 then departing from that system of neutrality which she had 
 hitherto observed. 
 
 But, sir, I will not rest merely on these testimonies or argu- 
 ments, however strong and decisive. I assert distinctly and 
 positively, and I have the documents in my hand to prove it, that 
 from the middle of the year 1791, upon the first rumor of any 
 measure taken by the Emperor of Germany, and till late in the 
 year 1792, we not only were no parties to any of the projects 
 imputed to the Emperor, but, from the political circumstances 
 in which we stood with relation to that court, we wholly de- 
 clined all communications with him on the subject of France. 
 To Prussia, with whom we were in connection, and still more 
 decisively to Holland, with whom we were in close and inti- 
 mate correspondence, we uniformly stated our unalterable reso- 
 lution to maintain neutrality, and avoid interference in the in- 
 ternal affairs of France, as long as France should refrain from 
 hostile measures against us and our allies. No minister of 
 England had any authority to treat with foreign states, even 
 provisionally, for any warlike concert, till after the battle of 
 Jemappes ; till a period subsequent to the repeated provocations 
 which had been offered to us, and subsequent particularly to 
 the decree of fraternity of the nineteenth of November; even 
 then, to what object was it that the concert which we wished 
 to establish, was to be directed? If we had then rightly cast 
 the true character of the French Revolution, I cannot now 
 deny that we should have been better justified in a very differ- 
 ent conduct. But it is material to the present argument to de- 
 clare what that conduct actually was, because it is of itself 
 sufficient to confute all the pretexts by which the advocates of 
 France have so long labored to perplex the question of aggres- 
 sion. 
 
 At that period Russia had at length conceived, as well as our- 
 selves, a natural and just alarm for the balance of Europe, and 
 applied to us to learn our sentiments on the subject. In our 
 answer to this application we imparted to Russia the principles 
 upon which we then acted, and we communicated this answer 
 to Prussia, with whom we were connected in defensive alliance. 
 I will state shortly the leading part of those principles. A de- 
 spatch was sent from Lord Grenville to His Majesty's minister 
 in Russia, dated the twenty-ninth of December, 1792, stating
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 15 
 
 a desire to have an explanation set on foot on the subject of the 
 war with France. I will read the material parts of it. 
 
 " The two leading points on which such explanation will 
 naturally turn are the line of conduct to be followed previous 
 to the commencement of hostilities, and with a view, if pos- 
 sible, to avert them ; and the nature and amount of the forces 
 which the powers engaged in this concert might be enabled 
 to use, supposing such extremities to be unavoidable. 
 
 " With respect to the first, it appears, on the whole, subject, 
 however, to future consideration and discussion with the other 
 powers, that the most advisable step to be taken would be, that 
 sufficient explanation should be had with the powers at war 
 with France, in order to enable those not hitherto engaged in the 
 war to propose to that country terms of peace. That these 
 terms should be the withdrawing their arms within the limits 
 of the French territory ; the abandoning their conquests, the 
 rescinding any acts injurious to the sovereignty or rights of any 
 other nations, and the giving, in some public and unequivocal 
 manner, a pledge of their intention no longer to foment troubles 
 or to excite disturbances against other governments. In return 
 for these stipulations, the different powers of Europe who 
 should be parties to this measure might engage to abandon all 
 measures, or views of hostility against France, or interference 
 in their internal affairs, and to maintain a correspondence and 
 intercourse of amity with the existing powers in that country, 
 with whom such a treaty may be concluded. If, as the result 
 of this proposal so made by the powers acting in concert, these 
 terms should not be accepted by France, or being accepted, 
 should not be satisfactorily performed, the different powers 
 might then engage themselves to each other to enter into active 
 measures for the purpose of obtaining the ends in view ; and 
 it may be considered whether, in such case, they might not rea- 
 sonably look to some indemnity for the expenses and hazards 
 to which they would necessarily be exposed." 
 
 The despatch then proceeded to the second point, that of the 
 forces to be employed, on which it is unnecessary now to speak. 
 
 Now, sir, I would really ask any person who has been from 
 the beginning the most desirous of avoiding hostilities, whether 
 it is possible to conceive any measure to be adopted in the situa- 
 tion in which we then stood which could more evidently demon-
 
 16 PITT 
 
 strate our desire, after repeated provocations, to preserve peace, 
 on any terms consistent with our safety; or whether any sen- 
 timent could now be suggested which would have more plainly 
 marked our moderation, forbearance, and sincerity? In say- 
 ing this I am not challenging the applause and approbation of 
 my country, because I must now confess that we were too slow 
 in anticipating that danger of which we had, perhaps, even then 
 sufficient experience, though far short, indeed, of that which 
 we now possess, and that we might even then have seen, what 
 facts have since but too incontestably proved, that nothing but 
 vigorous and open hostility can afford complete and adequate 
 security against revolutionary principles, while they retain a 
 proportion of power sufficient to furnish the means of war. 
 
 I will enlarge no farther on the origin of the war. I have read 
 and detailed to you a system which was in itself a declaration 
 of war against all nations, which was so intended, and which 
 has been so applied, which has been exemplified in the extreme 
 peril and hazard of almost all who for a moment have trusted 
 to treaty, and which has not at this hour overwhelmed Europe 
 in one indiscriminate mass of ruin, only because we have not 
 indulged, to a fatal extremity, that disposition which we have, 
 however, indulged too far ; because we have not consented to 
 trust to profession and compromise, rather than to our own 
 valor and exertion, for security against a system from which 
 we never shall be delivered till either the principle is extin- 
 guished, or till its strength is exhausted. 
 
 I might, sir, if I found it necessary, enter into much detail 
 upon this part of the subject ; but at present I only beg leave to 
 express my readiness at any time to enter upon it, when either 
 my own strength or the patience of the House will admit of it ; 
 but I say, without distinction, against every nation in Europe, 
 and against some out of Europe, the principle has been faith- 
 fully applied. You cannot look at the map of Europe, and lay 
 your hand upon that country against which France has not either 
 declared an open and aggressive war, or violated some posi- 
 tive treaty, or broken some recognized principle of the law of 
 nations. 
 
 This subject may be divided into various periods. There 
 were some acts of hostility committed previous to the war with 
 this country, and very little, indeed, subsequent to that declarer
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 17 
 
 tion, which abjured the love of conquest. The attack upon the 
 Papal State, by the seizure of Avignon, in 1791, was accom- 
 panied with specimens of all the vile arts and perfidy that ever 
 disgraced a revolution. Avignon was separated from its lawful 
 sovereign, with whom not even the pretence of quarrel existed, 
 and forcibly incorporated in the tyranny of one and indivisible 
 France. The same system led, in the same year, to an aggression 
 against the whole German Empire, by the seizure of Porentrui, 
 part of the dominions of the Bishop of Basle. Afterwards, in 
 1792, unpreceded by any declaration of war, or any cause of 
 hostility, and in direct violation of the solemn pledge to abstain 
 from conquest, they made war against the King of Sardinia, by 
 the seizure of Savoy, for the purpose of incorporating it, in like 
 manner, with France. In the same year, they had proceeded 
 to the declaration of war against Austria, against Prussia, and 
 against the German Empire, in which they have been justified 
 only on the ground of a rooted hostility, combination, and 
 league of sovereigns, for the dismemberment of France. I 
 say that some of the documents brought to support this pre- 
 tence are spurious and false. I say that even in those that are 
 not so, there is not one word to prove the charge principally 
 relied upon, that of an intention to effect the dismemberment 
 of France, or to impose upon it, by force, any particular con- 
 stitution. I say that, as far as we have been able to trace what 
 passed at Pilnitz, the declaration there signed referred to the im- 
 prisonment of Louis XVI ; its immediate view was to effect his 
 deliverance, if a concert sufficiently extensive could be formed 
 with other sovereigns for that purpose. It left the internal state 
 of France to be decided by the king restored to his liberty, with 
 the free consent of the states of his kingdom, and it did not 
 contain one word relative to the dismemberment of France. 
 
 In the subsequent discussions, which took place in 1792, and 
 which embraced at the same time all the other points of jealousy 
 which had arisen between the two countries, the Declaration of 
 Pilnitz was referred to, and explained on the part of Austria in 
 a manner precisely conformable to what I have now stated. The 
 amicable explanations which took place, both on this subject 
 and on all the matters in dispute, will be found in the official 
 correspondence between the two Courts which has been made 
 public ; and it will be found, also, that as long as the negotiation 
 Vol. II.— 2
 
 18 PITT 
 
 continued to be conducted through M. Delessart, then Minister 
 for Foreign Affairs, there was a great prospect that those dis- 
 cussions would be amicably terminated ; but it is notorious, and 
 has since been clearly proved on the authority of Brissot himself, 
 that the violent party in France considered such an issue of the 
 negotiation as likely to be fatal to their projects, and thought, 
 to use his own words, that " war was necessary to consolidate 
 the Revolution." For the express purpose of producing the war 
 they excited a popular tumult in Paris ; they insisted upon and 
 obtained the dismissal of M. Delessart. A new minister was 
 appointed in his room, the tone of the negotiation was imme- 
 diately changed, and an ultimatum was sent to the Emperor, 
 similar to that which was afterwards sent to this country, afford- 
 ing him no satisfaction on his just grounds of complaint, and 
 requiring him, under those circumstances, to disarm. The 
 first events of the contest proved how much more France was 
 prepared for war than Austria, and afford a strong confirmation 
 of the proposition which I maintain, that no offensive intention 
 was entertained on the part of the latter power. 
 
 War was then declared against Austria, a war which I state 
 to be a war of aggression on the part of France. The King of 
 Prussia had declared that he should consider war against the 
 Emperor or empire as war against himself. He had declared 
 that, as a coestate of the empire, he was determined to defend 
 their rights ; that, as an ally of the Emperor, he would support 
 him to the utmost against any attack ; and that, for the sake 
 of his own dominions, he felt himself called upon to resist the 
 progress of French principles, and to maintain the balance 
 of power in Europe. With this notice before them, France de- 
 clared war upon the Emperor, and the war with Prussia was 
 the necessary consequence of this aggression, both against the 
 Emperor and the empire. 
 
 The war against the King of Sardinia follows next. The 
 declaration of that war was the seizure of Savoy by an invad- 
 ing army — and on what ground? On that which has been 
 stated already. They had found out, by some light of nature, 
 that the Rhine and the Alps were the natural limits of France. 
 Upon that ground Savoy was seized ; and Savoy was also incor- 
 porated with France. 
 
 Here finishes the history of the wars in which France was
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 
 
 J 9 
 
 engaged antecedent to the war with Great Britain, with Hol- 
 land, and with Spain. With respect to Spain, we have seen 
 nothing which leads us to suspect that either attachment to re- 
 ligion, or the ties of consanguinity, or regard to the ancient 
 system of Europe, was likely to induce that Court to connect 
 itself in offensive war against France. The war was evidently 
 and incontestably begun by France against Spain. 
 
 The case of Holland is so fresh in every man's recollection, 
 and so connected with the immediate causes of the war with this 
 country, that it cannot require one word of observation. What 
 shall I say, then, on the case of Portugal ? I cannot, indeed, say 
 that France ever declared war against that country. I can 
 hardly say even that she ever made war, but she required them 
 to make a treaty of peace, as if they had been at war ; she 
 obliged them to purchase that treaty ; she broke it as soon as it 
 was purchased ; and she had originally no other ground of 
 complaint than this, that Portugal had performed, though in- 
 adequately, the engagements of its ancient defensive alliance 
 with this country in the character of an auxiliary — a conduct 
 which cannot of itself make any power a principal in a war. 
 
 I have now enumerated all the nations at war at that period, 
 with the exception only of Naples. It can hardly be necessary to 
 call to the recollection of the House the characteristic feature 
 of revolutionary principles which was shown, even at this early 
 period, in the personal insult offered to the King of Naples by 
 the commander of a French squadron riding uncontrolled in 
 the Mediterranean, and (while our fleets were yet unarmed) 
 threatening destruction to all the coast of Italy. 
 
 It was not till a considerably later period that almost all the 
 other nations of Europe found themselves equally involved in 
 actual hostility ; but it is not a little material to the whole of my 
 argument, compared with the statement of the learned gentle- 
 man, and with that contained in the French note, to examine at 
 what period this hostility extended itself. It extended itself, in 
 the course of 1796, to the states of Italy which had hitherto 
 been exempted from it. In 1797 it had ended in the destruction 
 of most of them ; it had ended in the virtual deposition of the 
 King of Sardinia ; it had ended in the conversion of Genoa and 
 Tuscany into democratic republics ; it had ended in the revolu- 
 tion of Venice, in the violation of treaties with the new Venetian
 
 2o PITT 
 
 Republic; and, finally, in transferring that very republic, the 
 creature and vassal of France, to the dominion of Austria. 
 
 I observe from the gestures of some honorable gentlemen 
 that they think we are precluded from the use of any argument 
 founded on this last transaction. I already hear them saying 
 that it was as criminal in Austria to receive as it was in France 
 to give. I am far from defending or palliating the conduct of 
 Austria upon this occasion. But because Austria, unable at last 
 to contend with the arms of France, was forced to accept an 
 unjust and insufficient indemnification for the conquests France 
 had made from it, are we to be debarred from stating what, on 
 the part of France, was not merely an unjust acquisition, but 
 an act of the grossest and most aggravated perfidy and cruelty, 
 and one of the most striking specimens of that system which 
 has been uniformly and indiscriminately applied to all the coun- 
 tries which France has had within its grasp? This only can be 
 said in vindication of France (and it is still more a vindication 
 of Austria) that, practically speaking, if there is any part of 
 this transaction for which Venice itself has reason to be grate- 
 ful, it can only be for the permission to exchange the embraces 
 of French fraternity for what is called the despotism of Vienna. 
 
 Let these facts and these dates be compared with what we 
 have heard. The honorable gentleman has told us, and the au- 
 thor of the note from France has told us also, that all the French 
 conquests were produced by the operations of the allies. It was, 
 when they were pressed on all sides, when their own territory 
 was in danger, when their own independence was in question, 
 when the confederacy appeared too strong, it was then they used 
 the means with which their power and their courage furnished 
 them, and, " attacked upon all sides, they carried everywhere 
 their defensive arms." 
 
 I do not wish to misrepresent the learned gentleman, but I un- 
 derstood him to speak of this sentiment with approbation. The 
 sentiment itself is this, that if a nation is unjustly attacked in 
 any one quarter by others, she cannot stop to consider by whom, 
 but must find means of strength in other quarters, no matter 
 where; and is justified in attacking, in her turn, those with 
 whom she is at peace, and from whom she has received no spe- 
 cies of provocation. Sir, I hope I have already proved, in a 
 great measure, that no such attack was made upon France ; but,
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 21 
 
 if it was made, I maintain that the whole ground on which that 
 argument is founded cannot be tolerated. In the name of the 
 laws of nature and nations, in the name of everything that is 
 sacred and honorable, I demur to that plea ; and I tell that hon- 
 orable and learned gentleman that he would do well to look 
 again into the law of nations before he ventures to come to this 
 House to give the sanction of his authority to so dreadful and 
 execrable a system. 
 
 I certainly understood this to be distinctly the tenor of the 
 learned gentleman's argument, but as he tells me he did not 
 use it, I take it for granted he did not intend to use it. I re- 
 joice that he did not ; but at least, then, I have a right to ex- 
 pect that the learned gentleman should now transfer to the 
 French note some of the indignation which he has hitherto 
 lavished upon the declarations of this country. This principle, 
 which the learned gentleman disclaims, the French note avows ; 
 and I contend, without the fear of contradiction, it is the prin- 
 ciple upon which France has uniformly acted. But while the 
 learned gentleman disclaims this proposition, he certainly will 
 admit that he has himself asserted, and maintained in the whole 
 course of his argument, that the pressure of the war upon 
 France imposed upon her the necessity of those exertions which 
 produced most of the enormities of the Revolution, and most 
 of the enormities practised against the other countries of Eu- 
 rope. The House will recollect that, in the year 1796, when all 
 tbese horrors in Italy were beginning, which are the strongest 
 illustrations of the general character of the French Revolution, 
 we had begun that negotiation to which the learned gentleman 
 has referred. England then possessed numerous conquests. 
 England, though not having at that time had the advantage of 
 three of her most splendid victories, England even then ap- 
 peared undisputed mistress of the sea. England, having then 
 engrossed the whole wealth of the colonial world ; England, 
 having lost nothing of its original possessions ; England then 
 comes forward, proposing a general peace, and offering — what? 
 offering the surrender of all that it had acquired, in order to 
 obtain — what? Not the dismemberment, not the partition of 
 ancient France, but the return of a part of those conquests, no 
 one of which could be retained, but in direct contradiction to 
 that original and solemn pledge which is now referred to as the
 
 2 2 PITT 
 
 proof of the just and moderate disposition of the French Re- 
 public. Yet even this offer was not sufficient to procure peace, 
 or to arrest the progress of France in her defensive operations 
 against other unoffending countries ! 
 
 From the pages, however, of the learned gentleman's pam- 
 phlet (which, after all its editions, is now fresher in his memory 
 than in that of any other person in this House or in the coun- 
 try), he is furnished with an argument, on the result of the 
 negotiation, on which he appears confidently to rely. He main- 
 tains that the single point on which the negotiation was broken 
 off was the question of the possession of the Austrian Nether- 
 lands, and that it is, therefore, on that ground only that the 
 war has, since that time, been continued. When this subject 
 was before under discussion, I stated, and I shall state again 
 (notwithstanding the learned gentleman's accusation of my 
 having endeavored to shift the question from its true point), 
 that the question then at issue was not whether the Netherlands 
 should in fact be restored ; though even on that question I am 
 not (like the learned gentleman) unprepared to give any opin- 
 ion. I am ready to say, that to leave that territory in the pos- 
 session of France would be obviously dangerous to the interests 
 of this country, and is inconsistent with the policy which it has 
 uniformly pursued at every period in which it has concerned 
 itself in the general system of the Continent. But it was not on 
 the decision of this question of expediency and policy that the 
 issue of the negotiation then turned. What was required of us 
 by France was, not merely that we should acquiesce in her re- 
 taining the Netherlands, but that, as a preliminary to all treaty, 
 and before entering upon the discussion of terms, we should 
 recognize the principle that whatever France, in time of war, 
 had annexed to the republic, must remain inseparable forever 
 and could not become the subject of negotiation. I say that, in 
 refusing such a preliminary, we were only resisting the claim 
 of France to arrogate to itself the power of controlling, by its 
 own separate and municipal acts, the rights and interests of 
 other countries, and moulding, at its discretion, a new and gen- 
 eral code of the law of nations. 
 
 In reviewing the issue of this negotiation, it is important to 
 observe that France, who began by abjuring a love of con- 
 quest, was desired to give up nothing of her own, not even to
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 23 
 
 give up all that she had conquered ; that it was offered to her to 
 receive back all that had been conquered from her ; and when 
 she rejected the negotiation for peace upon these grounds, are 
 we then to be told of the unrelenting hostility of the combined 
 powers, for which France was to revenge itself upon other 
 countries, and which is to justify the subversion of every estab- 
 lished government, and the destruction of property, religion, 
 and domestic comfort, from one end of Italy to the other ? Such 
 was the effect of the war against Modena, against Genoa, 
 against Tuscany, against Venice, against Rome, and against 
 Naples, all of which she engaged in, or prosecuted, subsequent 
 to this very period. 
 
 After this, in the year 1797, Austria had made peace ; Eng- 
 land and its ally, Portugal (from whom we could expect little 
 active assistance, but whom we felt it our duty to defend), 
 alone remained in the war. In that situation, under the pres- 
 sure of necessity, which I shall not disguise, we made another 
 attempt to negotiate. In 1797, Prussia, Spain, Austria, Naples, 
 having successively made peace, the princes of Italy having 
 been destroyed, France having surrounded itself, in almost 
 every part in which it is not surrounded by the sea, with revo- 
 lutionary republics, England made another offer of a different 
 nature. It was not now a demand that France should restore 
 anything. Austria having made a peace upon her own terms, 
 England had nothing to require with regard to her allies, she 
 asked no restitution of the dominions added to France in Eu- 
 rope. So far from retaining anything French out of Europe, 
 we freely offered them all, demanding only, as a poor compen- 
 sation, to retain a part of what we had acquired by arms from 
 Holland, then identified with France. This proposal also, sir, 
 was proudly refused, in a way which the learned gentleman 
 himself has not attempted to justify, indeed of which he has 
 spoken with detestation. I wish, since he has not finally ab- 
 jured his duty in this House, that that detestation had been 
 stated earlier ; that he had mixed his own voice with the gen- 
 eral voice of his country on the result of that negotiation. 
 
 Let us look at the conduct of France immediately subsequent 
 to this period. She had spurned at the offers of Great Britain ; 
 she had reduced her Continental enemies to the necessity of ac- 
 cepting a precarious peace ; she had (in spite of those pledges
 
 24 PITT 
 
 repeatedly made and uniformly violated) surrounded herself by 
 new conquests on every part of her frontier but one. That one 
 was Switzerland. The first effect of being relieved from the 
 war with Austria, of being secured against all fears of Con- 
 tinental invasion on the ancient territory of France, was their 
 unprovoked attack against this unoffending and devoted coun- 
 try. This was one of the scenes which satisfied even those who 
 were the most incredulous that France had thrown off the mask, 
 " if indeed she had ever worn it." It collected, in one view, 
 many of the characteristic features of that revolutionary system 
 which I have endeavored to trace — the perfidy which alone ren- 
 dered their arms successful — the pretexts of which they availed 
 themselves to produce division and prepare the entrance of 
 Jacobinism in that country — the proposal of armistice, one of the 
 known and regular engines of the Revolution, which was, as 
 usual, the immediate prelude to military execution, attended 
 with cruelty and barbarity, of which there are few examples. 
 All these are known to the world. The country they attacked 
 was one which had long been the faithful ally of France, which, 
 instead of giving cause of jealousy to any other power, had been 
 for ages proverbial for the simplicity and innocence of its man- 
 ners, and which had acquired and preserved the esteem of all 
 the nations of Europe ; which had almost, by the common con- 
 sent of mankind, been exempted from the sound of war, and 
 marked out as a land of Goshen, safe and untouched in the 
 midst of surrounding calamities. 
 
 Look, then, at the fate of Switzerland, at the circumstances 
 which led to its destruction. Add this instance to the catalogue 
 of aggression against all Europe, and then tell me whether the 
 system I have described has not been prosecuted with an unre- 
 lenting spirit, which cannot be subdued in adversity, which can- 
 not be appeased in prosperity, which neither solemn professions, 
 nor the general law of nations, nor the obligation of treaties 
 (whether previous to the Revolution or subsequent to it) could 
 restrain from the subversion of every state into which, either 
 by force or fraud, their arms could penetrate. Then tell me, 
 whether the disasters of Europe are to be charged upon the 
 provocation of this country and its allies, or on the inherent 
 principles of the French Revolution, of which the natural result 
 produced so much misery and carnage in France, and carried 
 desolation and terror over so large a portion of the world.
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 25 
 
 Sir, much as I have now stated, I have not finished the cata- 
 logue. America, almost as much as Switzerland, perhaps, con- 
 tributed to that change which has taken place in the minds of 
 those who were originally partial to the principles of the French 
 Government. The hostility against America followed a long 
 course of neutrality adhered to under the strongest provoca- 
 tions, or rather of repeated compliances to France, with which 
 we might well have been dissatisfied. It was on the face of it 
 unjust and wanton ; and it was accompanied by those instances 
 of sordid corruption which shocked and disgusted even the 
 enthusiastic admirers of revolutionary purity, and threw a new 
 light on the genius of revolutionary government. 
 
 After this, it remains only shortly to remind gentlemen of the 
 aggression against Egypt, not o. utting, however, to notice the 
 capture of Malta in the way to Egypt. Inconsiderable as that 
 island may be thought, compared with the scenes we have wit- 
 nessed, let it be remembered that it is an island of which the gov- 
 ernment had long been recognized by every state of Europe, 
 against which France pretended no cause of war, and whose 
 independence was as dear to itself and as sacred as that of any 
 country in Europe. It was in fact not unimportant, from its 
 local situation to the other powers of Europe ; but in proportion 
 as any man may diminish its importance, the instance will only 
 serve the more to illustrate and confirm the proposition which 
 I have maintained. The all-searching eye of the French Revolu- 
 tion looks to every part of Europe, and every quarter of the 
 world, in which can be found an object either of acquisition or 
 plunder. Nothing is too great for the temerity of its ambition, 
 nothing too small or insignificant for the grasp of its rapacity. 
 From hence Bonaparte and his army proceeded to Egypt. The 
 attack was made, pretences were held out to the natives of that 
 country in the name of the French King, whom they had mur- 
 dered. They pretended to have the approbation of the Grand 
 Seignior, whose territories they were violating; their project 
 was carried on under the profession of a zeal for Mohammedan- 
 ism ; it was carried on by proclaiming that France had been 
 reconciled to the Mussulman faith, had abjured that of Chris- 
 tianity, or, as he in his impious language termed it, of the sect 
 of the Messiah. 
 
 The only plea which they have since held out to color this
 
 26 PITT 
 
 atrocious invasion of a neutral and friendly territory, is that it 
 was the road to attack the English power in India. It is most 
 unquestionably true that this was one and a principal cause of 
 this unparalleled outrage ; but another, and an equally sub- 
 stantial, cause (as appears by their own statements) was the di- 
 vision and partition of the territories of what they thought a 
 falling power. It is impossible to dismiss this subject without 
 observing that this attack against Egypt was accompanied by 
 an attack upon the British possessions in India, made on true 
 revolutionary principles. In Europe the propagation of the 
 principles of France had uniformly prepared the way for the 
 progress of its arms. To India the lovers of peace had sent the 
 messengers of Jacobinism, for the purpose of inculcating war 
 in those distant regions on Jacobin principles, and of forming 
 Jacobin clubs, which they actually succeeded in establishing; 
 and which in most respects resembled the European model, but 
 which were distinguished by this peculiarity, that they were re- 
 quired to swear in one breath hatred to tyranny, the love of lib- 
 erty, and the destruction of all kings and sovereigns, except the 
 good and faithful ally of the French Republic, Citizen Tippoo ! 
 What, then, was the nature of this system ? Was it anything 
 but what I have stated it to be ? an insatiable love of aggrandize- 
 ment, an implacable spirit of destruction against all the civil and 
 religious institutions of every country? This is the first mov- 
 ing and acting spirit of the French Revolution ; this is the spirit 
 which animated it at its birth, and this is the spirit which will 
 not desert it till the moment of its dissolution, " which grew with 
 its growth, which strengthened with its strength," but which 
 has not abated under its misfortunes, nor declined in its decay. 
 It has been invariably the same in every period, operating more 
 or less, according as accident or circumstances might assist it ; 
 but it has been inherent in the Revolution in all its stages ; it has 
 equally belonged to Brissot, to Robespierre, to Tallien, to Reu- 
 bel, to Barras, and to every one of the leaders of the Directory, 
 but to none more than to Bonaparte, in whom now all their 
 powers are united. What are its characters ? Can it be accident 
 that produced them? No, it is only from the alliance of the 
 most horrid principles, with the most horrid means, that such 
 miseries could have been brought upon Europe. It is this 
 paradox which we must always keep in mind when we are dis-
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 27 
 
 cussing any question relative to the effects of the French Revolu- 
 tion. Groaning under every degree of misery, the victim of its 
 own crimes, and as I once before expressed in this House, ask- 
 ing pardon of God and of man for the miseries which it has 
 brought upon itself and others, France still retains (while it has 
 neither left means of comfort nor almost of subsistence to its 
 own inhabitants) new and unexampled means of annoyance and 
 destruction against all the other powers of Europe. 
 
 Its first fundamental principle was to bribe the poor against 
 the rich by proposing to transfer into new hands, on the delu- 
 sive notion of equality, and in breach of every principle of jus- 
 tice, the whole property of the country. The practical applica- 
 tion of this principle was to devote the whole of that property to 
 indiscriminate plunder, and to make it the foundation of a 
 revolutionary system of finance, productive in proportion to the 
 misery and desolation which it created. It has been accom- 
 panied by an unwearied spirit of proselytism, diffusing itself 
 over all the nations of the earth ; a spirit which can apply itself 
 to all circumstances and all situations, which can furnish a list 
 of grievances and hold out a promise of redress equally to all 
 nations ; which inspired the teachers of French liberty with the 
 hope of alike recommending themselves to those who live under 
 the feudal code of the German Empire ; to the various states of 
 Italy, under all their different institutions ; to the old repub- 
 licans of Holland, and to the new republicans of America ; to the 
 Catholic of Ireland, whom it was to deliver from Protestant 
 usurpation ; to the Protestant of Switzerland, whom it was to 
 deliver from popish superstition ; and to the Mussulman of 
 Egypt, whom it was to deliver from Christian persecution ; to 
 the remote Indian, blindly bigoted to his ancient institutions ; 
 and to the natives of Great Britain, enjoying the perfection of 
 practical freedom, and justly attached to their constitution, from 
 the joint result of habit, of reason, and of experience. The last 
 and distinguishing feature is a perfidy which nothing can bind, 
 which no tie of treaty, no sense of the principles generally re- 
 ceived among nations, no obligation, human or divine, can 
 restrain. Thus qualified, thus armed for destruction, the genius 
 of the French Revolution marched forth, the terror and dismay 
 of the world. Every nation has in its turn been the witness, 
 many have been the victims of its principles ; and it is left for
 
 28 PITT 
 
 us to decide whether we will compromise with such a danger, 
 while we have yet resources to supply the sinews of war, while 
 the heart and spirit of the country is yet unbroken, and while we 
 have the means of calling forth and supporting a powerful co- 
 operation in Europe. 
 
 Much more might be said on this part of the subject ; but if 
 what I have said already is a faithful, though only an imperfect, 
 sketch of those excesses and outrages which even history itself 
 will hereafter be unable fully to represent and record, and a just 
 representation of the principle and source from which they origi- 
 nated, will any man say that we ought to accept a precarious 
 security against so tremendous a danger ? Much more — will he 
 pretend, after the experience of all that has passed in the dif- 
 ferent stages of the French Revolution, that we ought to be 
 deterred from probing this great question to the bottom, and 
 from examining, without ceremony or disguise, whether the 
 change which has recently taken place in France is sufficient 
 now to give security, not against a common danger, but against 
 such a danger as that which I have described ? 
 
 In examining this part of the subject, let it be remembered 
 that there is one other characteristic of the French Revolution 
 as striking as its dreadful and destructive principles : I mean 
 the instability of its government, which has been of itself suffi- 
 cient to destroy all reliance, if any such reliance could at any 
 time have been placed on the good faith of any of its rulers. 
 Such has been the incredible rapidity with which the revolutions 
 in France have succeeded each other that I believe the names of 
 those who have successively exercised absolute power, under 
 the pretence of liberty, are 10 be numbered by the years of the 
 Revolution, and by each of the new constitutions, which, under 
 the same pretence, has in its turn been imposed by force on 
 France, all of which alike wer founded upon principles which 
 professed to be universal, and were intended to be established 
 and perpetuated among all the nations of the earth. Each of 
 these will be found, upon an average to have had about two 
 years as the period of its duration. 
 
 Under this revolutionary system, accompanied with this per- 
 petual fluctuation and change, both ir. the form of the govern- 
 ment and in the persons of the rulers, what is the security which 
 has hitherto existed, and what new security is now offered ? Be-
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 29 
 
 fore an answer is given to this question, let me sum up the his- 
 tory of all the revolutionary governments of France, and of their 
 characters in relation to other powers, in words more emphat- 
 ical than any which I could use — the memorable words pro- 
 nounced, on the eve of this last constitution, by the orator who 
 was selected to report to an Assembly, surrounded by a file of 
 grenadiers, the new form of liberty which it was destined to en- 
 joy under the auspices of General Bonaparte. From this repor- 
 ter, the mouth and organ of the new government, we learn this 
 important lesson : 
 
 " It is easy to conceive why peace was not concluded before 
 the establishment of the constitutional government. The only 
 government which then existed described itself as revolution- 
 ary; it was, in fact, only the tyranny of a few men who were 
 soon overthrown by others, and it consequently presented no 
 stability of principles or of views, no security either with re- 
 spect to men or with respect to things. 
 
 " It should seem that that stability and that security ought to 
 have existed from the establishment, and as the effect of the con- 
 stitutional system ; and yet they did not exist more, perhaps 
 even less, than they had done before. In truth, we did make 
 some partial treaties ; we signed a Continental peace, and a gen- 
 eral congress was held to confirm it ; but these treaties, these 
 diplomatic conferences, appear to have been the source of a new 
 war, more inveterate and more bloody than before. 
 
 " Before the eighteenth Fructidor (fourth September) of 
 the fifth year, the French Government exhibited to foreign na- 
 tions so uncertain an existence that they refused to treat with it. 
 After this great event, the whole power was absorbed in the Di- 
 rectory ; the legislative body can hardly be said to have existed'; 
 treaties of peace were broken, and war carried everywhere, with- 
 out that body having any share in those measures. The same 
 Directory, after having intimidated all Europe, and destroyed, 
 at its pleasure, several governments, neither knowing how to 
 make peace or war, or how even to establish itself, was over- 
 turned by a breath, on the thirteenth Prairial (eighteenth June), 
 to make room for other men, influenced perhaps by different 
 views, or who might be governed by different principles. 
 
 " Judging, then, only from notorious facts, the French Gov- 
 ernment must be considered as exhibiting nothing fixed, neither 
 in respect to men nor to things."
 
 3 o PITT 
 
 Here, then, is the picture, down to the period of the last 
 revolution, of the s^ate of France under all its successive gov- 
 ernments ! 
 
 Having taken a view of what it was, let us now examine 
 what it is. In the first place, we see, as has been truly stated, 
 a change in the description and form of the sovereign author- 
 ity. A supreme power is placed at the head of this nominal 
 republic, with a more open avowal of military despotism than 
 at any former period ; with a more open and undisguised aban- 
 donment of the names and pretences under which that despot- 
 ism long attempted to conceal itself. The different institutions, 
 republican in their form and appearance, which were before 
 the instruments of that despotism, are now annihilated ; they 
 have given way to the absolute power of one man, concentrat- 
 ing in himself all the authority of the state, and differing from 
 other monarchs only in this, that (as my honorable friend [Mr. 
 Canning] truly stated it) he wields a sword instead of a sceptre. 
 What, then, is the confidence we are to derive either from the 
 frame of the government, or from the character and past con- 
 duct of the person who is now the absolute ruler of France ? 
 
 Had we seen a man of whom we had no previous knowledge 
 suddenly invested with the sovereign authority of the country ; 
 invested with the power of taxation, with the power of the 
 sword, the power of war and peace, the unlimited power of 
 commanding the resources, of disposing of the lives and for- 
 tunes, of every man in France ; if we had seen at the same 
 moment all the inferior machinery of the Revolution, which, 
 under the variety of successive shocks, had kept the system 
 in motion, still remaining entire — all that, by requisition and 
 plunder, had given activity to the revolutionary system of 
 finance, and had furnished the means of creating an army, by 
 converting every man who was of age to bear arms into a 
 soldier, not for the defence of his own country, but for the 
 sake of carrying the war into the country of the enemy ; if we 
 had seen all the subordinate instruments of Jacobin power sub- 
 sisting in their full force, and retaining (to use the French 
 phrase) all their original organization; and had then observed 
 this single change in the conduct of their affairs, that there 
 was now one man with no rival to thwart his measures, no col- 
 league to divide his powers, no council to control his operations,
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 31 
 
 no liberty of speaking or writing, no expression of public opin- 
 ion to check or influence his conduct ; under such circum- 
 stances, should we be wrong to pause, or wait for the evidence 
 of facts and experience, before we consented to trust our safety 
 to the forbearance of a single man, in such a situation, and to 
 relinquish those means of defence which have hitherto carried 
 us safe through all the storms of the Revolution, if we were 
 to ask what are the principles and character of this stranger, to 
 whom fortune has suddenly committed the concerns of a great 
 and powerful nation? 
 
 But is this the actual state of the present question? Are we 
 talking of a stranger of whom we have heard nothing? No, sir, 
 we have heard of him ; we, and Europe, and the world, have 
 heard both of him and of the satellites by whom he is sur- 
 rounded, and it is impossible to discuss fairly the propriety of 
 any answer which could be returned to his overtures of nego- 
 tiation without taking into consideration the inferences to be 
 drawn from his personal character and conduct. I know it is 
 the fashion with some gentlemen to represent any reference 
 to topics of this nature as invidious and irritating; but the 
 truth is, that they rise unavoidably out of the very nature of 
 the question. Would it have been possible for ministers to 
 discharge their duty, in offering their advice to their sovereign, 
 either for accepting or declining negotiation, without taking 
 into their account the reliance to be placed on the disposition 
 and the principles of the person on whose disposition and 
 principles the security to be obtained by treaty must, in the 
 present circumstances, principally depend? Or would they 
 act honestly or candidly towards Parliament and towards the 
 country if, having been guided by these considerations, they 
 forbore to state, publicly and distinctly, the real grounds which 
 have influenced their decision ; and if, from a false delicacy and 
 groundless timidity, they purposely declined an examination 
 of a point, the most essential towards enabling Parliament to 
 form a just determination on so important a subject? 
 
 What opinion, then, are we led to form of the pretensions 
 of the Consul to those particular qualities for which, in the 
 official note, his personal character is represented to us as the 
 surest pledge of peace? We are told this is his second attempt 
 at general pacification. Let us see, for a moment, how his at-
 
 32 PITT 
 
 tempt has been conducted. There is, indeed, as the learned 
 gentleman has said, a word in the first declaration which refers 
 to general peace, and which states this to be the second time in 
 which the Consul has endeavored to accomplish that object. 
 We thought fit, for the reasons which have been assigned, to 
 decline altogether the proposal of treating, under the present 
 circumstances, but we, at the same time, expressly stated that, 
 whenever the moment for treaty should arrive, we would in 
 no case treat but in conjunction with our allies. Our general 
 refusal to negotiate at the present moment does not prevent 
 the Consul from renewing his overtures ; but are they renewed 
 for the purpose of general pacification ? Though he had hinted 
 at general peace in the terms of his first note ; though we had 
 shown by our answer that we deemed negotiation, even for 
 general peace, at this moment inadmissible ; though we added 
 that, even at any future period, we would treat only in conjunc- 
 tion with our allies, what was the proposal contained in his 
 last note? To treat for a separate peace between Great Britain 
 and France. 
 
 Such was the second attempt to effect general pacification — 
 a proposal for a separate treaty with Great Britain. What had 
 been the first? The conclusion of a separate treaty with Aus- 
 tria ; and there are two anecdotes connected with the con- 
 clusion of this treaty, which are sufficient to illustrate the dis- 
 position of this pacificator of Europe. This very treaty of 
 Campo Formio was ostentatiously professed to be concluded 
 with the Emperor for the purpose of enabling Bonaparte to 
 take the command of the army of England, and to dictate a 
 separate peace with this country on the banks of the Thames. 
 But there is this additional circumstance, singular beyond all 
 conception, considering that we are now referred to the treaty 
 of Campo Formio as a proof of the personal disposition of the 
 Consul to general peace. He sent his two confidential and 
 chosen friends, Berthier and Monge, charged to communicate 
 to the Directory this treaty of Campo Formio ; to announce to 
 them that one enemy was humbled, that the war with Austria 
 was terminated, and, therefore, that now was the moment to 
 prosecute their operations against this country; they used on 
 this occasion the memorable words : " The kingdom of Great 
 Britain and the French Republic cannot exist together." This,
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 
 
 33 
 
 I say, was the solemn declaration of the deputies and ambassa- 
 dors of Bonaparte himself, offering to the Directory the first- 
 fruits of this first attempt at general pacification. 
 
 So much for his disposition towards general pacification. 
 Let us look next at the part he has taken in the different stages 
 of the French Revolution, and let us then judge whether we 
 are to look to him as the security against revolutionary prin- 
 ciples. Let us determine what reliance we can place on his 
 engagements with other countries, when we see how he has 
 observed his engagements to his own. When the constitution 
 of the third year was established under Barras, that constitu- 
 tion was imposed by the arms of Bonaparte, then commanding 
 the army of the triumvirate in Paris. To that constitution he 
 then swore fidelity. How often he has repeated the same oath, 
 I know not, but twice, at least, we know that he has not only 
 repeated it himself, but tendered it to others, under circum- 
 stances too striking not to be stated. 
 
 Sir, the House cannot have forgotten the Revolution of the 
 fourth of September, which produced the dismissal of Lord 
 Malmesbury from Lisle. How was that revolution procured? 
 It was procured chiefly by the promise of Bonaparte, in the 
 name of his army, decidedly to support the Directory in those 
 measures which led to the infringement and violation of every- 
 thing that the authors of the constitution of 1795, or its ad- 
 herents, could consider as fundamental, and which established 
 a system of despotism inferior only to that now realized in his 
 own person. Immediately before this event, in the midst of 
 the desolation and bloodshed of Italy he had received the 
 sacred present of new banners from the Directory ; he de- 
 livered them to his army with this exhortation : " Let us swear, 
 fellow-soldiers, by the manes of the patriots who have died by 
 our side, eternal hatred to the enemies of the constitution of 
 the third year " — that very constitution which he soon after 
 enabled the Directory to violate, and which at the head of his 
 grenadiers he has now finally destroyed. Sir, that oath was 
 again renewed, in the midst of that very scene to which I have 
 last referred ; the oath of fidelity to the constitution of the 
 third year was administered to all the members of the Assem- 
 bly then sitting, under the terror of the bayonet, as the solemn 
 preparation for the business of the day ; and the morning was 
 Vol. II.— 3
 
 34 
 
 PITT 
 
 ushered in with swearing attachment to the constitution, that 
 the evening might close with its destruction. 
 
 If we carry our views out of France, and look at the dreadful 
 catalogue of all the breaches of treaty, all the acts of perfidy at 
 which I have only glanced, and which are precisely commen- 
 surate with the number of treaties which the Republic has 
 made (for I have sought in vain for any one which it has made 
 and which it has not broken) ; if we trace the history of them 
 all from the beginning of the Revolution to the present time, 
 or if we select those which have been accompanied by the most 
 atrocious cruelty, and marked the most strongly with the char- 
 acteristic features of the Revolution, the name of Bonaparte 
 will be found allied to more of them than that of any other 
 that can be handed down in the history of the crimes and mis- 
 eries of the last ten years. His name will be recorded with the 
 horrors committed in Italy, in the memorable campaign of 
 1796 and 1797, in the Milanese, in Genoa, in Modena, in Tus- 
 cany, in Rome, and in Venice. 
 
 His entrance into Lombardy was announced by a solemn 
 proclamation, issued on April 27, 1796, which terminated with 
 these words : " Nations of Italy ! the French army is come 
 to break your chains ; the French are the friends of the people 
 in every country ; your religion, your property, your customs 
 shall be respected." This was followed by a second proclama- 
 tion, dated from Milan, twentieth of May, and signed " Bona- 
 parte," in these terms : " Respect for property and personal se- 
 curity ; respect for the religion of countries — these are the 
 sentiments of the government of the French Republic and of 
 the army of Italy. The French, victorious, consider the nations 
 of Lombardy as their brothers." In testimony of this frater- 
 nity, and to fulfil the solemn pledge of respecting property, 
 this very proclamation imposed on the Milanese a provisional 
 contribution to the amount of twenty millions of livres, or near 
 one million sterling, and successive exactions were afterwards 
 levied on that single state to the amount, in the whole, of neat- 
 six millions sterling. The regard to religion and to the cus- 
 toms of the country was manifested with the same scrupulous 
 fidelity. The churches were given up to indiscriminate plunder. 
 Every religious and charitable fund, every public treasure, was 
 confiscated. The country was made the scene of every species
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 35 
 
 of disorder and rapine. The priests, the established form of 
 worship, all the objects of religious reverence, were openly 
 insulted by the French troops ; at Pavia, particularly, the tomb 
 of St. Augustin, which the inhabitants were accustomed to 
 view with peculiar veneration, was mutilated and defaced ; 
 this last provocation having roused the resentment of the peo- 
 ple, they flew to arms, surrounded the French garrison and 
 took them prisoners, but carefully abstained from offering any 
 violence to a single soldier. In revenge for this conduct, 
 Bonaparte, then on his march to the Mincio, suddenly returned, 
 collected his troops, and carried the extremity of military 
 execution over the country. He burned the town of Benasco, 
 and massacred eight hundred of its inhabitants ; he marched 
 to Pavia, took it by storm, and delivered it over to general 
 plunder, and published, at the same moment, a proclamation of 
 the twenty-sixth of May, ordering his troops to shoot all those 
 who had not laid down their arms and taken an oath of obedi- 
 ence, and to burn every village where the tocsin should be 
 sounded, and to put its inhabitants to death. 
 
 The transactions with Modena were on a smaller scale, but 
 in the same character. Bonaparte began by signing a treaty, 
 by which the Duke of Modena was to pay twelve millions of 
 livres, and neutrality was promised him in return ; this was 
 soon followed by the personal arrest of the duke, and by a 
 fresh extortion of two hundred thousand sequins. After this 
 he was permitted, on the payment of a farther sum, to sign 
 another treaty, called a convention de surctc, which of course 
 was only the prelude to the repetition of similar exactions. 
 
 Nearly at the same period, in violation of the rights of neu- 
 trality and of the treaty which had been concluded between the 
 French Republic and the Grand Duke of Tuscany in the pre- 
 ceding year, and in breach of a positive promise given only a 
 few days before, the French army forcibly took possession of 
 Leghorn, for the purpose of seizing the British property which 
 was deposited there and confiscating it as a prize ; and shortly 
 after, when Bonaparte agreed to evacuate Leghorn, in return 
 for the evacuation of the island of Elba, which was in posses- 
 sion of the British troops, he insisted upon a separate article, 
 by which, in addition to the plunder before obtained, by the 
 infraction of the law of nations, it was stipulated that the Grand
 
 36 PITT 
 
 Duke should pay the expense which the French had incurred 
 by this invasion of his territory. 
 
 In the proceedings towards Genoa we shall find out only a 
 continuance of the same system of extortion and plunder, in 
 violation of the solemn pledge contained in the proclamations 
 already referred to, but a striking instance of the revolutionary 
 means employed for the destruction of independent govern- 
 ments. A French minister was at that time resident at Genoa, 
 which was acknowledged by France to be in a state of neutral- 
 ity and friendship ; in breach of this neutrality Bonaparte be- 
 gan, in the year 1796, with the demand of a loan. He after- 
 wards, from the month of September, required and enforced 
 the payment of a monthly subsidy, to the amount which he 
 thought proper to stipulate. These exactions were accom- 
 panied by repeated assurances and protestations of friendship; 
 they were followed, in May, 1797, by a conspiracy against the 
 government, fomented by the emissaries of the French embassy, 
 and conducted by the partisans of France, encouraged and after- 
 wards protected by the French minister. The conspirators failed 
 in their first attempt. Overpowered by the courage and volun- 
 tary exertions of the inhabitants, their force was dispersed, and 
 man of their number were arrested. Bonaparte instantly con- 
 sidered the defeat of the conspirators as an act of aggression 
 against the French Republic ; he despatched an aide-de-camp 
 with an order to the Senate of this independent state ; first, to 
 release all the French who were detained ; secondly, to punish 
 those who had arrested them ; thirdly, to declare that they had 
 no share in the insurrection ; and fourthly, to disarm the peo- 
 ple. Several French prisoners were immediately released, and 
 a proclamation was preparing to disarm the inhabitants, when, 
 by a second note, Bonaparte required the arrest of the three 
 inquisitors of state, and immediate alterations in the constitu- 
 tion. He accompanied this with an order to the French min- 
 ister to quit Genoa, if his commands were not immediately 
 carried into execution ; at the same moment his troops entered 
 the territory of the republic ; and shortly after, the councils, 
 intimidated and overpowered, abdicated their functions. Three 
 deputies were then sent to Bonaparte to receive from him a 
 new constitution. On the sixth of June, after the conferences 
 at Montebello, he signed a convention, or rather issued a decree,
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 37 
 
 by which he fixed the new form of their government ; he him- 
 self named provisionally all the members who were to compose 
 it, and he required the payment of seven millions of livres as 
 the price of the subversion of their constitution and their inde- 
 pendence. These transactions require but one short comment. 
 It is to be found in the official account given of them at Paris ; 
 which is in these memorable words : " General Bonaparte 
 has pursued the only line of conduct which could be allowed 
 in the representative of a nation which has supported the war 
 only to procure the solemn acknowledgment of the right of 
 nations to change the form of their government. He contrib- 
 uted nothing towards the revolution of Genoa, but he seized 
 the first moment to acknowledge the new government, as soon 
 as he saw that it was the result of the wishes of the people." 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell on the wanton attacks against 
 Rome, under the direction of Bonaparte himself, in the year 
 1796, and in the beginning of 1797, which terminated first by 
 the treaty of Tolentino concluded by Bonaparte, in which, by 
 enormous sacrifices, the Pope was allowed to purchase the 
 acknowledgment of his authority as a sovereign prince ; and 
 secondly, by the violation of that very treaty, and the subver- 
 sion of the papal authority by Joseph Bonaparte, the brother 
 and the agent of the general, and the minister of the French 
 Republic to the Holy See. A transaction accompanied by out- 
 rages and insults towards the pious and venerable pontiff, in 
 spite of the sanctity of his age and the unsullied purity of his 
 character, which even to a Protestant seem hardly short of the 
 guilt of sacrilege. 
 
 But of all the disgusting and tragical scenes which took place 
 in Italy in the course of the period I am describing, those which 
 passed at Venice are perhaps the most striking and the most 
 characteristic. In May 1796, the French army, under Bona- 
 parte, in the full tide of its success against the Austrians, first 
 approached the territories of this republic, which from the com- 
 mencement of the war had observed a rigid neutrality. Their 
 entrance on these territories was, as usual, accompanied by a 
 solemn proclamation in the name of their general :
 
 38 
 
 PITT 
 
 BONAPARTE TO THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE 
 
 " It is to deliver the finest country in Europe from the iron yoke of 
 the proud House of Austria, that the French army has braved ob- 
 stacles the most difficult to surmount. Victory in union with justice 
 has crowned its efforts. The wreck of the enemy's army has retired 
 behind the Mincio. The French army, in order to follow them, passes 
 over the territory of the Republic of Venice; but it will never forget 
 that ancient friendship unites the two republics. Religion, govern- 
 ment, customs, and property shall be respected. That the people may 
 be without apprehension, the most severe discipline shall be main- 
 tained. All that may be provided for the army shall be faithfully paid 
 for in money. The general-in-chief engages the officers of the Re- 
 public of Venice, the magistrates, and the priests, to make known these 
 sentiments to the people, in order that confidence may cement that 
 friendship which has so long united the two nations. Faithful in the 
 path of honor as in that of victory, the French soldier is terrible only 
 to the enemies of his liberty and his government. 
 
 " Bonaparte." 
 
 This proclamation was followed by exactions similar to those 
 which were practised against Genoa, by the renewal of similar 
 professions of friendship, and the use of similar means to ex- 
 cite insurrection. At length, in the spring of 1797, occasion 
 was taken, from disturbances thus excited, to forge in the 
 name of the Venetian government a proclamation hostile to 
 France, and this proceeding was made the ground for military 
 execution against the country, and for effecting by force the 
 subversion of its ancient government and the establishment 
 of the democratic forms of the French Revolution. This revo- 
 lution was sealed by a treaty, signed in May 1797, between 
 Bonaparte and commissioners appointed on the part of the 
 new and revolutionary government of Venice. By the second 
 and third secret articles of this treaty, Venice agreed to give as 
 a ransom to secure itself against all further exactions or de- 
 mands, the sum of three millions of livres in money, the value 
 of three millions more in articles of naval supply, and three 
 ships of the line ; and it received in return the assurances of 
 the friendship and support of the French Republic. Imme- 
 diately after the signature of this treaty, the arsenal, the library, 
 and the palace of St. Mark were ransacked and plundered, 
 and heavy additional contributions were imposed upon its in- 
 habitants. And, in not more than four months afterwards, this
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 39 
 
 very Republic of Venice, united by alliance to France, the 
 creature of Bonaparte himself, from whom it had received the 
 present of French liberty, was by the same Bonaparte trans- 
 ferred, under the treaty of Campo Formio, to " that iron yoke 
 of the proud House of Austria," to deliver it from which he 
 had represented in his first proclamation to be the great object 
 of all his operations. 
 
 Sir, all this is followed by the memorable expedition into 
 Egypt, which I mention, not merely because it forms a prin- 
 cipal article in the catalogue of those acts of violence and per- 
 fidy in which Bonaparte has been engaged ; not merely because 
 it was an enterprise peculiarly his own, of which he was him- 
 self the planner, the executor, and the betrayer ; but chiefly be- 
 cause when from thence he retires to a different scene, to take 
 possession of a new throne, from which he is to speak upon an 
 equality with the kings and governors of Europe, he leaves be- 
 hind him, at the moment of his departure, a specimen, which 
 cannot be mistaken, of his principles of negotiation. The inter- 
 cepted correspondence which has been alluded to in this de- 
 bate seems to afford the strongest ground to believe that his 
 offers to the Turkish government to evacuate Egypt were made 
 solely with a view to gain time; that the ratification of any 
 treaty on this subject was to be delayed with the view of finally 
 eluding its performance, if any change of circumstances favor- 
 able to the French should occur in the interval. But what- 
 ever gentlemen may think of the intention with which these 
 offers were made, there will at least be no question with respect 
 to the credit due to those professions by which he endeavored 
 to prove in Egypt his pacific dispositions. He expressly en- 
 joins his successor strongly and steadily to insist, in all his 
 intercourse with the Turks, that he came to Egypt with no 
 hostile design, and that he never meant to keep possession of 
 the country ; while, on the opposite page of the same instruc- 
 tions, he states in the most unequivocal manner his regret at 
 the discomfiture of his favorite project of colonizing Egypt 
 and of maintaining it as a territorial acquisition. Now, sir, 
 if in any note addressed to the Grand Vizier or the Sultan 
 Bonaparte had claimed credit for the sincerity of his profes- 
 sions, that he came to Egypt with no view hostile to Turkey, 
 and solely for the purpose of molesting the British interests, is
 
 4 o PITT 
 
 there any one argument now used to induce us to believe his 
 present professions to us, which might not have been equally 
 urged on that occasion? Would not those professions have 
 been equally supported by solemn asseveration, by the same 
 reference which is now made to personal character, with this 
 single difference, that they would have then had one instance 
 less of hypocrisy and falsehood, which we have since had 
 occasion to trace in this very transaction? 
 
 It is unnecessary to say more with respect to the credit due 
 to his professions, or the reliance to be placed on his general 
 character. But it will, perhaps, be argued that whatever may 
 be his character, or whatever has been his past conduct, he 
 has now an interest in making and observing peace. That he 
 has an interest in making peace is at best but a doubtful propo- 
 sition, and that he has an interest in preserving it is still more 
 uncertain. That it is his interest to negotiate, I do not indeed 
 deny. It is his interest, above all, to engage this country in 
 separate negotiation, in order to loosen and dissolve the whole 
 system of the confederacy on the Continent, to palsy at once 
 the arms of Russia, or of Austria, or of any other country that 
 might look to you for support ; and then either to break off his 
 separate treaty, or, if he should have concluded it, to apply the 
 lesson which is taught in his school of policy in Egypt, and to 
 revive at his pleasure those claims of indemnification which 
 may have been reserved to some happier period. 
 
 This is precisely the interest which he has in negotiation. 
 But on what grounds are we to be convinced that he has an 
 interest in concluding and observing a solid and permanent 
 pacification? Under all the circumstances of his personal 
 character, and his newly acquired power, what other security 
 has he for retaining that power but the sword ? His hold upon 
 France is the sword, and he has no other. Is he connected 
 with the soil, or with the habits, the affections, or the prej- 
 udices of the country? He is a stranger, a foreigner, and a 
 usurper. He unites in his own person everything that a pure 
 republican must detest ; everything that an enraged Jacobin 
 has abjured ; everything that a sincere and faithful royalist 
 must feel as an insult. If he is opposed at any time in his 
 career, what is his appeal ? He appeals to his fortune ; in 
 other words, to his army and his sword. Placing, then, his
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 41 
 
 whole reliance upon military support, can he afford to let his 
 military renown pass away, to let his laurels wither, to let the 
 memory of his trophies sink in obscurity? Is it certain that 
 with his army confined within France, and restrained from 
 inroads upon her neighbors, that he can maintain, at his de- 
 votion, a force sufficiently numerous to support his power? 
 Having no object but the possession of absolute dominion, no 
 passion but military glory, is it to be reckoned as certain that 
 he can feel such an interest in permanent peace as would justify 
 us in laying down our arms, reducing our expense, and re- 
 linquishing our means of security, on the faith of his engage- 
 ments? Do we believe that, after the conclusion of peace, he 
 would not still sigh over the lost trophies of Egypt, wrested 
 from him by the celebrated victory of Aboukir, and the brilliant 
 exertions of that heroic band of British seamen, whose in- 
 fluence and example rendered the Turkish troops invincible at 
 Acre? Can he forget that the effect of these exploits enabled 
 Austria and Prussia, in one campaign, to recover from France 
 all which she had acquired by his victories, to dissolve the 
 charm which for a time fascinated Europe, and to show that 
 their generals, contending in a just cause, could efface, even by 
 their success and their military glory, the most dazzling tri- 
 umphs of his victorious and desolating ambition? 
 
 Can we believe, with these impressions on his mind, that if, 
 after a year, eighteen months, or two years of peace had 
 elapsed, he should be tempted by the appearance of fresh in- 
 surrection in Ireland, encouraged by renewed and unrestrained 
 communication with France, and fomented by the fresh infusion 
 of Jacobin principles ; if we were at such a moment without a 
 fleet to watch the ports of France, or to guard the coasts of 
 Ireland, without a disposable army, or an embodied militia 
 capable of supplying a speedy and adequate reenforcement, 
 and that he had suddenly the means of transporting thither 
 a body of twenty or thirty thousand French troops ; can we 
 believe that, at such a moment, his ambition and vindictive 
 spirit would be restrained by the recollection of engagements 
 or the obligation of treaty? Or if, in some new crisis of 
 difficulty and danger to the Ottoman Empire, with no British 
 navy in the Mediterranean, no confederacy formed, no force 
 collected to support it, an opportunity should present itself
 
 42 PITT 
 
 for resuming the abandoned expedition to Egypt, for renew- 
 ing the avowed and favorite project of conquering and colon- 
 izing that rich and fertile country, and of opening the way 
 to wound some of the vital interests of England, and to plun- 
 der the treasures of the East, in order to fill the bankrupt 
 coffers of France — would it be the interest of Bonaparte, under 
 such circumstances, or his principles, his moderation, his love 
 of peace, his aversion to conquest, and his regard for the in- 
 dependence of other nations — would it be all or any of these 
 that would secure us against an attempt which would leave us 
 only the option of submitting without a struggle to certain loss 
 and disgrace, or of renewing the contest which we had pre- 
 maturely terminated, without allies, without preparation, with 
 diminished means, and with increased difficulty and hazard? 
 
 Hitherto I have spoken only of the reliance which we can 
 place on the professions, the character, and the conduct of the 
 present First Consul ; but it remains to consider the stability 
 of his power. The Revolution has been marked throughout by 
 a rapid succession of new depositaries of public authority, each 
 supplanting its predecessor. What grounds have we to be- 
 lieve that this new usurpation, more odious and more undis- 
 guised than all that preceded it, will be more durable ? Is it that 
 we rely on the particular provisions contained in the code of 
 the pretended constitution, which was proclaimed as accepted 
 by the French people as soon as the garrison of Paris declared 
 their determination to exterminate all its enemies, and before 
 any of its articles could even be known to half the country, 
 whose consent was required for its establishment ? 
 
 I will not pretend to inquire deeply into the nature and effects 
 of a constitution which can hardly be regarded but as a farce 
 and a mockery. If, however, it could be supposed that its 
 provisions were to have any effect, it seems equally adapted to 
 two purposes : that of giving to its founder, for a time, an 
 absolute and uncontrolled authority ; and that of laying the cer- 
 tain foundation of disunion and discord, which, if they once 
 prevail, must render the exercise of all the authority under 
 the constitution impossible, and leave no appeal but to the 
 sword. 
 
 Is, then, military despotism that which we are accustomed 
 to consider as a stable form of government? In all ages ot
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 
 
 43 
 
 the world it has been attended with the least stability to the 
 persons who exercised it, and with the most rapid succession 
 of changes and revolution. In the outset of the French 
 Revolution its advocates boasted that it furnished a security 
 forever, not to France only, but to all countries in the world, 
 against military despotism ; that the force of standing armies 
 was vain and delusive ; that no artificial power could resist 
 public opinion ; and that it was upon the foundation of pub- 
 lic opinion alone that any government could stand. I be- 
 lieve that in this instance, as in every other, the progress of 
 the French Revolution has belied its professions ; but, so 
 far from its being a proof of the prevalence of public opinion 
 against military force, it is instead of the proof, the strongest 
 exception from that doctrine which appears in the history 
 of the world. Through all the stages of the Revolution mili- 
 tary force has governed, and public opinion has scarcely been 
 heard. But still I consider this as only an exception from 
 a general truth. I still believe that in every civilized coun- 
 try, not enslaved by a Jacobin faction, public opinion is the 
 only sure support of any government. I believe this with the 
 more satisfaction, from a conviction that, if this contest is 
 happily terminated, the established governments of Europe 
 will stand upon that rock firmer than ever ; and, whatever may 
 be the defects of any particular constitution, those who live 
 under it will prefer its continuance to the experiment of changes 
 which may plunge them in the unfathomable abyss of revolu- 
 tion, or extricate them from it only to expose them to the 
 terrors of military despotism. And to apply this to France, 
 I see no reason to believe that the present usurpation will be 
 more permanent than any other military despotism which has 
 been established by the same means, and with the same de- 
 fiance of public opinion. 
 
 What, then, is the inference I draw from all that I have now 
 stated? Is it that we will in no case treat with Bonaparte? I 
 say no such thing. But I say, as has been said in the answer 
 returned to the French note, that we ought to wait for " experi- 
 ence and the evidence of facts " before we are convinced that 
 such a treaty is admissible. The circumstances I have stated 
 would well justify us if we should be slow in being convinced ; 
 but on a question of peace and war, everything depends upon
 
 44 PITT 
 
 degree and upon comparison. If, on the one hand, there should 
 be an appearance that the policy of France is at length guided 
 by different maxims from those which have hitherto prevailed ; 
 if we should hereafter see signs of stability in the government 
 which are not now to be traced ; if the progress of the allied 
 army should not call forth such a spirit in France as to make 
 it probable that the act of the country itself will destroy the 
 system now prevailing; if the danger, the difficulty, the risk 
 of continuing the contest should increase, while the hope of 
 complete ultimate success should be diminished ; all these, in 
 their due place, are considerations which, with myself and, I 
 can answer for it, with every one of my colleagues, will have 
 their just weight. But at present these considerations all oper- 
 ate one way ; at present there is nothing from which we can 
 presage a favorable disposition to change in the French coun- 
 cils. There is the greatest reason to rely on powerful co- 
 operation from our allies ; there are the strongest marks of a 
 disposition in the interior of France to active resistance against 
 this new tyranny ; and there is every ground to believe, on 
 reviewing our situation and that of the enemy, that, if we are 
 ultimately disappointed of that complete success which we 
 are at present entitled to hope, the continuance of the contest, 
 instead of making our situation comparatively worse, will have 
 made it comparatively better. 
 
 If, then, I am asked how long are we to persevere in the 
 war, I can only say that no period can be accurately assigned. 
 Considering the importance of obtaining complete security for 
 the objects for which we contend, we ought not to be dis- 
 couraged too soon ; but, on the contrary, considering the im- 
 portance of not impairing and exhausting the radical strength 
 of the country, there are limits beyond which we ought not to 
 persist, and which we can determine only by estimating and 
 comparing fairly, from time to time, the degree of security to 
 be obtained by treaty, and the risk and disadvantage of con- 
 tinuing the contest. 
 
 But, sir, there are some gentlemen in the House who seem 
 to consider it already certain that the ultimate success to which 
 I am looking is unattainable. They suppose us contending only 
 for the restoration of the French monarchy, which they believe 
 to be impracticable, and deny to be desirable for this country.
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 45 
 
 We have been asked in the course of this debate : Do you think 
 you can impose monarchy upon France, against the will of the 
 nation? I never thought it, I never hoped it, I never wished 
 it. I have thought, I have hoped, I have wished, that the time 
 might come when the effect of the arms of the allies might so 
 far overpower the military force which keeps France in bond- 
 age, as to give vent and scope to the thoughts and actions of 
 its inhabitants. We have, indeed, already seen abundant proof 
 of what is the disposition of a large part of the country ; we 
 have seen almost through the whole of the Revolution the 
 western provinces of France deluged with the blood of their 
 inhabitants obstinately contending for their ancient laws and 
 religion. We have recently seen, in the revival of that war, 
 fresh proof of the zeal which still animates those countries in 
 the same cause. These efforts (I state it distinctly, and there 
 are those near me who can bear witness to the truth of the 
 assertion) were not produced by any instigation from hence; 
 they were the effects of a rooted sentiment prevailing through 
 all those provinces forced into action by the " law of the host- 
 ages " and the other tyrannical measures of the Directory, at the 
 moment when we were endeavoring to discourage so hazardous 
 an enterprise. If, under such circumstances, we find them giv- 
 ing proofs of their unalterable perseverance in their principles ; 
 if there is every reason to believe that the same disposition 
 prevails in many other extensive provinces of France ; if every 
 party appears at length equally wearied and disappointed with 
 all the successive changes which the Revolution has produced ; 
 if the question is no longer between monarchy, and even the 
 pretence and name of liberty, but between the ancient line of 
 hereditary princes on the one hand, and a military tyrant, a 
 foreign usurper, on the other ; if the armies of that usurper 
 are likely to find sufficient occupation on the frontiers, and to 
 be forced at length to leave the interior of the country at liberty 
 to manifest its real feeling and disposition ; what reason have 
 we to anticipate, that the restoration of monarchy under such 
 circumstances is impracticable? 
 
 The learned gentleman has, indeed, told us that almost every 
 man now possessed of property in France must necessarily be 
 interested in resisting such a change, and that therefore it 
 never can be effected. If that single consideration were con-
 
 46 PITT 
 
 elusive against the possibility of a change, for the same reason 
 the Revolution itself, by which the whole property of the coun- 
 try was taken from its ancient possessors, could never have 
 taken place. But though I deny it to be an insuperable ob- 
 stacle, I admit it to be a point of considerable delicacy and 
 difficulty. It is not, indeed, for us to discuss minutely what ar- 
 rangement might be formed on this point to conciliate and unite 
 opposite interests. But whoever considers the precarious tenure 
 and depreciated value of lands held under the revolutionary 
 title, and the low price for which they have generally been ob- 
 tained, will think it, perhaps, not impossible that an ample 
 compensation might be made to the bulk of the present pos- 
 sessors, both for the purchase-money they have paid and for the 
 actual value of what they now enjoy ; and that the ancient 
 proprietors might be reinstated in the possession of their former 
 rights, with only such a temporary sacrifice as reasonable men 
 would willingly make to obtain so essential an object. 
 
 The honorable and learned gentleman, however, has sup- 
 ported his reasoning on this part of the subject, by an argu- 
 ment which he undoubtedly considers as unanswerable — a ref- 
 erence to what would be his own conduct in similar circum- 
 stances ; and he tells us that every landed proprietor in France 
 must support the present order of things in that country from 
 the same motive that he and every proprietor of three per cent, 
 stock would join in the defence of the constitution of Great 
 Britain. I must do the learned gentleman the justice to be- 
 lieve that the habits of his profession must supply him with 
 better and nobler motives for defending a constitution which 
 he has had so much occasion to study and examine, than any he 
 can derive from the value of his proportion, however large, of 
 three per cents, even supposing them to continue to increase in 
 price as rapidly as they have done during the last three years, 
 in which the security and prosperity of the country has been 
 established by following a system directly opposite to the coun- 
 sels of the learned gentleman and his friends. 
 
 The learned gentleman's illustration, however, though it fails 
 with respect to himself, is happily and aptly applied to the state 
 of France ; and let us see what inference it furnishes with re- 
 spect to the probable attachment of moneyed men to the con- 
 tinuance of the revolutionary system, as well as with respect to
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 47 
 
 the general state of public credit in that country. I do not, 
 indeed, know that there exists precisely any fund of three per 
 cents in France, to furnish a test for the patriotism and public 
 spirit of the lovers of French liberty. But there is another 
 fund which may equally answer our purpose. The capital of 
 three per cent, stock which formerly existed in France has un- 
 dergone a whimsical operation, similar to many other expedi- 
 ents of finance which we have seen in the course of the Revolu- 
 tion. This was performed by a decree which, as they termed 
 it, republicanized their debt ; that is, in other words, struck off 
 at once two-thirds of the capital, and left the proprietors to 
 take their chance for the payment of interest on the remainder. 
 This remnant was afterward converted into the present five per 
 cent, stock. I had the curiosity very lately to inquire what 
 price it bore in the market, and I was told that the price had 
 somewhat risen from confidence in the new government, and 
 was actually as high as seventeen. I really at first supposed 
 that my informer meant seventeen years' purchase for every 
 pound of interest, and I began to be almost jealous of revolu- 
 tionary credit ; but I soon found that he literally meant seven- 
 teen pounds for every hundred pounds capital stock of five per 
 cent., that is a little more than three and a half years' purchase. 
 So much for the value of revolutionary property, and for the 
 attachment with which it must inspire its possessors towards 
 the system of government to which that value is to be ascribed ! 
 On the question, sir, how far the restoration of the French 
 monarchy, if practicable, is desirable, I shall not think it neces- 
 sary to say much. Can it be supposed to be indifferent to us 
 or to the world, whether the throne of France is to be filled by 
 a prince of the House of Bourbon, or by him whose principles 
 and conduct I have endeavored to develop ? Is it nothing, with 
 a view to influence and example, whether the fortune of this 
 last adventurer in the lottery of revolutions shall appear to be 
 permanent ? Is it nothing whether a system shall be sanctioned 
 which confirms, by one of its fundamental articles, that general 
 transfer of property from its ancient and lawful possessors, 
 which holds out one of the most terrible examples of national 
 injustice, and which has furnished the great source of revolu- 
 tionary finance and revolutionary strength against all the pow- 
 ers of Europe?
 
 48 PITT 
 
 In the exhausted and impoverished state of France, it seems 
 for a time impossible that any system but that of robbery and 
 confiscation, anything but the continued torture, which can 
 be applied only by the engines of the Revolution, can extort 
 from its ruined inhabitants more than the means of supporting 
 in peace the yearly expenditure of its government. Suppose, 
 then, the heir of the House of Bourbon reinstated on the throne, 
 he will have sufficient occupation in endeavoring, if possible, 
 to heal the wounds, and gradually to repair the losses of ten 
 years of civil convulsion ; to reanimate the drooping commerce, 
 to rekindle the industry, to replace the capital, and to revive 
 the manufactures of the country. Under such circumstances, 
 there must probably be a considerable interval before such a 
 monarch, whatever may be his views, can possess the power 
 which can make him formidable to Europe ; but while the sys- 
 tem of the Revolution continues, the case is quite different. 
 It is true, indeed, that even the gigantic and unnatural means 
 by which that revolution has been supported are so far im- 
 paired ; the influence of its principles and the terror of its 
 arms so far weakened ; and its power of action so much con- 
 tracted and circumscribed, that against the embodied force of 
 Europe, prosecuting a vigorous war, we may justly hope that 
 the remnant and wreck of this system cannot long oppose an 
 effectual resistance. 
 
 But, supposing the confederacy of Europe prematurely dis- 
 solved ; supposing our armies disbanded, our fleets laid up 
 in our harbors, our exertions relaxed, and our means of pre- 
 caution and defence relinquished ; do we believe that the 
 revolutionary power, with this rest and breathing-time given 
 it to recover from the pressure under which it is now sinking, 
 possessing still the means of calling suddenly and violently into 
 action whatever is the remaining physical force of France, 
 under the guidance of military despotism ; do we believe that 
 this revolutionary power, the terror of which is now beginning 
 to vanish, will not again prove formidable to Europe. Can we 
 forget that in the ten years in which that power has subsisted, 
 it has brought more misery on surrounding nations, and pro- 
 duced more acts of aggression, cruelty, perfidy, and enormous 
 ambition than can be traced in the history of France for the 
 centuries which have elapsed since the foundation of its mon-
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 49 
 
 archy, including all the wars which, in the course of that period, 
 have been waged by any of those sovereigns, whose projects 
 of aggrandizement and violations of treaty afford a constant 
 theme of general reproach against the ancient government of 
 France? And if not, can we hesitate whether we have the best 
 prospect of permanent peace, the best security for the inde- 
 pendence and safety of Europe, from the restoration of the law- 
 ful government, or from the continuance of revolutionary power 
 in the hands of Bonaparte ? 
 
 In compromise and treaty with such a power placed in such 
 hands as now exercise it, and retaining the same means of an- 
 noyance which it now possesses, I see little hope of permanent 
 security. I see no possibility at this moment of such a peace 
 as would justify that liberal intercourse which is the essence 
 of real amity ; no chance of terminating the expenses or the 
 anxieties of war, or of restoring to us any of the advantages 
 of established tranquillity, and, as a sincere lover of peace, I 
 cannot be content with its nominal attainment. I must be desir- 
 ous of pursuing that system which promises to attain, in the 
 end, the permanent enjoyment of its solid and substantial bless- 
 ings for this country and for Europe. As a sincere lover of 
 peace, I will not sacrifice it by grasping at the shadow when 
 the reality is not substantially within my reach. 
 
 Cur igitur pacem nolo? Quia bifida est, quia periculosa, 
 quia esse non potest. 
 
 If, sir, in all that I have now offered to the House, I have suc- 
 ceeded in establishing the proposition that the system of the 
 French Revolution has been such as to afford to foreign powers 
 no adequate ground for security in negotiation, and that the 
 change which has recently taken place has not yet afforded 
 that security ; if I have laid before you a just statement of the 
 nature and extent of the danger with which we have been 
 threatened, it would remain only shortly to consider whether 
 there is anything in the circumstances of the present moment 
 to induce us to accept a security confessedly inadequate against 
 a danger of such a description. 
 
 It will be necessary here to say a few words on the subject on 
 
 which gentlemen have been so fond of dwelling, I mean our 
 
 former negotiations, and particularly that at Lisle, in 1797. I 
 
 am desirous of stating frankly and openly the true motives 
 
 Vol. II.— 4
 
 5° 
 
 PITT 
 
 which induced me to concur in then recommending negotiation ; 
 and I will leave it to the House and to the country to judge 
 whether our conduct at that time was inconsistent with the prin- 
 ciples by which we are guided at present. That revolutionary 
 policy which I have endeavored to describe, that gigantic system 
 of prodigality and bloodshed by which the efforts of France 
 were supported, and which counts for nothing the lives and 
 the property of a nation, had at that period driven us to exer- 
 tions which had, in a great measure, exhausted the ordinary 
 means of defraying our immense expenditure, and had led 
 many of those who were the most convinced of the original 
 justice and necessity of the war, and of the danger of Jacobin 
 principles, to doubt the possibility of persisting in it, till com- 
 plete and adequate security could be obtained. There seemed, 
 too, much reason to believe that, without some new measure to 
 check the rapid accumulation of debt, we could no longer trust 
 to the stability of that funding system by which the nation 
 had been enabled to support the expense of all the different wars 
 in which we have engaged in the course of the present century. 
 In order to continue our exertions with vigor, it became neces- 
 sary that a new and solid system of finance should be estab- 
 lished, such as could not be rendered effectual but by the 
 general and decided concurrence of public opinion. Such a con- 
 currence in the strong and vigorous measures necessary for the 
 purpose could not then be expected, but from satisfying the 
 country, by the strongest and most decided proofs, that peace, 
 on terms in any degree admissible, was unattainable. 
 
 Under this impression, we thought it our duty to attempt 
 negotiation, not from the sanguine hope, even at that time, that 
 its result could afford us complete security, but from the per- 
 suasion that the danger arising from peace, under such cir- 
 cumstances, was less than that of continuing the war with 
 precarious and inadequate means. The result of those negotia- 
 tions proved that the enemy would be satisfied with nothing 
 less than the sacrifice of the honor and independence of the 
 country. From this conviction, a spirit and enthusiasm was ex- 
 cited in the nation which produced the efforts to which we are 
 indebted for the subsequent change in our situation. Having 
 witnessed that happy change, having observed the increasing 
 prosperity and security of the country from that period, seeing
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 
 
 5* 
 
 how much more satisfactory our prospects now are than any 
 which we could then have derived from the successful result 
 of negotiation, I have not scrupled to declare that I consider 
 the rupture of the negotiation, on the part of the enemy, as a 
 fortunate circumstance for the country. But because these are 
 my sentiments at this time, after reviewing what has since 
 passed, does it follow that we were at that time insincere in en- 
 deavoring to obtain peace? The learned gentleman, indeed, 
 assumes that we were, and he even makes a concession, of which 
 I desire not to claim the benefit. He is willing to admit that, 
 on our principles and our view of the subject, insincerity would 
 have been justifiable. I know, sir, no plea that would justify 
 those who are entrusted with the conduct of public affairs in 
 holding out to Parliament and to the nation one object, while 
 they were, in fact, pursuing another. I did, in fact, believe, at 
 the moment, the conclusion of peace, if it could have been ob- 
 tained, to be preferable to the continuance of the war under its 
 increasing risks and difficulties. I therefore wished for peace ; 
 I sincerely labored for peace. Our endeavors were frustrated 
 by the act of the enemy. If, then, the circumstances are since 
 changed ; if what passed at that period has afforded a proof 
 that the object we aimed at was unattainable ; and if all that 
 has passed since has proved that, provided peace had been then 
 made, it could not have been durable, are we bound to repeat 
 the same experiment, when every reason against it is strength- 
 ened by subsequent experience, and when the inducements 
 which led to it at that time have ceased to exist ? 
 
 When we consider the resources and the spirit of the coun- 
 try, can any man doubt that if adequate security is not now 
 to be obtained by treaty, we have the means of prosecuting the 
 contest without material difficulty or danger, and with a rea- 
 sonable prospect of completely attaining our object? I will 
 not dwell on the improved state of public credit ; on the con- 
 tinually increasing amount, in spite of extraordinary temporary 
 burdens, of our permanent revenue ; on the yearly accession of 
 wealth to an extent unprecedented even in the most flourishing 
 times of peace, which we are deriving in the midst of war, from 
 our extended and flourishing commerce ; on the progressive 
 improvement and growth of our manufactures ; on the proofs 
 which we see on all sides of the uninterrupted accumulation
 
 52 
 
 PITT 
 
 of productive capital ; and on the active exertion of every 
 branch of national industry which can tend to support and 
 augment the population, the riches, and the power of the coun- 
 try. 
 
 As little need I recall the attention of the House to the 
 additional means of action which we have derived from the 
 great augmentation of our disposable military force, the con- 
 tinued triumphs of our powerful and victorious navy, and the 
 events which, in the course of the last two years, have raised 
 the military ardor and military glory of the country to a height 
 unexampled in any period of our history. 
 
 In addition to these grounds of reliance on our own st^?ngth 
 and exertions, we have seen the consummate skill and valor 
 of the arms of our allies proved by that series of unexampled 
 successes in the course of the last campaign, and we have every 
 reason to expect a co-operation on the Continent, even to a 
 greater extent, in the course of the present year. If we compare 
 this view of our own situation with everything we can ob- 
 serve of the state and condition of our enemy — if we can trace 
 him laboring under equal difficulty in finding men to recruit his 
 army, or money to pay it — if we know that in the course of the 
 last year the most rigorous efforts of military conscription were 
 scarcely sufficient to replace to the French armies, at the end 
 of the campaign, the numbers which they had lost in the course 
 of it — if we have seen that that force, then in possession of 
 advantages which it has since lost, was unable to contend with 
 the efforts of the combined armies — if we know that, even while 
 supported by the plunder of all the countries which they had 
 overrun, those armies were reduced, by the confession of 
 their commanders, to the extremity of distress, and destitute 
 not only of the principal articles of military supply, but almost 
 of the necessaries of life — if we see them now driven back 
 within their own frontiers, and confined within a country whose 
 own resources have long since been proclaimed by their suc- 
 cessive governments to be unequal either to paying or main- 
 taining them — if we observe that since the last revolution no 
 one substantial or effectual measure has been adopted to remedy 
 the intolerable disorder of their finances, and to supply the 
 deficiency of their credit and resources — if we see through large 
 and populous districts of France, either open war levied against
 
 HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE 53 
 
 the present usurpation, or evident marks of disunion and dis- 
 traction, which the first occasion may call forth into a flame — 
 if, I say sir, this comparison be just, I feel myself authorized to 
 conclude from it, not that we are entitled to consider ourselves 
 certain of ultimate success, not that we are to suppose ourselves 
 exempted from the unforeseen vicissitudes of war, but that, 
 considering the value of the object for which we are contend- 
 ing, the means for supporting the contest, and the probable 
 course of human events, we should be inexcusable, if at this 
 moment we were to relinquish the struggle on any grounds 
 short of entire and complete security ; that from perseverance 
 in our efforts under such circumstances, we have the fairest 
 reason to expect the full attainment of our object ; but that 
 at all events, even if we are disappointed in our more san- 
 guine hopes, we are more likely to gain than to lose by the 
 continuation of the contest ; that every month to which it is 
 continued, even if it should not in its effects lead to the final 
 destruction of the Jacobin system, must tend so far to weaken 
 and exhaust it, as to give us at least a greater comparative 
 security in any termination of the war; that, on all these 
 grounds, this is not the moment at which it is consistent with 
 our interest or our duty to listen to any proposals of negotia- 
 tion with the present ruler of France ; but that we are not, 
 therefore, pledged to any unalterable determination as to our 
 future conduct ; that in this we must be regulated by the course 
 of events; and that it will be the duty of His Majesty's min- 
 isters from time to time to adapt their measures to any varia- 
 tion of circumstances, to consider how far the effects of the 
 military operations of the allies or of the internal disposition 
 of France correspond with our present expectations ; and, on 
 a view of the whole, to compare the difficulties or risks which 
 may arise in the prosecution of the contest with the prospect 
 of ultimate success, or of the degree of advantage to be derived 
 from its farther continuance, and to be governed by the results 
 of all these considerations in the opinion and advice which 
 they may offer to their sovereign.
 
 ON GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE CANNING
 
 GEORGE CANNING 
 
 1770 — 1827 
 
 George Canning was the offspring of a love-match, his father having 
 married a beautiful girl with a good education but with no fortune. 
 His father died in 1781, and his mother attempted to make a living 
 on the stage ; but her beauty had more success than her dramatic talent ; 
 she was twice remarried, first to an actor, the last time to a worthy 
 linen draper of Exeter. Canning attended school at Eton, showing 
 himself an able scholar. A literary tendency, derived from his father, 
 prompted him to start and edit a periodical called " The Microcosm," 
 the commendable prototype of many schoolboy magazines since then. 
 
 In 1787, at the age of seventeen, he went to Oxford, and enjoyed 
 the advantage of passing his vacations with Sheridan, by whom he 
 was made known to Burke, Fox, and other eminent Whig statesmen. 
 Sheridan formed a high opinion of the youth's abilities, and regarded 
 him as a coming light in the party; and by the influence of William 
 Pitt, he was seated in the House of Commons in 1793. In 1796 he was 
 made Secretary of State, and took up his permanent residence in Lon- 
 don. About this time he and some others in sympathy with his ideas 
 founded the " Anti-Jacobin," Canning becoming one of the leading con- 
 tributors. He joined Wilberforce in the motion to abolish the slave- 
 trade, in 1798; and two years later he confirmed his claim to material 
 as well as political good fortune by marrying Joanna Scott, with a for- 
 tune of one hundred thousand pounds sterling. While holding the 
 office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under the Portland ad- 
 ministration, Canning quarrelled with Castlereagh, and they fought a 
 duel, in which Canning was wounded. In 1810 he opposed the refer- 
 ence to the whole House of the Catholic claims, on the ground that the 
 Catholics had offered no security ; and on this theme some of his most 
 brilliant speeches were delivered. He advocated Catholic admission not 
 as a right, but as a matter of pure expediency ; and this view led him, in 
 1813, to support the same measure which he had formerly opposed. It 
 was Canning who aimed the first blow at Napoleon, and directed and 
 animated the British policy in Spain ; he declared that the English ought 
 never to relinquish their hold on the Peninsula. After two years abroad 
 as minister to Portugal he returned to oppose Lord John Russell's Re- 
 form Bill. During the ensuing years he constantly took a leading and 
 influential part in foreign affairs ; and in the debate over the proposi- 
 tion to intervene in the dispute between Spain and Portugal, he spoke 
 the well-known words, " I resolved that if France had Spain, it should 
 not be Spain with the Indies: I called the New World into existence, to 
 redress the balance of the Old ! " In 1827 he was chosen Prime Minis- 
 ter; and on the eighth of August of the same year he died, at the height 
 of his renown. Few statesmen of any country have enjoyed a career of 
 such uninterrupted success. In spite of his fortune, enormous for those 
 days, he is said to have died a poor man. 
 
 His foreign policy embraced the recognition of the South American 
 states, the maintenance of Portugal's independence, and the treaty in 
 behalf of Greece. His attitude on the question of the British alliance 
 with Portugal is well expressed in his oration, " On Granting Aid to 
 Portugal." As an orator he took high rank ; his eloquence was per- 
 suasive and impassioned, he was lucid and logical in his reasoning, and 
 graceful in expression. His personal appearance was attractive; he had 
 a brilliant wit, and in satire he was caustic and able. At his death it 
 was voted that he be interred in that Valhalla of English statesmen of 
 eminence, Westminster Abbey ; and it is there that his remains repose. 
 
 56
 
 ON GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL 
 
 Delivered in the House of Commons, December 12, 1826 1 
 
 MR. SPEAKER: In proposing to the House of Com- 
 mons to acknowledge, by an humble and dutiful ad- 
 dress, His Majesty's most gracious message, and to 
 reply to it in terms which will be, in effect, an echo of the senti- 
 ments and a fufilment of the anticipations of that message, I feel 
 that, however confident I may be in the justice, and however 
 clear as to the policy of the measures therein announced, it be- 
 comes me, as a British minister, recommending to Parliament 
 any step which may approximate this country even to the haz- 
 ard of a war, while I explain the grounds of that proposal, to 
 accompany my explanation with expressions of regret. 
 
 I can assure the House that there is not within its walls any 
 set of men more deeply convinced than His Majesty's ministers 
 — nor any individual more intimately persuaded than he who 
 has now the honor of addressing you — of the vital importance 
 of the continuance of peace to this country and to the world. So 
 strongly am I impressed with this opinion — and for reasons of 
 which I will put the House more fully in possession before I 
 sit down — that I dec'are there is no question of doubtful or con- 
 troverted policy — no opportunity of present national advantage 
 — no precaution against remote o'ifficulty — which I would not 
 gladly compromise, pass over, or adjourn, rather than call on 
 Parliament to sanction, at this moment, any measure which 
 had a tendency to involve the country in war. But, at the 
 same time, sir, I feel that which has been felt, in the best times 
 
 1 [In 1826, while Mr. Canning was the guese G ivernment asked for the protec- 
 
 English Minister of Foreign Affairs, a tion of England. Five thousand troops 
 
 body of revolutionary Absolutists at- wire immediately sent to Portugal, this 
 
 tempted to destroy the existing liberal being in accordance with Canning's pol- 
 
 government of Portugal, which had been icy of allowing each nation to manage 
 
 recognized by all the great powers of its internal affairs and of permitting no 
 
 Europe. In the course of the insurrec- interference with the smaller nations by 
 
 tion the Absolutists raised a body of the larger.— Editor.] 
 troops on Spanish soil, and the Portu- 
 
 57
 
 58 CANNING 
 
 of English history, by the best statesmen of this country, and 
 by the Parliaments by whom those statesmen were supported — 
 I feel that there are two causes, and but two causes, which 
 cannot be either compromised, passed over, or adjourned. 
 These causes are : adherence to the national faith, and regard for 
 the national honor. 
 
 Sir, if I did not consider both these causes as involved in the 
 proposition which I have this day to make to you, I should not 
 address the House, as I now do, in the full and entire confidence 
 that the gracious communication of His Majesty will be met by 
 the House with the concurrence of which His Majesty has de- 
 clared his expectation. 
 
 In order to bring the matter which I have to submit to you, 
 under the cognizance of the House, in the shortest and clearest 
 manner, I beg leave to state it, in the first instance, divested of 
 any collateral considerations. It is a case of law and of fact ; of 
 national law on the one hand, and of notorious fact on the other ; 
 such as it must be, in my opinion as impossible for Parliament, 
 as it was for the government, to regard in any but one light, or 
 to come to any but one conclusion upon it. 
 
 Among the alliances by which, at different periods of our 
 history, this country has been connected with the other nations 
 of Europe, none is so ancient in origin, and so precise in obliga- 
 tion — none has continued so long, and been observed so faith- 
 fully — of none is the memory so intimately interwoven with the 
 most brilliant records of our triumphs, as that by which Great 
 Britain is connected with Portugal. It dates back to distant 
 centuries ; it has survived an endless variety of fortunes. An- 
 terior in existence to the accession of the House of Braganza to 
 the throne of Portugal — it derived, however, fresh vigor from 
 that event ; and never from that epoch to the present hour, has 
 the independent monarchy of Portugal ceased to be nurtured 
 by the friendship of Great Britain. This alliance has never 
 been seriously interrupted ; but it has been renewed by repeated 
 sanctions. It has been maintained under difficulties by which 
 the fidelity of other alliances was shaken, and has been vindi- 
 cated in fields of blood and of glory. 
 
 That the alliance with Portugal has been always unquali- 
 fiedly advantageous to this country — that it has not been some- 
 times inconvenient and sometimes burdensome — I am not
 
 ON GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL 59 
 
 bound nor prepared to maintain. But no British statesman, so 
 far as I know, has ever suggested the expediency of shaking it 
 off ; and it is assuredly not at a moment of need that honor and 
 what I may be allowed to call national sympathy would permit 
 us to weigh, with an over-scrupulous exactness, the amount of 
 difficulties and dangers attendant upon its faithful and steadfast 
 observance. What feelings of national honor would forbid is 
 forbidden alike by the plain dictates of national faith. 
 
 It is not at distant periods of history, and in bygone ages 
 only, that the traces of the union between Great Britain and 
 Portugal are to be found. In the last compact of modern Eu- 
 rope, the compact which forms the basis of its present interna- 
 tional law — I mean the treaty of Vienna of 1815 — this country, 
 with its eyes open to the possible inconveniences of the connec- 
 tion, but with a memory awake to its past benefits, solemnly re- 
 newed the previously existing obligations of alliance and amity 
 with Portugal. I will take leave to read to the House the third 
 article of the treaty concluded at Vienna, in 181 5, between 
 Great Britain on the one hand and Portugal on the other. It 
 is couched in the following terms : " The treaty of alliance, con- 
 cluded at Rio de Janeiro, on February 19, 1810, being founded 
 on circumstances of a temporary nature, which have happily 
 ceased to exist, the said treaty is hereby declared to be void in 
 all its parts, and of no effect ; without prejudice, however, to the 
 ancient treaties of alliance, friendship, and guarantee, which 
 have so long and so happily subsisted between the two Crowns, 
 and which are hereby renewed by the high contracting parties, 
 and acknowledged to be of full force and effect." 
 
 In order to appreciate the force of this stipulation — recent in 
 point of time, recent, also, in the sanction of Parliament — the 
 House will, perhaps, allow me to explain shortly the circum- 
 stances in reference to which it was contracted. In the year 
 1807, when, upon the declaration of Bonaparte, that the House 
 of Braganza had ceased to reign, the King of Portugal, by the 
 advice of Great Britain, was induced to set sail for the Brazils ; 
 almost at the very moment of his most faithful Majesty's em- 
 barkation a secret convention was signed between His Majesty 
 and the King of Portugal, stipulating that, in the event of his 
 most faithful Majesty's establishing the seat of his government 
 in Brazil, Great Britain would never acknowledge any other
 
 60 CANNING 
 
 dynasty than that of the House of Braganza on the throne of 
 Portugal. That convention, I say, was contemporaneous with 
 the migration to the Brazils ; a step of great importance at the 
 time, as removing from the grasp of Bonaparte the sovereign 
 family of Braganza. Afterwards, in the year 1810, when the seat 
 of the King of Portugal's government was established at Rio de 
 Janeiro, and when it seemed probable, in the then apparently 
 hopeless condition of the affairs of Europe, that it was likely 
 long to continue there, the secret convention of 1807, of which 
 the main object was accomplished by the fact of the emigration 
 to Brazil, was abrogated, and a new and public treaty was con- 
 cluded, into which was transferred the stipulation of 1807, bind- 
 ing Great Britain, so long as his faithful Majesty should be 
 compelled to reside in Brazil, not to acknowledge any other 
 sovereign of Portugal than a member of the House of Braganza. 
 That stipulation, which had hitherto been secret, thus became 
 patent, and part of the known law of nations. 
 
 In the year 1814, in consequence of the happy conclusion of 
 the war, the option was afforded to the King of Portugal of re- 
 turning to his European dominions. It was then felt that, as 
 the necessity of his most faithful Majesty's absence from Portu- 
 gal had ceased, the ground for the obligation originally con- 
 tracted in the secret convention of 1807, and afterwards trans- 
 ferred to the patent treaty of 1810, was removed. The treaty 
 of 1810 was, therefore, annulled at the Congress of Vienna ; and 
 in lieu of the stipulation not to acknowledge any other sovereign 
 of Portugal than a member of the House of Braganza, was sub- 
 stituted that which I have just read to the House. 
 
 Annulling the treaty of 1810, the treaty of Vienna renews and 
 confirms (as the House will have seen) all former treaties be- 
 tween Great Britain and Portugal, describing them as " ancient 
 treaties of alliance, friendship, and guarantee " ; as having 
 " long and happily subsisted between the two Crowns " ; and 
 as being allowed by the two high contracting parties, to remain 
 " in full force and effect." 
 
 What, then, is the force — what is the effect of those ancient 
 treaties ? I am prepared to show to the House what it is. But 
 before I do so, I must say, that if all the treaties to which this 
 article of the treaty of Vienna refers had perished by some con- 
 vulsion of nature, or had by some extraordinary accident been
 
 ON GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL 61 
 
 consigned to total oblivion, still it would be impossible not to 
 admit, as an incontestable inference from this article of the 
 treaty of Vienna alone, that, in a moral point of view, there is 
 incumbent on Great Britain a decided obligation to act as the 
 effectual defender of Portugal. If I could not show the letter 
 of a single antecedent stipulation, I should still contend that a 
 solemn admission, only ten years old, of the existence at that 
 time of " treaties of alliance, friendship, and guarantee," held 
 Great Britain to the discharge of the obligations which that 
 very inscription implies. But fortunately there is no such dif- 
 ficulty in specifying the nature of those obligations. All of the 
 preceding treaties exist — all of them are of easy reference — all of 
 them are known to this country, to Spain, to every nation of the 
 civilized world. They are so numerous, and their general re- 
 sult is so uniform, that it may be sufficient to select only two of 
 them to show the nature of all. 
 
 The first to which I shall advert is the treaty of 1661, which 
 was concluded at the time of the marriage of Charles II with 
 the Infanta of Portugal. After reciting the marriage, and mak- 
 ing over to Great Britain, in consequence of that marriage, 
 first, a considerable sum of money, and, secondly, several im- 
 portant places, some of which, as Tangier, we no longer pos- 
 sess, but others of which, as Bombay, still belong to this coun- 
 try, the treaty runs thus : " In consideration of all which grants, 
 so much to the benefit of the King of Great Britain and his 
 subjects in general, and of the delivery of those important 
 places to his said Majesty and his heirs forever, etc., the King of 
 Great Britain does profess and declare, with the consent and ad- 
 vice of his council, that he will take the interest of Portugal 
 and all its dominions to heart, defending the same with his ut- 
 most power by sea and land, even as England itself " ; and it 
 then proceeds to specify the succors to be sent, and the manner 
 of sending them. 
 
 I come next to the treaty of 1703, a treaty of alliance contem- 
 poraneous with the Methuen treaty, which has regulated, for 
 upwards of a century, the commercial relations of the two coun- 
 tries. The treaty of 1703 was a tripartite engagement between 
 the States-General of Holland, England, and Portugal. The 
 second article of that treaty sets forth that " if ever it shall hap- 
 pen that the Kings of Spain and France, either the present or
 
 62 CANNING 
 
 the future, that both of them together, or either of them sepa- 
 rately, shall make war, or give occasion to suspect that they 
 intend to make war, upon the kingdom of Portugal, either on 
 the Continent of Europe, or on its dominions beyond the seas, 
 Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, and the Lords the 
 States-General, shall use their friendly offices with the said 
 kings, or either of them, in order to persuade them to observe 
 the terms of peace towards Portugal, and not to make war 
 upon it." The third article declares that " in the event of these 
 good offices not proving successful, but altogether ineffectual, 
 so that war should be made by the aforesaid kings, or by 
 either of them, upon Portugal, the above-mentioned powers 
 of Great Britain and Holland shall make war with all their 
 force upon the aforesaid kings or king who shall carry hos- 
 tile arms into Portugal ; and towards that war, which shall 
 be carried on in Europe, they shall supply twelve thousand 
 men, whom they shall arm and pay, as well when in quarters 
 as in action ; and the said high allies shall be obliged to keep 
 that number of men complete, by recruiting it from time to 
 time at their own expense." 
 
 I am aware, indeed, that with respect to either of the treaties 
 which I have quoted it is possible to raise a question — whether 
 variation of circumstances or change of times may not have 
 somewhat relaxed its obligations. The treaty of 1661, it might 
 be said, was so loose and prodigal in the wording — it is so un- 
 reasonable, so wholly out of nature, that any one country should 
 be expected to defend another, " even as itself " ; such stipula- 
 tions are of so exaggerated a character as to resemble effusions 
 of feeling rather than enunciations of deliberate compact. 
 Again, with respect to the treaty of 1703, if the case rested on 
 that treaty alone, a question might be raised, whether or not, 
 when one of the contracting parties — Holland — had since so 
 changed her relations with Portugal, as to consider her obliga- 
 tions under the treaty of 1703 as obsolete — whether or not, I 
 say, under such circumstances, the obligation on the remaining 
 party be not likewise void. I should not hesitate to answer 
 both these objections in the negative. But without entering 
 into such a controversy, it is sufficient for me to say that the 
 time and place for taking such objections was at the Congress 
 at Vienna. Then and there it was that if you, indeed, consid-
 
 ON GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL 
 
 63 
 
 ered these treaties as obsolete, you ought frankly and fearlessly 
 to have declared them to be so. But then and there, with your 
 eyes open, and in the face of all modern Europe, you proclaimed 
 anew the ancient treaties of alliance, friendship, and guarantee, 
 " so long subsisting between the Crowns of Great Britain and 
 Portugal," as still " acknowledged by Great Britain," and still 
 " of full force and effect." It is not, however, on specific ar- 
 ticles alone — it is not so much, perhaps, on either of these 
 ancient treaties, taken separately, as it is on the spirit and under- 
 standing of the whole body of treaties, of which the essence is 
 concentrated and preserved in the treaty of Vienna, that we 
 acknowledge in Portugal a right to look to Great Britain as her 
 ally and defender. 
 
 This, sir, being the state, morally and politically, of our obli- 
 gations towards Portugal, it is obvious that when Portugal, in 
 apprehension of the coming storm, called on Great Britain for 
 assistance, the only hesitation on our part could be — not 
 whether that assistance was due, supposing the occasion for de- 
 manding it to arise, but simply whether that occasion — in other 
 words, whether the casus fccderis — had arisen. 
 
 I understand, indeed, that in some quarters it has been im- 
 puted to His Majesty's ministers that an extraordinary delay in- 
 tervened between the taking of the determination to give as- 
 sistance to Portugal and the carrying of that determination into 
 effect. But how stands the fact ? On Sunday, the third of this 
 month, we received from the Portuguese ambassador a direct 
 and formal demand of assistance against a hostile aggression 
 from Spain. Our answer was, that although rumors had 
 reached us through France, His Majesty's Government had not 
 that accurate information — that official and precise intelligence 
 of facts — on which they could properly found an application to 
 Parliament. It was only on last Friday night that this precise 
 information arrived. On Saturday His Majesty's confidential 
 servants came to a decision. On Sunday that decision received 
 the sanction of His Majesty. On Monday it was communicated 
 to both Houses of Parliament ; and this day, sir, at the hour in 
 which I have the honor of addressing you, the troops are on 
 their march for embarkation. 
 
 I trust, then, sir, that no unseemly delay is imputable to gov- 
 ernment. But undoubtedly, on the other hand, when the claim
 
 64 CANNING 
 
 of Portugal for assistance — a claim clear, indeed, in justice, but 
 at the same time fearfully spreading in its possible conse- 
 quences, came before us, it was the duty of His Majesty's 
 Government to do nothing on hearsay. The eventual force of 
 the claim was admitted ; but a thorough knowledge of facts 
 was necessary before the compliance with that claim could be 
 granted. The government here labored under some disadvan- 
 tage. The rumors which reached us through Madrid were ob- 
 viously distorted, to answer partial political purposes ; and the 
 intelligence through the press of France, though substan- 
 tially correct, was, in particulars, vague and contradictory. A 
 measure of grave and serious moment could never be founded 
 on such authority ; nor could the ministers come down to Par- 
 liament until they had a confident assurance that the case which 
 they had to lay before the legislature was true in all its parts. 
 
 But there was another reason which induced a necessary 
 caution. In former instances, when Portugal applied to this 
 country for assistance, the whole power of the state in Portugal 
 was vested in the person of the monarch. The expression of 
 his wish, the manifestation of his desire, the putting forth of 
 his claim, was sufficient ground for immediate and decisive ac- 
 tion on the part of Great Britain, supposing the casus foederis 
 to be made out. But, on this occasion, inquiry was in the first 
 place to be made whether, according to the new constitution of 
 Portugal, the call upon Great Britain w T as made with the con- 
 sent of all the powers and authorities competent to make it, so 
 as to carry with it an assurance of that reception in Portugal 
 for our army, which the army of a friend and ally had a right to 
 expect. Before a British soldier should put his foot on Portu- 
 guese ground, nay, before he should leave the shores of Eng- 
 land, it was our duty to ascertain that the step taken by the 
 regency of Portugal was taken with the cordial concurrence of 
 the legislature of that country. It was but this morning that 
 we received intelligence of the proceedings of the Chambers at 
 Lisbon, which establishes the fact of such concurrence. This 
 intelligence is contained in a dispatch from Sir W. A'Court, 
 dated the twenty-ninth of November, of which I will read an 
 extract to the House. " The day after the news arrived of the 
 entry of the rebels into Portugal, the ministers demanded from 
 the Chambers an extension of power for the executive govern-
 
 ON GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL 65 
 
 ment, and the permission to apply for foreign succors, in virtue 
 of ancient treaties, in the event of their being deemed necessary. 
 The deputies gave the requisite authority by acclamation ; and 
 an equally good spirit was manifested by the peers, who granted 
 every power that the ministers could possibly require. They 
 even went further, and, rising in a body from their seats, de- 
 clared their devotion to their country, and their readiness to 
 give their personal services, if necessary, to repel any hostile 
 invasion. The Duke de Cadaval, president of the Chamber, 
 was the first to make this declaration ; and the minister who 
 described this proceeding to me, said it was a movement worthy 
 of the good days of Portugal !" 
 
 I have thus incidentally disposed of the supposed imputation 
 of delay in complying with the requisition of the Portuguese 
 Government. The main question, however, is tins : Was it 
 obligatory upon us to comply with that requisition ? In other 
 words, had the casus foederis arisen? In our opinion it had. 
 Bands of Portuguese rebels, armed, equipped, and trained in 
 Spain, had crossed the Spanish frontier, carrying terror and 
 devastation into their own country, and proclaiming some- 
 times the brother of the reigning sovereign of Portugal, some- 
 times a Spanish princess, and sometimes even Ferdinand of 
 Spain, as the rightful occupant of the Portuguese throne. These 
 rebels crossed the frontier, not at one point only, but at several 
 points ; for it is remarkable that the aggression, on which the 
 original application to Great Britain for succor was founded, 
 is not the aggression with reference to which that application 
 has been complied with. 
 
 The attack announced by the French newspapers was on the 
 north of Portugal, in the province of Tras-os-Montes ; an of- 
 ficial account of which has been received by His Majesty's Gov- 
 ernment only this day. But on Friday an account was received 
 of an invasion in the south of Portugal, and of the capture of 
 Villa Vicosa, a town lying on the road from the southern fron- 
 tier to Lisbon. This new fact established even more satisfac- 
 torily than a mere confirmation of the attack first complained of 
 would have done, the systematic nature of the aggression of 
 Spain against Portugal. One hostile irruption might have been 
 made by some single corps escaping from their quarters — by 
 some body of stragglers, who might have evaded the vigilance 
 Vol. II. — 5
 
 66 CANNING 
 
 of Spanish authorities ; and one such accidental and unconnect- 
 ed act of violence might not have been conclusive evidence oi 
 cognizance and design on the part of those authorities ; but 
 when a series of attacks are made along the whole line of a 
 frontier, it is difficult to deny that such multiplied instances of 
 hostility are evidence of concerted aggression. 
 
 If a single company of Spanish soldiers had crossed the 
 frontier in hostile array, there could not, it is presumed, be a 
 doubt as to the character of that invasion. Shall bodies of 
 men, armed, clothed, and regimented by Spain, carry fire and 
 sword into the bosom of her unoffending neighbor, and shall 
 it be pretended that no attack, no invasion has taken place, be- 
 cause, forsooth, these outrages are committed against Portugal 
 by men to whom Portugal had given birth and nurture ? What 
 petty quibbling would it be to say that an invasion of Portugal 
 from Spain was not a Spanish invasion, because Spain did not 
 employ her own troops, but hired mercenaries to effect her 
 purpose ? And what difference is it, except as an aggravation, 
 that the mercenaries in this instance were natives of Portugal. 
 
 I have already stated, and I now repeat, that it never has 
 been the wish or the pretension of the British government to in- 
 terfere in the internal concerns of the Portuguese nation. Ques- 
 tions of that kind the Portuguese nation must settle among 
 themselves. But if we were to admit that hordes of traitorous 
 refugees from Portugal, with Spanish arms, or arms furnished 
 or restored to them by Spanish authorities, in their hands, might 
 put off their country for one purpose, and put it on again for 
 another — put it off for the purpose of attack, and put it on 
 again for the purpose of impunity — if, I say, we were to admit 
 this juggle, and either pretend to be deceived by it ourselves, 
 or attempt to deceive Portugal, into a belief that there was 
 nothing of external attack, nothing of foreign hostility, in such 
 a system of aggression — such pretence and attempt would, per- 
 haps, be only ridiculous and contemptible ; if they did not re- 
 quire a much more serious character from being employed as an 
 excuse for infidelity to ancient friendship, and as a pretext for 
 getting rid of the positive stipulations of treaties. 
 
 This, then, is the case which I lay before the House of Com- 
 mons. Here is, on the one hand, an undoubted pledge of na- 
 tional faith — not taken in a corner — not kept secret between the
 
 ON GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL 67 
 
 parties, but publicly recorded among the annals of history, in 
 the face of the world. Here are, on the other hand, undeniable 
 acts of foreign aggression, perpetrated, indeed, principally 
 through the instrumentality of domestic traitors, but supported 
 with foreign means, instigated by foreign councils, and directed 
 to foreign ends. Putting these facts and this pledge together, 
 it is impossible that His Majesty should refuse the call that has 
 been made upon him ; nor can Parliament, I am convinced, 
 refuse to enable His Majesty to fulfil his undoubted obligations. 
 I am willing to rest the whole question of to-night, and to call 
 for the vote of the House of Commons upon this simple case, 
 divested altogether of collateral circumstances ; from which I 
 especially wish to separate it, in the minds of those who hear 
 me, and also in the minds of others, to whom what I now say 
 will find its way. If I were to sit down this moment, without 
 adding another word, I have no doubt but that I should have 
 the concurrence of the House in the address which I mean to 
 propose. 
 
 When I state this it will be obvious to the House that the 
 vote for which I am about to call upon them is a vote for the 
 defence of Portugal, not a vote for war against Spain. I beg 
 the House to keep these two points entirely distinct in their 
 consideration. For the former I think I have said enough. If, 
 in what I have now further to say, I should bear hard upon the 
 Spanish Government I beg that it may be observed that, un- 
 justifiable as I shall show their conduct to have been — contrary 
 to the law of nations, contrary to the law of good neighborhood, 
 contrary, I might say, to the laws of God and man — with respect 
 to Portugal ! — still I do not mean to preclude a locus pccnitentice, 
 a possibility of redress and reparation. It is our duty to fly to 
 the defence of Portugal, be the assailant who he may. And, be 
 it remembered, that, in thus fulfilling the stipulation of ancient 
 treaties, of the existence and obligation of which all the world 
 are aware, we, according to the universally admitted construc- 
 tion of the law of nations, neither make war upon that assailant, 
 nor give to that assailant, much less to any other power, just 
 cause of war against ourselves. 
 
 Sir, the present situation of Portugal is so anomalous, and 
 the recent years of her history are crowded with events so un- 
 usual, that the House will, perhaps, not think that I am unprof-
 
 68 CANNING 
 
 itably wasting its time, if I take the liberty of calling its atten- 
 tion, shortly and succinctly, to those events, and to their influ- 
 ence on the political relations of Europe. It is known that 
 the consequence of the residence of the King of Portugal in 
 Brazil was to raise the latter country from a colonial to a met- 
 ropolitan condition ; and that, from the time when the King be- 
 gan to contemplate his return to Portugal, there grew up in 
 Brazil a desire of independence that threatened dissension, if 
 not something like civil contest, between the European and 
 American dominions of the House of Braganza. It is known, 
 also, that Great Britain undertook a mediation between Portu- 
 gal and Brazil, and induced the King to consent to a separation 
 of the two crowns — confirming that of Brazil on the head of 
 his eldest son. The ink with which this agreement was written 
 was scarcely dry when the unexpected death of the King of Por- 
 tugal produced a new state of things, which reunited on the same 
 head the two crowns which it had been the policy of England, 
 as well as of Portugal and of Brazil, to separate. On that occa- 
 sion Great Britain and another European Court, closely con- 
 nected with Brazil, tendered advice to the Emperor of Brazil, 
 now become King of Portugal, which advice it cannot be ac- 
 curately said that his Imperial Majesty followed, because he had 
 decided for himself before it reached Rio de Janeiro ; but in 
 conformity with which advice, though not in consequence of it, 
 his Imperial Majesty determined to abdicate the crown of Por- 
 tugal in favor of his eldest daughter. But the Emperor of 
 Brazil had done more. What had not been foreseen — what 
 would have been beyond the province of any foreign power to 
 advise — his Imperial Majesty had accompanied his abdication 
 of the crown of Portugal with the grant of a free constitutional 
 charter for that kingdom. 
 
 It has been surmised that this measure, as well as the abdica- 
 tion which it accompanied, was the offspring of our advice. 
 No such thing — Great Britain did not suggest this measure. It 
 is not her duty nor her practice to offer suggestions for the in- 
 ternal regulation of foreign states. She neither approved nor 
 disapproved of the grant of a constitutional charter to Portugal ; 
 her opinion upon that grant was never required. True it is, 
 that the instrument of the constitutional charter was brought to 
 Europe by a gentleman of high trust in the service of the Brit-
 
 ON GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL 69 
 
 ish government. Sir C. Stuart had gone to Brazil to nego- 
 tiate the separation between that country and Portugal. In ad- 
 dition to his character of plenipotentiary of Great Britain, as the 
 mediating power, he had also been invested by the King of 
 Portugal with the character of his most faithful Majesty's pleni- 
 potentiary for the negotiation with Brazil. That negotiation 
 had been brought to a happy conclusion ; and therewith the 
 British part of Sir C. Stuart's commission had terminated. But 
 Sir C. Stuart was still resident at Rio de Janeiro, as the plenipo- 
 tentiary of the King of Portugal, for negotiating commercial 
 arrangements between Portugal and Brazil. In this latter char- 
 acter it was that Sir C. Stuart, on his return to Europe, was re- 
 quested by the Emperor of Brazil to be the bearer to Portugal 
 of the new constitutional charter. His Majesty's government 
 found no fault with Sir C. Stuart for executing this commission ; 
 but it was immediately felt that if Sir C. Stuart were allowed to 
 remain at Lisbon it might appear, in the eyes of Europe, that 
 England was the contriver and imposer of the Portuguese con- 
 stitution. Sir C. Stuart was, therefore, directed to return home 
 forthwith, in order that the constitution, if carried into effect 
 there might plainly appear to be adopted by the Portuguese 
 nation itself, not forced upon them by English interference. 
 
 As to the merits, sir, of the new constitution of Portugal I 
 have neither the intention nor the right to offer any opinion. 
 Personally, I may have formed one ; but as an English minister, 
 all I have to say is : May God prosper this attempt at the es- 
 tablishment of constitutional liberty in Portugal ! and may that 
 nation be found as fit to enjoy and to cherish its new-born priv- 
 ileges as it has often proved itself capable of discharging its du- 
 ties among the nations of the world ! 
 
 I, sir, am neither the champion nor the critic of the Portu- 
 guese constitution. But it is admitted on all hands to have pro- 
 ceeded from a legitimate source — a consideration which has 
 mainly reconciled continental Europe to its establishment ; and 
 to us, as Englishmen, it is recommended by the ready accep- 
 tance which it has met with from all orders of the Portuguese 
 people. To that constitution, therefore, thus unquestioned in 
 its origin, even by those who are most jealous of new institu- 
 tions — to that constitution, thus sanctioned in its outset by the 
 glad and grateful acclamations of those who are destined to live
 
 70 CANNING 
 
 under it — to that constitution, founded on principles, in a great 
 degree, similar to those of our own, though differently modified 
 — it is impossible that Englishmen should not wish well. But 
 it would not be for us to force that constitution on the people of 
 Portugal, if they were unwilling to receive it, or if any schism 
 should exist among the Portuguese themselves, as to its fitness 
 and congeniality to the wants and wishes of the nation. It is 
 no business of ours to fight its battles. We go to Portugal in 
 the discharge of a sacred obligation, contracted under ancient 
 and modern treaties. When there nothing shall be done by us 
 to enforce the establishment of the constitution ; but we must 
 take care that nothing shall be done by others to prevent it 
 from being fairly carried into effect. Internally, let the Portu- 
 guese settle their own affairs ; but with respect to external force, 
 while Great Britain has an arm to raise, it must be raised 
 against the efforts of any power that should attempt forcibly 
 to control the choice and fetter the independence of Portugal. 
 
 Has such been the intention of Spain? Whether the pro- 
 ceedings which have lately been practised or permitted in 
 Spain were acts of a government exercising the usual power of 
 prudence and foresight (without which a government is, for the 
 good of the people which live under it, no government at all), 
 or whether they were the acts of some secret illegitimate power 
 — of some furious fanatical faction, overriding the counsels of 
 the ostensible government, defying it in the capital, and diso- 
 beying it on the frontiers — I will not stop to inquire. It is in- 
 different to Portugal, smarting under her wrongs — it is indif- 
 ferent to England, who is called upon to avenge them — 
 whether the present state of things be the result of the intrigues 
 of a faction, over which, if the Spanish government has no con- 
 trol, it ought to assume one as soon as possible ; or of local 
 authorities, over whom it has control, and for whose acts it 
 must, therefore, be held responsible. It matters not, I say, 
 from which of these sources the evil has arisen. In either case 
 Portugal must be protected; and from England that protec- 
 tion is due. 
 
 It would be unjust, however, to the Spanish government to 
 say that it is only among the members of that government that 
 an unconquerable hatred of liberal institutions exists in Spain. 
 However incredible the phenomena may appear in this country,
 
 ON GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL 71 
 
 I am persuaded that a vast majority of the Spanish nation enter- 
 tain a decided attachment to arbitrary power, and a predilection 
 for absolute government. The more liberal institutions of 
 countries in the neighborhood have not yet extended their in- 
 fluence into Spain, nor awakened any sympathy in the mass of 
 the Spanish people. Whether the public authorities of Spain 
 did or did not partake of the national sentiment, there would 
 almost necessarily grow up between Portugal and Spain, under 
 present circumstances, an opposition of feelings which it would 
 not require the authority or the suggestions of the government 
 to excite and stimulate into action. Without blame, therefore, 
 to the government of Spain — out of the natural antipathy be- 
 tween the two neighboring nations — the one prizing its recent 
 freedom, the other hugging its traditionary servitude — there 
 might arise mutual provocations and reciprocal injuries, which, 
 perhaps, even the most active and vigilant ministry could not al- 
 together restrain. I am inclined to believe that such has been, 
 in part at least, the origin of the differences between Spain and 
 Portugal. That in their progress they have been adopted, ma- 
 tured, methodized, combined, and brought into more perfect 
 action, by some authority more united and more efficient than 
 the mere feeling disseminated through the mass of the com- 
 munity, is certain ; but I do believe their origin to have been 
 as much in the real sentiment of the Spanish population as in 
 the opinion or contrivance of the government itself. 
 
 Whether this be or be not the case is precisely the question 
 between us and Spain. If, though partaking in the general 
 feelings of the Spanish nation, the Spanish government has, 
 nevertheless, done nothing to embody those feelings, and to 
 direct them hostilely against Portugal ; if all that has occurred 
 on the frontier has occurred only because the vigilance of the 
 Spanish government has been surprised, its confidence be- 
 trayed, and its orders neglected ; if its engagements have been 
 repeatedly and shamefully violated, not by its own good-will, 
 but against its recommendation and desire, let us see some 
 symptoms of disapprobation, some signs of repentance, some 
 measures indicative of sorrow for the past and of sincerity for 
 the future. In that case His Majesty's message, to which I 
 propose this night to return an answer of concurrence, will re- 
 tain the character which I have ascribed to it — that of a meas-
 
 72 CANNING 
 
 ure of defence for Portugal, not a measure of resentment against 
 Spain. 
 
 With these explanations and qualifications let us now pro- 
 ceed to the review of facts. Great desertions took place from the 
 Portuguese army into Spain, and some desertions took place 
 from the Spanish army into Portugal. In the first instance, 
 the Portuguese authorities were taken by surprise ; but in every 
 subsequent instance, where they had an opportunity of exer- 
 cising a discretion, it is but just to say that they uniformly dis- 
 couraged the desertions of the Spanish soldiery. There exist 
 between Spain and Portugal specific treaties, stipulating the 
 mutual surrender of deserters. Portugal had, therefore, a right 
 to claim of Spain that every Portuguese deserter should be 
 forthwith sent back. I hardly know whether from its own im- 
 pulse, or in consequence of our advice, the Portuguese gov- 
 ernment waived its right under those treaties ; -very wisely 
 reflecting that it would be highly inconvenient to be placed by 
 the return of their deserters in the difficult alternative of either 
 granting a dangerous amnesty or ordering numerous executions. 
 The Portuguese government, therefore, signified to Spain that 
 it would be entirely satisfied if, instead of surrendering the de- 
 serters, Spain would restore their arms, horses, and equipments ; 
 and, separating the men from their officers, would remove both 
 from the frontiers into the interior of Spain. Solemn engage- 
 ments were entered into by the Spanish government to this 
 effect — first with Portugal, next with France, and afterwards 
 with England. Those engagements, concluded one day, were 
 violated the next. The deserters, instead of being disarmed 
 and dispersed, were allowed to remain congregated together 
 near the frontiers of Portugal, where they were enrolled, trained, 
 and disciplined for the expedition which they have since under- 
 taken. It is plain that in these proceedings there was perfidy 
 somewhere. It rests with the Spanish government to show 
 that it was not with them. It rests with the Spanish govern- 
 ment to prove that, if its engagements have not been fulfilled 
 — if its intentions have been eluded and unexecuted — the fault 
 has not been with the government, and that it is ready to make 
 every reparation in its power. 
 
 I have said that these promises were made to France and to 
 Great Britain as well as to Portugal. I should do a great injus-
 
 ON GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL 73 
 
 tice to France if I were not to add that the representations of 
 that government upon this point to the Cabinet of Madrid have 
 been as urgent, and, alas ! as fruitless, as those of Great Britain. 
 Upon the first irruption into the Portuguese territory the 
 French government testified its displeasure by instantly recall- 
 ing its ambassador ; and it further directed its charge d'affaires 
 to signify to his Catholic Majesty that Spain was not to look for 
 any support from France against the consequences of this ag- 
 gression upon Portugal. I am bound, I repeat, in justice to 
 the French government, to state that it has exerted itself to 
 the utmost in urging Spain to retrace the steps which she has 
 so unfortunately taken. It is not for me to say whether any 
 more efficient course might have been adopted to give effect 
 to their exhortations ; but as to the sincerity and good faith of 
 the exertions made by the government of France to press 
 Spain to the execution of her engagements I have not the 
 shadow of a doubt, and I confidently reckon upon their con- 
 tinuance. 
 
 It will be for Spain, upon knowledge of the step now taken 
 by His Majesty, to consider in what way she will meet it. The 
 earnest hope and wish of His Majesty's Government is that she 
 may meet it in such a manner as to avert any ill consequences to 
 herself from the measure into which we have been driven by 
 the unjust attack upon Portugal. 
 
 Sir, I set out with saying that there were reasons which en- 
 tirely satisfied my judgment that nothing short of a point of 
 national faith or national honor would justify, at the present 
 moment, any voluntary approximation to the possibility of war. 
 Let me be understood, however, distinctly as not meaning to 
 say that I dread war in a good cause (and in no other way 
 may it be the lot of this country ever to engage !) from a dis- 
 trust of the strength of the country to commence it, or of her 
 resources to maintain it. I dread it, indeed — but upon far other 
 grounds : I dread it from an apprehension of the tremendous 
 consequences which might arise from any hostilities in which 
 we might now be engaged. Some years ago, in the discussion 
 of the negotiations respecting the French war against Spain, I 
 took the liberty of adverting to this topic. I then stated that 
 the position of this country in the present state of the world 
 was one of neutrality, not only between contending nations, but
 
 74 CANNING 
 
 between conflicting principles; and that it was by neutrality 
 alone that we could maintain that balance, the preservation of 
 which I believed to be essential to the welfare of mankind. I 
 then said that I feared that the next war which should be 
 kindled in Europe would be a war not so much of armies as 
 of opinions. Not four years have elapsed, and behold my ap- 
 prehension realized ! It is, to be sure, within narrow limits that 
 this war of opinion is at present confined ; but it is a war of opin- 
 ion that Spain (whether as government or as nation) is now 
 waging against Portugal ; it is a war which has commenced in 
 hatred of the new institutions of Portugal. How long is it 
 reasonable to expect that Portugal will abstain from retaliation ? 
 If into that war this country shall be compelled to enter we 
 shall enter into it with a sincere and anxious desire to mitigate 
 rather than exasperate — and to mingle only in the conflict of 
 arms, not in the more fatal conflict of opinions. But I much 
 fear that this country (however earnestly she may endeavor to 
 avoid it) could not, in such case, avoid seeing ranked under 
 her banners all the restless and dissatisfied of any nation with 
 which she might come in conflict. It is the contemplation of 
 this new power in any future war which excites my most anx- 
 ious apprehension. It is one thing to have a giant's strength, 
 but it would be another to use it like a giant. The conscious- 
 ness of such strength is, undoubtedly, a source of confidence 
 and security ; but in the situation in which this country stands, 
 our business is not to seek opportunities of displaying it, but to 
 content ourselves with letting the professors of violent and ex- 
 aggerated doctrines on both sides feel that it is not their interest 
 to convert an umpire into an adversary. The situation of Eng- 
 land, amid the struggle of political opinions which agitates more 
 or less sensibly different countries of the world, may be com- 
 pared to that of the Ruler of the Winds, as described by the 
 poet : 
 
 " Celsa sedet AZolus arce, 
 Sceptra tenens ; mollitqiie animos et temperat z'ras 
 Nz facial, marz'a ac terras ccehimque profundum 
 Qitippe ferant rapidi secum, verrantque per auras" 
 
 The consequence of letting loose the passions at present 
 chained and confined would be to produce a scene of desolation
 
 ON GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL 75 
 
 which no man can contemplate without horror ; and I should 
 not sleep easy on my couch if I were conscious that I had con- 
 tributed to precipitate it by a single moment. 
 
 This, then, is the reason — a reason very different from fear — 
 the reverse of a consciousness of disability — why I dread the re- 
 currence of hostilities in any part of Europe ; why I would bear 
 much, and would forbear long; why I would (as I have said) 
 put up with almost anything that did not touch national faith 
 and national honor, rather than let slip the furies of war, the 
 leash of which we hold in our hands — not knowing whom they 
 may reach, or how far their ravages may be carried. Such is 
 the love of peace which the British government acknowledges ; 
 and such the necessity for peace which the circumstances of the 
 world inculcate. I will push these topics no further. 
 
 I return, in conclusion, to the object of the address. Let 
 us fly to the aid of Portugal, by whomsoever attacked, because 
 it is our duty to do so ; and let us cease our interference where 
 that duty ends. We go to Portugal not to rule, not to dictate, 
 not to prescribe constitutions, but to defend and to preserve 
 the independence of an ally. We go to plant the standard of 
 England on the well-known heights of Lisbon. Where that 
 standard is planted foreign dominion shall not come.
 
 ON THE RIGHTS OF CATHOLICS 
 
 BY 
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL 
 
 1775— 1847 
 
 The great Irish agitator was born in Cahirciveen, County Kerry, Ire- 
 land, on August 6, 1775 ; his death took place when he had reached his 
 seventy-third year, at Genoa, on the coast of Italy. His parents des- 
 tined him for the priesthood, and sent him to the Jesuits' college at 
 St. Omer for instruction ; but after he had finished his course, he 
 announced that he preferred the law of man to the priesthood as a 
 profession. To the Middle Temple therefore he went, and after duly 
 completing his terms there, was admitted to the Irish bar in 1798, at 
 which date it had been just opened to the Catholics. He had great 
 powers as an advocate, and his skill and versatility in conducting de- 
 fences before the Crown courts caused him sometimes to be charged 
 with inconsistencies. But his extraordinary merits could not be ob- 
 scured; and in 1831 he received his silk gown. 
 
 Long before this, however, he had become famous elsewhere than in 
 forensic matters. He was not satisfied to be the foremost advocate of the 
 Irish bar; it was not long before he had won the reputation of being 
 also the leader of the Irish Catholics in the political field. He was 
 resolved to obtain for his countrymen admission to all the rights of 
 other British subjects; and he was chiefly instrumental in forwarding 
 the results obtained by the Catholic Board and the Catholic Associa- 
 tion. All this was not accomplished without animated personal col- 
 lisions; and he was challenged for having applied the epithet of " beg- 
 garly corporation " to the corporation of Dublin, which opposed the 
 Catholic claims. He met his antagonist, and killed him. He was 
 subsequently challenged by Mr. Peel, at the time when the latter was 
 Secretary for Ireland ; but two attempts to fight a duel were frustrated 
 by the authorities. 
 
 The repeal of the union and the removal of Catholic disabilities were 
 the two measures to the securing of which he devoted his main ener- 
 gies. Before the relief bill was passed he had expressed the opinion 
 that it was possible for him to sit in Parliament; and he had accord- 
 ingly been elected to the seat for County Clare; but he made no attempt 
 to take his seat until after the bill had been passed. He was then 
 required to take the usual oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjura- 
 tion; and when he claimed the benefit of the bill, it was decided that 
 he was not entitled to the advantage of its provisions; and he was not 
 permitted to sit. But upon being re-elected, the prohibition was re- 
 moved. In 1831 he was elected to sit for Kerry; in the same year he 
 was arrested for sedition, or the suspicion of it, together with several 
 others, but the prosecution came to nothing, and all were released. In 
 1841 he headed the repeal agitation, and during the two following years 
 he promoted vast mass-meetings; in 1843 he was again arrested; but 
 in 1844 the sentence which had been passed upon him was reversed. 
 
 O'Connell's natural manner of speaking, in accordance with his 
 nature and temperament, was bold and aggressive; but he could at 
 will adopt the most suave and cautious methods. In short, he was a 
 master of the oratorical and rhetorical arts; and his indomitable cour- 
 age and persistence rendered him a most formidable parliamentary 
 debater. The speech " On the Rights of Catholics " is a good example 
 of his oratory in the cause to which he devoted the greatest efforts of 
 his life. 
 
 78
 
 ON THE RIGHTS OF CATHOLICS 
 
 Delivered at a meeting in Dublin, February 23, 1814 
 
 I WISH to submit to the meeting a resolution, calling on the 
 different counties and cities in Ireland to petition for 
 unqualified emancipation. It is a resolution which has 
 been already and frequently adopted ; when we have persevered 
 in our petitions, even at periods when we despaired of success ; 
 and it becomes a pleasing duty to present it, now that the symp- 
 toms of the times seem so powerfully to promise an approach- 
 ing relief. 
 
 Indeed, as long as truth or justice can be supposed to influ- 
 ence man ; as long as man is admitted to be under the control 
 of reason ; so long must it be prudent and wise to procure dis- 
 cussions on the sufferings and the rights of the people of 
 Ireland. Truth proclaims the treacherous iniquity which has 
 deprived us of our chartered liberty ; truth destroys the flimsy 
 pretext under which this iniquity is continued ; truth exposes 
 our merits and our sufferings ; whilst reason and justice com- 
 bine to demonstrate our right — the right of every human being 
 to freedom of conscience — a right without which every honest 
 man must feel that to him, individually, the protection of gov- 
 ernment is a mockery, and the restriction of penal law a sac- 
 rilege. 
 
 Truth, reason, and justice are our advocates ; and even in 
 England let me tell you that those powerful advocates have 
 some authority. They are, it is true, more frequently resisted 
 there than in most other countries ; but yet they have some 
 sway among the English at all times. Passion may confound 
 and prejudice darken the English understanding; and inter- 
 ested passion and hired prejudice have been successfully em- 
 ployed against us at former periods ; but the present season 
 appears singularly well calculated to aid the progress of our 
 cause, and to advance the attainment of our important objects. 
 
 79
 
 80 O'CONNELL 
 
 I do not make the assertion lightly. I speak after deliberate 
 investigation, and from solemn conviction, my clear opinion 
 that we shall, during the present session of Parliament, obtain 
 a portion, at least, if not the entire, of our emancipation. We 
 cannot fail, unless we are disturbed in our course by those who 
 graciously style themselves our friends, or are betrayed by the 
 treacherous machinations of part of our own body. 
 
 Yes, everything, except false friendship and domestic 
 treachery, forebodes success. The cause of man is in its 
 great advance. Humanity has been rescued from much of its 
 thraldom. In the states of Europe, where the iron despotism 
 of the feudal system so long classed men into two species — 
 the hereditary masters and the perpetual slaves ; when rank 
 supplied the place of merit, and to be humbly born operated 
 as a perpetual exclusion — in many parts of Europe man is 
 reassuming his natural station, and artificial distinctions have 
 vanished before the force of truth and the necessities of 
 governors. 
 
 France has a representative government ; and as the unjust 
 privileges of the clergy and nobility are abolished; as she is 
 blessed with a most wise, clear, and simple code of laws ; as 
 she is almost free from debt, and emancipated from odious 
 prejudices, she is likely to prove an example and a light to the 
 world. 
 
 In Germany the sovereigns who formerly ruled at their free 
 will and caprice are actually bribing the people to the support 
 of their thrones, by giving them the blessings of liberty. 
 It is a wise and glorious policy. The prince regent has 
 emancipated his Catholic subjects of Hanover, and traced 
 for them the grand outlines of a free constitution. The other 
 states of Germany are rapidly following the example. The 
 people, no longer destined to bear the burdens only of society, 
 are called up to take their share in the management of their 
 own concerns, and in the sustentation of the public dignity 
 and happiness. In short, representative government, the only 
 rational or just government, is proclaimed by princes as a 
 boon to their people, and Germany is about to afford many an 
 example of the advantages of rational liberty. Anxious as 
 some kings appear to be in the great work of plunder and 
 robbery, others of them are now the first heralds of freedom.
 
 ON THE RIGHTS OF CATHOLICS 81 
 
 It is a moment of glorious triumph to humanity ; and even 
 one instance of liberty, freely conceded, makes compensation 
 for a thousand repetitions of the ordinary crimes of military 
 monarchs. The crime is followed by its own punishment ; but 
 the great principle of the rights of man establishes itself now 
 on the broadest basis, and France and Germany now set forth 
 an example for England to imitate. 
 
 Italy, too, is in the paroxysms of the fever of independence. 
 Oh, may she have strength to go through the disease, and may 
 she rise like a giant refreshed with wine ! One thing is certain, 
 that the human mind is set afloat in Italy. The flame of 
 freedom burns ; it may be smothered for a season ; but all the 
 whiskered Croats and the fierce Pandours of Austria will not 
 be able to extinguish the sacred fire. Spain, to be sure, chills 
 the heart and disgusts the understanding. The combined 
 Inquisition and the Court press upon the mind, whilst they 
 bind the body in fetters of adamant. But this despotism is, 
 thank God, as unrelentingly absurd as it is cruel, and there 
 arises a darling hope out of the very excess of the evil. The 
 Spaniards must be walking corpses — they must be living 
 ghosts, and not human beings, unless a sublime reaction be in 
 rapid preparation. But let us turn to our own prospects. 
 
 The cause of liberty has made, and is making, great progress 
 in states heretofore despotic. In all the countries in Europe, 
 in which any portion of freedom prevails, the liberty of 
 conscience is complete. England alone, of all the states 
 pretending to be free, leaves shackles upon the human mind ; 
 England alone, amongst free states, exhibits the absurd claim 
 of regulating belief by law, and forcing opinion by statute. 
 Is it possible to conceive that this gross, this glaring, this 
 iniquitous absurdity can continue? Is it possible, too, to con- 
 ceive that it can continue to operate, not against a small and 
 powerless sect, but against the millions, comprising the best 
 strength, the most affluent energy of the empire? — a strength 
 and an energy daily increasing, and hourly appreciating their 
 own importance. The present system, disavowed by liberalized 
 Europe, disclaimed by sound reason, abhorred by genuine 
 religion, must soon and forever be abolished. 
 
 Let it not be said that the princes of the Continent were 
 forced by necessity to give privileges to their subjects, and that 
 Vol. II.-6
 
 82 O'CONNELL 
 
 England has escaped from a similar fate. I admit that the 
 necessity of procuring the support of the people was the main- 
 spring of royal patriotism on the Continent ; but I totally deny 
 that the ministers of England can dispense with a similar 
 support. The burdens of the war are permanent ; the dis- 
 tresses occasioned by the peace are pressing; the financial 
 system tottering, and to be supported in profound peace 
 only by a war taxation. In the mean time, the resources of 
 corruption are mightily diminished. Ministerial influence is 
 necessarily diminished by one-half of the effective force of 
 indirect bribery ; full two-thirds must be disbanded. Peculation 
 and corruption must be put upon half-pay, and no allowances. 
 The ministry lose not only all those active partisans ; those 
 outrageous loyalists, who fattened on the public plunder during 
 the seasons of immense expenditure ; but those very men will 
 themselves swell the ranks of the malcontents, and probably 
 be the most violent in their opposition. They have no sweet 
 consciousness to reward them in their present privations ; and 
 therefore they are likely to exhaust the bitterness of their souls 
 on their late employers. Every cause conspires to render this 
 the period in which the ministry should have least inclination, 
 least interest, least power, to oppose the restoration of our 
 rights and liberties. 
 
 I speak not from mere theory. There exist at this moment 
 practical illustrations of the truth of my assertions. Instances 
 have occurred which demonstrate, as well the inability of the 
 ministry to resist the popular voice, as the utility of re-echoing 
 that voice, until it is heard and understood in all its strength 
 and force. The ministers had determined to continue the 
 property tax; they announced that determination to their 
 partisans at Liverpool and in Bristol. Well, the people of 
 England met ; they petitioned ; they repeated — they reiterated 
 their petitions, until the ministry felt they could no longer 
 resist ; and they ungraciously, but totally, abandoned their 
 determination ; and the property tax now expires. 
 
 Another instance is also now before us. It relates to the 
 Corn Laws. The success of the repetition of petitions in that 
 instance is the more remarkable, because such success has 
 been obtained in defiance of the first principles of political 
 economy, and in violation of the plainest rules of political 
 justice.
 
 ON THE RIGHTS OF CATHOLICS 83 
 
 This is not the place to discuss the merits of the Corn Laws ; 
 but I cannot avoid, as the subject lies in my way, to put upon 
 public record my conviction of the inutility as well as the 
 impropriety of the proposed measure respecting those laws. 
 I expect that it will be believed in Ireland that I would not 
 volunteer thus an opposition of sentiment to any measure, if 
 I was not most disinterestedly, and in my conscience, convinced 
 that such measure would not be of any substantial or permanent 
 utility to Ireland. 
 
 As far as I am personally concerned, my interest plainly is to 
 keep up the price of lands ; but I am quite convinced that the 
 measure in question will have an effect permanently and fatally 
 injurious to Ireland. The clamor respecting the Corn Laws 
 has been fomented by parsons who were afraid that they would 
 not get money enough for their tithes, and absentee landlords, 
 who apprehended a diminution of their rack rents ; and if you 
 observed the names of those who have taken an active part in 
 favor of the measure, you will find amongst them many, if not 
 all, the persons who have most distinguished themselves against 
 the liberty and refigion of the people. There have been, I know, 
 many good men misled, and many clever men deceived, on thin 
 subject ; but the great majority are of the class of oppressors. 
 
 There was formed, some time ago, an association of a 
 singular nature in Dublin and the adjacent counties. Mr 
 Luke White was, as I remember, at the head of it. It con- 
 tained some of our stoutest and most stubborn seceders; it 
 published the causes of its institution ; it recited that, whereas 
 butcher's meat was dearer in Cork, and in Limerick, and in 
 Belfast than in Dublin, it was therefore expedient to associate, 
 in order that the people of Dublin should not eat meat too 
 cheap. Large sums were subscribed to carry the patriotic 
 design into effect, but public indignation broke up the ostensi- 
 ble confederacy ; it was too plain and too glaring to bear public 
 inspection. The indignant sense of the people of Dublin 
 forced them to dissolve their open association; and if the 
 present enormous increase of the price of meat in Dublin 
 beyond the rest of Ireland be the result of secret combination 
 of any individuals, there is at least this comfort, that they do 
 not presume to beard the public with the open avowal of 
 their design to increase the difficulties of the poor in procuring 
 food.
 
 8 4 O'CONNELL 
 
 Such a scheme as that, with respect to meat in Dublin — such 
 a scheme, precisely, is the sought-for Corn Law. The only 
 difference consists in the extent of the operation of both plans. 
 The corn plan is only more extensive, not more unjust in 
 principle, but it is more unreasonable in its operation, because 
 its necessary tendency must be to destroy that very market of 
 which it seeks the exclusive possession. The Corn Law men 
 want, they say, to have the exclusive feeding of the manu- 
 facturers ;' but at present our manufacturers, loaded as they 
 are with taxation, are scarcely able to meet the goods of 
 foreigners in the markets of the world. The English are 
 already undersold in foreign markets ; but if to this dearness 
 produced by taxation there shall be added the dearness pro- 
 duced by dear food, is it not plain that it will be impossible to 
 enter into a competition with foreign manufacturers, who have 
 no taxes and cheap bread? Thus the Corn Laws will destroy 
 our manufactures, and compel our manufacturers to emigrate, 
 in spite of penalties ; and the Corn Law supporters will have 
 injured themselves and destroyed others. 
 
 I beg pardon for dwelling on this subject. If I were at 
 liberty to pursue it here, I would not leave it until I had 
 satisfied every dispassionate man that the proposed measure is 
 both useless and unjust ; but this is not the place for doing 
 so, and I only beg to record at least the honest dictates of my 
 judgment on this interesting topic. My argument, of the 
 efficacy of petitioning, is strengthened by the impolicy of the 
 measure in question ; because, if petitions, by their number and 
 perseverance, succeed in establishing a proposition impolitic 
 in principle, and oppressive to thousands in operation, what 
 encouragement does it not afford to us to repeat our petitions 
 for that which has justice for its basis, and policy as its support ! 
 
 The great advantages of discussion being thus apparent, the 
 efficacy of repeating, and repeating, and repeating again our 
 petitions being thus demonstrated by notorious facts, the 
 Catholics of Ireland must be sunk in criminal apathy if they 
 neglect the use of an instrument so efficacious for their eman- 
 cipation. 
 
 There is further encouragement at this particular crisis. 
 Dissension has ceased in the Catholic body. Those who 
 paralyzed our efforts, and gave our conduct the appearance and
 
 ON THE RIGHTS OF CATHOLICS 85 
 
 reality of weakness, and wavering, and inconsistency, have all 
 retired. Those who were ready to place the entire of the 
 Catholic feelings and dignity, and some of the Catholic religion 
 too, under the feet of every man who pleased to call himself our 
 friend, and to prove himself our friend, by praising on every 
 occasion, and upon no occasion, the oppressors of the Catholics, 
 and by abusing the Catholics themselves ; the men who would 
 link the Catholic cause to this patron and to that, and sacrifice 
 it at one time to the minister, and at another time to the oppo- 
 sition, and make it this day the tool of one party, and the next 
 the instrument of another party ; the men, in fine, who hoped to 
 traffic upon our country and our religion — who would buy 
 honors, and titles, and places, and pensions, at the price of 
 the purity, and dignity, and safety of the Catholic Church in 
 Ireland ; all those men have, thank God, quitted us, I hope for- 
 ever. They have returned into silence and secession, or have 
 frankly or covertly gone over to our enemies. I regret deeply 
 and bitterly that they have carried with them some few who, 
 like my Lord Fingal, entertain no other motives than those of 
 purity and integrity, and who, like that noble lord, are merely 
 mistaken. 
 
 But I rejoice at this separation — I rejoice that they have left 
 the single-hearted, and the disinterested, and the indefatigable, 
 and the independent, and the numerous, and the sincere Catho- 
 lics to work out their emancipation unclogged, unshackled, and 
 undismayed. They have bestowed on us another bounty also 
 — they have proclaimed the causes of their secession — they 
 have placed out of doubt the cause of the divisions. It is not 
 intemperance, for that we abandoned ; it is not the introduction 
 of extraneous topics, for those we disclaimed ; it is simply and 
 purely, veto or no veto — restriction or no restriction — no other 
 words ; it is religion and principle that have divided us ; 
 thanks, many thanks to the tardy and remote candor of the 
 seceders, that has at length written in large letters the cause 
 of their secession — it is the Catholic Church of Ireland — it is 
 whether the Church shall continue independent of a Protestant 
 ministry or not. We are for its independence^ — the seceders are 
 for its dependence. 
 
 Whatever shall be the fate of our emancipation question, 
 thank God we are divided forever from those who would wish.
 
 86 O'CONNELL 
 
 that our Church should crouch to the partisans of the Orange 
 system. Thank God, secession has displayed its cloven foot, 
 and avowed itself to be synonymous with vetoism. 
 
 Those are our present prospects of success. First, man is 
 elevated from slavery almost everywhere, and human nature 
 has become more dignified, and, I may say, more valuable. 
 Secondly, England wants our cordial support, and knows that 
 she has only to secede to us justice in order to obtain our 
 affectionate assistance. Thirdly, this is the season of successful 
 petition, and the very fashion of the times entitles our petition 
 to succeed. Fourthly, the Catholic cause is disencumbered of 
 hollow friends and interested speculators. Add to all these the 
 native and inherent strength of the principle of religious free- 
 dom and the inert and accumulating weight of our wealth, our 
 religion, and our numbers, and where is the sluggard that shall 
 dare to doubt our approaching success ? 
 
 Besides, even our enemies must concede to us that we act 
 from principle, and from principle only. We prove our sincerity 
 when we refuse to make our emancipation a subject of traffic 
 and barter, and ask for relief only upon those grounds which, if 
 once established, would give to every other sect the right to the 
 same political immunity. All we ask is " a clear stage and no 
 favor." We think the Catholic religion the most rationally 
 consistent with the divine scheme of Christianity, and, there- 
 fore, all we ask is that everybody should be left to his unbiassed 
 reason and judgment. If Protestants are equally sincere, why 
 do they call the law, and the bribe, and the place, and the 
 pension, in support of their doctrines? Why do they fortify 
 themselves behind pains, and penalties, and exclusions, and 
 forfeitures? Ought not our opponents to feel that they de- 
 grade the sanctity of their religion when they call in the pro- 
 fane aid of temporal rewards and punishments, and that they 
 proclaim the superiority of our creed when they thus admit 
 themselves unable to contend against it upon terms of equality, 
 and by the weapons of reason and argument, and persevere in 
 refusing us all we ask — " a clear stage and no favor " ? 
 
 Yes, Mr. Chairman, our enemies, in words and by actions, 
 admit and proclaim our superiority. It remains to our friends 
 alone, and to that misguided and ill-advised portion of the 
 Catholics who have shrunk into secession — it remains for
 
 ON THE RIGHTS OF CATHOLICS 87 
 
 those friends and seceders alone to undervalue our exertions, 
 and underrate our conscientious opinions. 
 
 Great and good God, in what a cruel situation are the 
 Catholics of Ireland placed ! If they have the manliness to 
 talk of their oppressors as the paltry bigots deserve — if they 
 have the honesty to express, even in measured language, a 
 small portion of the sentiments of abhorrence which pecu- 
 lating bigotry ought naturally to inspire — if they condemn 
 the principle which established the Inquisition in Spain and 
 Orange lodges in Ireland, they are assailed by the combined 
 clamor of those parliamentary friends and title-seeking, place- 
 hunting seceders. The war-whoop of " intemperance " is 
 sounded, and a persecution is instituted by our advocates and 
 our seceders, against the Catholic who dares to be honest, and 
 fearless, and independent! 
 
 But I tell you what they easily forgive — nay, what our 
 friends, sweet souls, would vindicate to-morrow in Parliament, 
 if the subject arose there. Here it is — here is the " Dublin 
 Journal " of the twenty-first of February, printed just two days 
 ago. In the administration of Lord Whitworth, and the secre- 
 taryship of Mr. Peel, there is a government newspaper — a paper 
 supported solely by the money of the people ; for its circulation 
 is little, and its private advertisements less. Here is a paper 
 continued in existence like a wounded reptile — only whilst in 
 the rays of the sun, by the heat and warmth communicated 
 to it by the Irish administration. Let me read two passages 
 for you. The first calls " Popery the deadly enemy of pure 
 religion and rational liberty." Such is the temperate description 
 the writer gives of the Catholic faith. With respect to purity 
 of religion I shall not quarrel with him. I only differ with him 
 in point of taste; but I should be glad to know what this 
 creature calls rational liberty. I suppose such as existed at 
 Lacedaemon — the dominion of Spartans over Helots — the 
 despotism of masters over slaves, that is his rational liberty. 
 We will readily pass so much by. But attend to this: 
 
 " I will," says this moderate and temperate gentleman, " lay 
 before the readers such specimens of the popish superstition as 
 will convince him that the treasonable combinations cemented 
 by oaths, and the nocturnal robbery and assassination which 
 have prevailed for many years past in Ireland, and still exist in
 
 88 O'CONNELL 
 
 many parts of it, are produced as a necessary consequence by 
 its intolerant and sanguinary principles." 
 
 Let our seceders — let our gentle friends who are shocked 
 at our intemperance, and are alive to the mild and concili- 
 ating virtues of Mr. Peel — read this passage, sanctioned I 
 may almost say, certainly countenanced by those who do 
 the work of governing Ireland. Would to God we had but one 
 genuine, unsophisticated friend, one real advocate in the 
 House of Commons ! How such a man would pour down 
 indignation on the clerks of the Castle, who pay for this 
 base and vile defamation of our religion — of the religion of 
 nine-tenths of the population of Ireland ! 
 
 But perhaps I accuse falsely; perhaps the administration 
 of Ireland are guiltless of patronizing these calumnies. Look 
 at the paper and determine ; it contains nearly five columns 
 of advertisements — only one from a private person — and even 
 that is a notice of an anti-popery pamphlet, by a Mr. Cousins, 
 a curate of the Established Church. Dean Swift has some- 
 where observed that the poorest of all possible rats was a 
 curate ; and if this rat be so, if he have as usual a large family, 
 a great appetite, and little to eat, I sincerely hope that he may 
 get what he wants — a fat living. Indeed, for the sake of con- 
 sistency, and to keep up the succession of bad pamphlets, he 
 ought to get a living. 
 
 Well, what think you are the rest of the advertisements? 
 
 First, there are three from the worthy Commissioners of Wide 
 Streets; one dated August 6, 1813, announcing that they 
 would, the ensuing Wednesday, receive certain proposals. 
 Secondly, the barony of Middlethird is proclaimed, as of the 
 sixth of December last, for fear the inhabitants of that barony 
 should not as yet know they were proclaimed. Thirdly, the 
 proclamation against the Catholic Board, dated only the third 
 day of June last, is printed lest any person should forget the 
 history of last year. Fourthly, there is a proclamation stating 
 that gunpowder was not to be carried coastwise for six months, 
 and this is dated the fifth of October last. But why should I 
 detain you with the details of state proclamations, printed for 
 no other purpose than as an excuse for putting so much of the 
 public money into the pocket of a calumniator of the Catholics. 
 The abstract of the rest is that there is one other proclamation,
 
 ON THE RIGHTS OF CATHOLICS 89 
 
 stating that Liverpool is a port fit for importation from the East 
 Indies ; another forbidding British subjects from serving in the 
 American forces during the present, that is, the past war ; and 
 another stating that although we had made peace with France, 
 we are still at war with America, and that, therefore, no marine 
 is to desert ; and to finish the climax, there is a column and 
 a half of extracts from several statutes ; all this printed at the 
 expense of Government — that is, at the expense of the people. 
 
 Look now at the species of services for which so enormous 
 a sum of our money is thus wantonly lavished ! It consists 
 simply of calumnies against the Catholic religion — calumnies 
 so virulently atrocious as, in despite of the intention of the 
 authors, to render themselves ridiculous. This hireling accuses 
 our religion of being an enemy to liberty, of being an encour- 
 ager of treason, of instigating to robbery, and producing a 
 system of assassination. Here are libels for which no prosecu- 
 tion is instituted. Here are libels which are considered worthy 
 of encouragement, and which are rewarded by the Irish treas- 
 ury. And is it for this — is it to supply this waste, this abuse of 
 public money — is it to pay for those false and foul calumnies, 
 that we are, in a season of universal peace, to be borne down 
 with a war taxation? Are we to have two or three additional 
 millions of taxes imposed upon us in peace, in order that this 
 intestine war of atrocious calumny may be carried on against 
 the religion of the people of Ireland with all the vigor of full pay 
 and great plunder. Let us, agitators, be now taunted by jobbers 
 in Parliament with our violence, our intemperance. Why, if we 
 were not rendered patient by the aid of a dignified contempt, 
 )is there not matter enough to disgust and to irritate almost 
 beyond endurance ! 
 
 Thus are we treated by our friends, and our enemies, and our 
 seceders ; the first to abandon, the second oppress, the third 
 betray us, and they all join in calumniating us ; in the last they 
 are all combined. See how naturally they associate — this 
 libeller in the " Dublin Journal," who calls the Catholic religion 
 a system of assassination, actually praises in the same paper 
 some individual Catholics ; he praises, by name, Quarantotti, 
 and my Lord Fingal, and the respectable party (those are his 
 words) who join with that noble lord. 
 
 Of Lord Fingal I shall always speak with respect, because I
 
 9 o 
 
 O'CONNELL 
 
 entertain the opinion that his motives are pure and honorable ; 
 but can anything, or at least ought anything, place his secession 
 in so strong a point of view to the noble lord himself as to find 
 that he and his party are praised by the very man who, in the 
 next breath, treats his religion as a system of assassination? 
 Let that party have all the enjoyment which such praises can 
 confer ; but if a spark of love for their religion or their country 
 remains with them, let them recollect that they could have 
 earned those praises only by having, in the opinion of this 
 writer, betrayed the one and degraded the other. 
 
 This writer, too, attempts to traduce Lord Donoughmore. 
 He attacks his lordship in bad English, and worse Latin, for 
 having, as he says, cried pcccavi to popish thraldom. But the 
 ignorant trader in virulence knew not how to spell that single 
 Latin word, because they do not teach Latin at the charter 
 schools. 
 
 I close with conjuring the Catholics to persevere in their 
 present course. 
 
 Let us never tolerate the slightest inroad on the discipline of 
 our ancient, our holy Church. Let us never consent that she 
 should be made the hireling of the ministry. Our forefathers 
 would have died, nay, they perished in hopeless slavery rather 
 than consent to such degradation. 
 
 Let us rest upon the barrier where they expired, or go back 
 into slavery rather than forward into irreligion and disgrace! 
 Let us also advocate our cause on the two great principles — 
 first, that of an eternal separation in spirituals between our 
 Church and the State; secondly, that of the eternal right to 
 freedom of conscience — a right which, I repeat it with pride and 
 pleasure, would exterminate the Inquisition in Spain and bury 
 in oblivion the bloody Orange flag of dissension in Ireland !
 
 PROTEST AGAINST SENTENCE AS 
 
 A TRAITOR 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT EMMET
 
 ROBERT EMMET 
 1778— 1803 
 
 The romantic and tragic career of this young Irish patriot, and the 
 one memorable speech which he made at his trial, after he had been 
 condemned to death on the gibbet, entitle him to be recorded among the 
 great company of orators. Robert Emmet was born in Dublin in 1778, 
 and was hanged in the same city twenty-five years afterwards. From the 
 purest and most generous motives, he embraced the cause of the Irish 
 revolutionists. The English dealt with these men with the most strenu- 
 ous severity ; and every leader knew that in espousing the cause he not 
 only took his life in his hand, but faced the imminent peril of death by 
 the rope. Robert Emmet was betrothed to a beautiful girl, whom he 
 loved with all the ardor of his nature, and who returned his affection 
 with equal intensity. In July, 1803, a rising of the revolutionists was 
 planned in Dublin ; and Emmet put himself at its head. The rising 
 was unsuccessful ; the forces were scattered, and Emmet succeeded in 
 making good his escape to the mountains of Wicklow. It would have 
 been easy for him to make his way thence to France or America, and be 
 in safety; but the woman he loved was in Dublin, and he could not 
 leave his country without an interview with her. Accordingly, he 
 returned secretly to Dublin ; but he was detected and seized, and, after 
 a brief form of trial, sentenced to be hanged. The judge who passed 
 the sentence was Lord Norbury, and the place was the Session-house. 
 Emmet had been charged with acting as the emissary of France, with 
 a view to that country's assuming rights of sovereignty over Ireland, 
 should the revolution by their aid prove successful. When asked, ac- 
 cording to the form, whether he had anything to say why sentence 
 should not be pronounced upon him, he made the immortal address 
 which must always remain a model of eloquence in the shadow of the 
 scaffold. Never did a noble and high-minded gentleman repel in more 
 burning and fearless words an aspersion upon his honor. Continually 
 interrupted by the court, he fought his way through his speech to the 
 end; and told such stern truths to his judges as perhaps were never 
 heard before in a court of justice. In Robert Emmet Ireland lost one 
 of the most precious of her patriot sons ; a man to be compared only 
 with the highest names on the roll of martyrs for their country, to be 
 placed on equal terms with the most honored among the world's patriots. 
 
 92
 
 PROTEST AGAINST SENTENCE AS A TRAITOR 
 
 Delivered at his trial before Lord Norbury, Dublin, Septem- 
 ber 19, 1803 
 
 MY LORDS : I am asked what have I to say why sen- 
 tence of death should not be pronounced on me, ac- 
 cording to law. I have nothing to say that can alter 
 your "predetermination, nor that it will become me to say, with 
 any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are to pro- 
 nounce, and I must abide by. But I have that to say which 
 interests me more than life, and which you have labored to 
 destroy. I have much to say why my reputation should be 
 rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which 
 has been cast upon it. I do not imagine that, seated where you 
 are, your mind can be so free from prejudice as to receive the 
 least impression from what I am going to utter. I have no hopes 
 that I can anchor my character in the breast of a court consti- 
 tuted and trammelled as this is. I only wish, and that is the 
 utmost that I expect, that your lordships may suffer it to float 
 down your memories untainted by the foul breath of prejudice, 
 until it finds some more hospitable harbor to shelter it from the 
 storms by which it is buffeted. Were I only to suffer death, 
 after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in 
 silence and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur ; but 
 the sentence of the law which delivers my body to the execu- 
 tioner, will, through the ministry of the law, labor in its own 
 vindication to consign my character to obloquy ; for there must 
 be guilt somewhere ; whether in the sentence of the court, or in 
 the catastrophe, time must determine. A man in my situation 
 has not only to encounter the difficulties of fortune, and the force 
 of power over minds which it has corrupted or subjugated, but 
 the difficulties of established prejudice. The man dies, but his 
 memory lives. That mine may not perish, that it may live in 
 
 93
 
 94 
 
 EMMET 
 
 the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon this opportunity to 
 vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me. 
 When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port — when 
 my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes 
 who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the field, in the 
 defence of their country and of virtue, this is my hope ; I wish 
 that my memory and my name may animate those who survive 
 me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of 
 that perfidious government which upholds its domination by 
 blasphemy of the Most High ; which displays its power over 
 man, as over the beasts of the forest ; which sets man upon his 
 brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God, against the throat 
 of his fellow who believes or doubts a little more or a little less 
 than the government standard — a government which is steeled 
 to barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the 
 widows it has made. 
 
 [Here Lord Norbury interrupted, saying that " the mean and 
 wicked enthusiasts who felt as Emmet did were not equal to the 
 accomplishment of their wild designs."] 
 
 I appeal to the immaculate God — I swear by the throne of 
 Heaven, before which I must shortly appear — by the blood of 
 the murdered patriots who have gone before me — that my con- 
 duct has been, through all this peril, and through all my pur- 
 poses, governed only by the conviction which I have uttered, 
 and by no other view than that of the emancipation of my coun- 
 try from the superinhuman oppression under which she has so 
 long and too patiently travailed ; and I confidently hope that, 
 wild and chimerical as it may appear, there is still union and 
 strength in Ireland to accomplish this noblest of enterprises. Of 
 this I speak with the confidence of intimate knowledge, and with 
 the consolation that appertains to that confidence. Think not, 
 my lord, I say this for the petty gratification of giving you a 
 transitory uneasiness. A man who never yet raised his voice to 
 assert a lie will not hazard his character with posterity by as- 
 serting a falsehood on a subject so important to his country, and 
 on an occasion like this. Yes, my lords, a man who does not 
 wish to have his epitaph written until his country is liberated will 
 not leave a weapon in the power of envy, or a pretence to im- 
 peach the probity which he means to preserve even in the grave 
 to which tyranny consigns him.
 
 PROTEST AGAINST SENTENCE AS A TRAITOR 95 
 
 [Here he was again interrupted by the court.] 
 
 Again I say that what I have spoken was not intended for 
 your lordship, whose situation I commiserate rather than envy 
 — my expressions were for my countrymen. If there is a true 
 Irishman present, let my last words cheer him in the hour of 
 his affliction. 
 
 [Here he was again interrupted. Lord Norbury said he did 
 not sit there to hear treason.] 
 
 I have always understood it to be the duty of a judge, when 
 a prisoner has been convicted, to pronounce the sentence of the 
 law. I have also understood that judges sometimes think it 
 their duty to hear with patience and to speak with humanity; 
 to exhort the victim of the laws, and to offer, with tender be- 
 nignity, their opinions of the motives by which he was actuated 
 in the crime of which he was adjudged guilty. That a judge has 
 thought it his duty so to have done, I have no doubt ; but where 
 is the boasted freedom of your institutions — where is the 
 vaunted impartiality, clemency, and mildness of your courts 
 of justice, if an unfortunate prisoner, whom your policy, and 
 not justice, is about to deliver into the hands of the executioner, 
 is not suffered to explain his motives clearly and truly, and to 
 vindicate the principles by which he was actuated ? My lords, 
 it may be a part of the system of angry justice to bow a man's 
 mind by humiliation to the purposed ignominy of the scaffold ; 
 but worse to me than the purposed shame or the scaffold's ter- 
 rors would be the shame of such foul and unfounded imputa- 
 tions as have been made against me in this court. You, my 
 lord, are a judge ; I am the supposed culprit. I am a man ; you 
 are a man also. By a revolution of power we might change 
 places, though we never could change characters. If I stand at 
 the bar of this court and dare not vindicate my character, what 
 a farce is your justice ! If I stand at this bar and dare not vin- 
 dicate my character, how dare you calumniate it? Does the 
 sentence of death, which your unhallowed policy inflicts on 
 my body, condemn my tongue to silence and my reputation to 
 reproach? Your executioner may abridge the period of my 
 existence ; but while I exist, I shall not forbear to vindicate my 
 character and motives from your aspersions; and, as a man, 
 to whom fame is dearer than life, I will make the last use of 
 that life in doing justice to that reputation which is to live after
 
 9 6 
 
 EMMET 
 
 me, and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honor and 
 love, and for whom I am proud to perish. As men, my lords, 
 we must appear on the great day at one common tribunal ; and 
 it will then remain for the Searcher of all Hearts to show a 
 collective universe who was engaged in the most virtuous ac- 
 tions, or swayed by the purest motive — my country's oppres- 
 sors, or — 
 
 [Here he was interrupted and told to listen to the sentence of 
 the law.] 
 
 My lords, will a dying man be denied the legal privilege of 
 exculpating himself in the eyes of the community from an unde- 
 served reproach, thrown upon him during his trial, by charg- 
 ing him with ambition, and attempting to cast away for a 
 paltry consideration the liberties of his country? Why did 
 your lordships insult me? Or rather, why insult justice, in 
 demanding of me why sentence of death should not be pro- 
 nounced against me? I know, my lords, that form prescribes 
 that you should ask the question. The form also presents the 
 right of answering. This, no doubt, will be dispensed with, and 
 so might the whole ceremony of the trial, since sentence was 
 already pronounced at the Castle before the jury were em- 
 panelled. Your lordships are but the priests of the oracle, and 
 I insist on the whole of the forms. 
 
 I am charged with being an emissary of France. An emissary 
 of France ! and for what end ? It is alleged that I wish to sell 
 the independence of my country ; and for what end ? Was this 
 the object of my ambition? And is this the mode by which a 
 tribunal of justice reconciles contradiction? No; I am no 
 emissary ; and my ambition was to hold a place among the de- 
 liverers of my country, not in power nor in profit, but in the 
 glory of the achievement. Sell my country's independence to 
 France! and for what? Was it a change of masters? No, 
 but for ambition. O! my country! was it personal ambition 
 that could influence me? Had it been the soul of my actions, 
 could I not, by my education and fortune, by the rank and con- 
 sideration of my family, have placed myself amongst the proud- 
 est of your oppressors ? My country was my idol ! To it I sac- 
 rificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment ; and for it I now 
 offer up myself, O God ! No, my lord ; I acted as an Irishman ; 
 determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign
 
 PROTEST AGAINST SENTENCE AS A TRAITOR 97 
 
 and unrelenting tyranny, and the more galling yoke of a do- 
 mestic faction, which is its joint partner and perpetrator in the 
 patricide, from the ignominy existing with an exterior of 
 splendor and a conscious depravity. It was the wish of my 
 heart to extricate my country from this doubly riveted despotism 
 — I wished to place her independence beyond the reach of any 
 power on earth. I wished to exalt her to that proud station of 
 the world. Connection with France was, indeed, intended, but 
 only as far as mutual interest would sanction or require. Were 
 the French to assume any authority inconsistent with the purest 
 independence it would be the signal for their destruction. We 
 sought their aid — and we sought it as we had assurance we 
 should obtain it — as auxiliaries in war, and allies in peace. 
 Were the French to come as invaders or enemies, uninvited by 
 the wishes of the people, I should oppose them to the utmost of 
 my strength. Yes ! my countrymen, I should advise you to 
 meet them upon the beach with a sword in one hand and a torch 
 in the other. I would meet them with all the destructive fury of 
 war. I would animate my countrymen to immolate them in 
 their boats, before they had contaminated the soil of my 
 country. If they succeed in landing, and if forced to retire 
 before superior discipline, I would dispute every inch of ground, 
 burn every blade of grass, and the last entrenchment of liberty 
 should be my grave. What I could not do myself, I should leave 
 as a last charge to my countrymen to accomplish; because I 
 should feel conscious that life, any more than death, is unprofit- 
 able when a foreign nation holds my country in subjection. But 
 it was not as a enemy that the succors of France were to land. 
 I looked, indeed, for the assistance of France; but I wished 
 to prove to France and to the world that Irishmen deserved 
 to be assisted ; that they were indignant at slavery, and ready 
 to assert the independence and liberty of their country. I wished 
 to procure for my country the guarantee which Washington 
 procured for America ; to procure an aid which, by its example, 
 would be as important as its valor ; discipline, gallant, pregnant 
 with science and experience ; that of a people who would per- 
 ceive the good, and polish the rough points of our character. 
 They would come to us as strangers, and leave us as friends, 
 after sharing in our perils and elevating our destiny. These 
 were my objects: not to receive new taskmasters, but to expel 
 Vol. II.— 7
 
 9 8 EMMET 
 
 old tyrants. It was for these ends I sought aid from France ; 
 because France, even as an enemy, could not be more implacable 
 than the enemy already in the bosom of my country. 
 
 [Here he was interrupted by the court.] 
 
 I have been charged with that importance in the emancipation 
 of my country as to be considered the keystone of the combina- 
 tion of Irishmen ; or as your lordship expressed it, " the life 
 and blood of the conspiracy." You do me honor overmuch: 
 you have given to the subaltern all the credit of a superior. 
 There are men engaged in this conspiracy who are not only 
 superior to me, but even to your own conceptions of yourself, 
 my lord — men before the splendor of whose genius and virtues 
 I should bow with respectful deference, and who would think 
 themselves disgraced by shaking your blood-stained hand. 
 
 What, my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to the scaf- 
 fold, which that tyranny (of which you are only the inter- 
 mediary executioner) has erected for my murder, that I am ac- 
 countable for all the blood that has been and will be shed in this 
 struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor — shall you tell 
 me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to repel it ? I do 
 not fear to approach the Omnipotent Judge to answer for the 
 conduct of my whole life ; and am I to be appalled and falsified 
 by a mere remnant of mortality here? By you, too, although, if 
 it were possible to collect all the innocent blood that you have 
 shed in your unhallowed ministry in one great reservoir, your 
 lordship might swim in it. 
 
 [Here the judge interrupted.] 
 
 Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dis- 
 honor ; let no man attaint my memory, by believing that I could 
 have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and 
 independence ; or that I could have become the pliant minion 
 of power, in the oppression and misery of my country. The 
 proclamation of the provisional government speaks for our 
 views ; no inference can be tortured from it to countenance bar- 
 barity or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or 
 treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to a for- 
 eign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the 
 foreign and domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom I 
 would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its 
 enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse.
 
 PROTEST AGAINST SENTENCE AS A TRAITOR 99 
 
 And am I, who lived but for my country, and who have sub- 
 jected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watchful op- 
 pressor, and the bondage of the grave, only to give my country- 
 men their rights, and my country her independence — am I to be 
 loaded with calumny, and not suffered to resent it? No, God 
 forbid ! 
 
 [Here Lord Norbury told Mr. Emmet that his sentiments and 
 language disgraced his family and his education, but more par- 
 ticularly his father, Doctor Emmet, who was a man, if alive, that 
 would not countenance such opinions. To which Emmet re- 
 plied :j 
 
 If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns 
 and cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life, 
 O ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father ! look- 
 down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son, and 
 see if I have, even for a moment, deviated from those prin- 
 ciples of morality and patriotism which it was your care to in- 
 still into my youthful mind, and for which I am now about to 
 offer up my life. My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice. 
 The blood for which you seek is not congealed by the artificial 
 terrors which surround your victim — it circulates warmly and 
 unruffled through the channels which God created for noble 
 purposes, but which you are now bent to destroy for purposes 
 so grievous that they cry to heaven. Be ye patient! I hav-3 
 but a few more words to say — I am going to my cold and silent 
 grave — my lamp of life is nearly extinguished — my race is run 
 — the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I 
 have but one request to ask at my departure from this world: 
 it is — the charity of its silence. That no man write my epitaph ; 
 for, as no man who knows my motives dares now vindicate them, 
 let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me 
 rest in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, 
 and my memory in oblivion, until other times and other men can 
 do justice to my character. When my country takes her place 
 among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my 
 epitaph be written. I have done.

 
 CHOICE EXAMPLES OF CLASSIC SCULPTURE. 
 
 FA UN US. 
 
 Photo-engraving from the marble bust m the Glrptotbek at Munich. 
 
 This bust is called Fauna colla macchia — the faun with the blemish or excres- 
 cence—in allusion to the small wen on the right of the neck, intended, doubtless, 
 to be an appendage corresponding with the side tassels of the goat. Winckelmann 
 considers this one of the most exquisite creations of the antique sculptor. It belongs 
 to the later period of Greek sculpture, probably the end of the fourth century before 
 Christ. The name of the artist is unknown. The bust was placed in the sculpture 
 gallery at Munich during the reign of Louis I., Elector of Bavaria, who 
 founded the artistic pre-eminence of the city. The satyrs of Greek mythology, and 
 the fauns of Roman mythology, were wild creatures haunting the woodland, halt 
 human, half bestial. They have their counterparts in such imaginary beings as 
 Puck and Ariel. The satyr had the goat's feet and horns, but in the refinement of 
 later art the coarser elements of the conception were eliminated, and we are pre- 
 sented with a figure of human though animal beauty, emblematic of the vital forces 
 of nature. The intellectual part of man is eliminated, and wild and wanton impulse 
 is the controlling power in the acts, gestures and expression of the faun, whose 
 fitting attribute is the timid, capricious and swiftly moving hare, the denizen of the 
 forest
 
 GOD'S SYMPATHY FOR MAN 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS C HALMERS
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS 
 
 1780 — 1847 
 
 Thomas Chalmers was born at East Anstruther, in Fifeshire, March 
 17, 1780. He received his education at St. Andrews and was licensed to 
 preach when but nineteen years old, and, four years later, ordained a 
 minister. During the first years of his ministry his attention was chiefly 
 absorbed by the study of mathematics and natural philosophy. He 
 formed classes in those subjects in St. Andrews and became very popu- 
 lar as a teacher and lecturer. An " Inquiry into the Extent and Stability 
 of National Resources," which he published in 1808, showed that he 
 had some understanding of the principles of political economy and a 
 capacity to deal with its problems. 
 
 At about this time Chalmers experienced a great change in his inner 
 life and became keenly susceptible to religious impressions and religious 
 truths. While engaged in preparing an article on Christianity for the 
 Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, after an extensive study and prolonged medi- 
 tation, he was convinced that Christianity was a fact and the Bible 
 " the veritable word of God." Under the quickening influence of this 
 new inspiration he grew more devoted to his pastoral duties, more ear- 
 nest in his life, and more eloquent in his discourses. When he was 
 appointed minister to the Tron church in Glasgow, in July, 1815, the 
 fervor and eloquence of his preaching soon made him very popular. 
 His " Astronomical Discourses," which he published in 1817, gave con- 
 vincing proof of his great intellectual powers and his lofty imagination. 
 We can speak but briefly here of the great and good work Chalmers 
 accomplished during his ministry in Glasgow, especially after he was 
 transferred to St. John's Parish in 1819. His views on political economy 
 were put into practice in his parish with such marked results that 
 when he was entrusted with the management of its poor he reduced the 
 pauper expenditure to less than one-third of the usual charges in four 
 years. He founded some fifty Sabbath-schools, and in many other ways 
 ameliorated the lot of the poor in his parish. Chalmers accepted an 
 appointment to the chair of moral philosophy in St. Andrews in 1823, 
 and after five years of faithful labor he was called to fill the chair of 
 theology at Edinburgh. Chalmers's most remarkable work during this 
 period, a book which gained for him many literary honors and the de- 
 gree of Doctor of Laws from Oxford, was his treatise " On the Adapta- 
 tion of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of 
 Man." The later years of Chalmers's life became somewhat disturbed 
 by the dissensions springing up within the Church itself. When the 
 secular courts were appealed to, the crisis came, and Chalmers, with 
 four hundred and seventy cle:^ymen, left the Church rather than sacri- 
 fice principles he held indispensable to its welfare. The rest of his life 
 was given in the cause of the Free Church, of which he was thus 
 the virtual founder. He died suddenly at Morningside, Edinburgh, 
 May 31, 1847. 
 
 As an orator Chalmers's fame is undisputed. As a man he seems to 
 have been universally esteemed, admired, and loved. One biographer 
 has truly said of him : " There have been some loftier and more purely 
 original minds in Scotland than Chalmers, but there has never been a 
 truer one, nor a heart whose Christian faith and piety were more in- 
 tense, sincere, and humane." His sermon entitled " God's Sympathy 
 for Man," is a discourse typical of Chalmers, showing his eternal, un- 
 shaken confidence in Him who marks the sparrow's flight, and who 
 will guard and protect his children on the awful day when the heavens 
 shall be rolled away like a scroll. 
 
 102
 
 GOD'S SYMPATHY FOR MAN 
 
 I HAVE already attempted at full length to establish the 
 position that the infidel argument of astronomers goes to 
 expunge a natural perfection from the character of God, 
 even that wondrous property of His, by which He, at the same 
 instant of time, can bend a close and a careful attention on a 
 countless diversity of objects, and diffuse the intimacy of His 
 power and of His presence, from the greatest to the minutest 
 and most insignificant of them all. I also adverted shortly to 
 this other circumstance, that it went to impair a moral at- 
 tribute of the Deity. It goes to impair the benevolence of His 
 nature. It is saying much for the benevolence of God to say 
 that a single world, or a single system, is not enough for it 
 — that it must have the spread of a mightier region, on which 
 it may pour forth a tide of exuberancy throughout all its prov- 
 inces — that as far as our vision can carry us, it has strewed 
 immensity with the floating receptacles of life, and has stretched 
 over each of them the garniture of such a sky as mantles our 
 own habitation — and that even from distances which are far 
 beyond the reach of human eye, the songs of gratitude and 
 praise may now be arising to the one God, who sits sur- 
 rounded by the regards of His one great and universal family. 
 Now it is saying much for the benevolence of God, to say 
 that it sends forth these wide and distant emanations over the 
 surface of a territory so ample, that the world we inhabit, 
 lying imbedded as it does amidst so much surrounding great- 
 ness, shrinks into a point that to the universal eye might ap- 
 pear to be almost imperceptible. But does it not add to the 
 power and to the perfection of this universal eye, that at the 
 very moment it is taking a comprehensive survey of the vast, 
 it can fasten a steady and undistracted attention on each min- 
 ute and separate portion of it ; that at the very moment it is 
 looking at all worlds, it can look most pointedly and most 
 
 103
 
 io4 
 
 CHALMERS 
 
 intelligently to each of them ; that at the very moment it 
 sweeps the field of immensity, it can settle all the earnestness 
 of its regards upon every distinct handbreadth of that field; 
 that at the very moment at which it embraces the totality of 
 existence, it can send a most thorough and penetrating in- 
 spection into each of its details, and into every one of its end- 
 less diversities? You cannot fail to perceive how much this 
 adds to the power of the all-seeing eye. Tell me, then, if it 
 do not add as much perfection to the benevolence of God, 
 that while it is expatiating over the vast field of created things, 
 there is not one portion of the field overlooked by it ; that 
 while it scatters blessings over the whole of an infinite range, 
 it causes them to descend in a shower of plenty on every sepa- 
 rate habitation ; that while His arm is underneath and round 
 about all worlds, He enters within the precincts of every one 
 of them, and gives a care and a tenderness to each individual 
 of their teeming population. Oh ! does not the God, who is 
 said to be love, shed over this attribute of His its finest illus- 
 tration, when, while He sits in the highest heaven, and pours 
 out His fulness on the whole subordinate domain of nature 
 and of providence, He bows a pitying regard on the very 
 humblest of His children, and sends His reviving spirit into 
 every heart, and cheers by His presence every home, and 
 provides for the wants of every family, and watches every sick- 
 bed, and listens to the complaints of every sufferer ; and while, 
 by His wondrous mind the weight of universal government is 
 borne, oh ! is it not more wondrous and more excellent still 
 that He feels for every sorrow, and has an ear open to every 
 prayer ? 
 
 " It does not yet appear what we shall be," says the apostle 
 John, " but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be 
 like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." It is the present 
 lot of the angels, that they behold the face of our Father in 
 heaven, and it would seem as if the effect of this was to form 
 and to perpetuate in them the moral likeness of Himself, and 
 that they reflect back upon Him His own image, and that 
 thus a diffused resemblance to the Godhead is kept up amongst 
 all those adoring worshippers who live in the near and rejoic- 
 ing contemplation of the Godhead. Mark, then, how that 
 peculiar and endearing feature in the goodness of the Deity,
 
 GOD'S SYMPATHY FOR MAN 105 
 
 which we have just now adverted to — mark how beauteously 
 it is reflected downwards upon us in the revealed attitude of 
 angels. From the high eminences of heaven are they bend- 
 ing a wakeful regard over the men of this sinful world ; 
 and the repentance of every one of them spreads a joy and 
 a high gratulation throughout all its dwelling-places. Put 
 this trait of the angelic character into contrast with the dark 
 and lowering spirit of an infidel. He is told of the multitude 
 of other worlds, and he feels a kindling magnificence in the 
 conception, and he is seduced by an elevation which he can- 
 not carry, and from this airy summit does he look down on 
 the insignificance of the world we occupy, and pronounces it 
 to be unworthy of those visits and of those attentions which 
 we read of in the New Testament. He is unable to wing his 
 upward way along the scale, either of moral or of natural per- 
 fection ; and when the wonderful extent of the field is made 
 known to him, over which the wealth of the Divinity is lav- 
 ished — there he stops, and wilders, and altogether misses this 
 essential perception, that the power and perfection of the Di- 
 vinity are not more displayed by the mere magnitude of the 
 field than they are by that minute and exquisite filling up, 
 which leaves not its smallest portions neglected ; but which 
 imprints the fulness of the Godhead upon every one of them ; 
 and proves, by every flower of the pathless desert, as well as 
 by every orb of immensity, how this unsearchable Being can 
 care for all, and provide for all, and, throned in mystery too 
 high for us, can, throughout every instant of time, keep His 
 attentive eye on every separate thing that He has formed, and 
 by an act of His thoughtful and presiding intelligence, can 
 constantly embrace all. 
 
 But God, compassed about as He is with light inaccessible, 
 and full of glory, lies so hidden from the ken and conception of 
 all our faculties, that the spirit of man sinks exhausted by its 
 attempts to comprehend Him. Could the image of the Su- 
 preme be placed direct before the eye of the mind, that flood 
 of splendor, which is ever issuing from Him on all who have 
 the privilege of beholding, would not only dazzle, but over- 
 power us. And therefore it is that I bid you look to the re- 
 flection of that image, and thus to take a view of its mitigated 
 glories, and to gather the lineaments of the Godhead in the
 
 io6 CHALMERS 
 
 face of those righteous angels, who have never thrown away 
 from them the resemblance in which they were created; and, 
 unable as you are to support the grace and the majesty of 
 that countenance, before which the sons and the prophets of 
 other days fell, and became as dead men, let us, before we 
 bring this argument to a close, borrow one lesson of Him 
 who sitteth on the throne, from the aspect and the revealed 
 doings of those who are surrounding it. 
 
 The infidel, then, as he widens the field of his contempla- 
 tions, would suffer its every separate object to die away into 
 forgetfulness : these angels, expatiating as they do over the 
 range of a loftier universality, are represented as all awake 
 to the history of each of its distinct and subordinate provinces. 
 The infidel, with his mind afloat among suns and among sys- 
 tems, can find no place in his already occupied regards for 
 that humble planet which lodges and accommodates our spe- 
 cies: the angels, standing on a loftier summit, and with a 
 mightier prospect of creation before them, are yet represented 
 as looking down on this single world, and attentively mark- 
 ing the every feeling and the every demand of all its families. 
 The infidel, by sinking us down to an unnoticeable minute- 
 ness, would lose sight of our dwelling-place altogether, and 
 spread a darkening shroud of oblivion over all the concerns 
 and all the interests of men ; but the angels will not so aban- 
 don us ; and undazzled by the whole surpassing grandeur of 
 that scenery which is around them, are they revealed as direct- 
 ing all the fulness of their regard to this our habitation, and 
 casting a longing and a benignant eye on ourselves and on 
 our children. The infidel will tell us of those worlds which 
 roll afar, and the number of which outstrips the arithmetic of 
 the human understanding — and then, with the hardness of an 
 unfeeling calculation, will he consign the one we occupy, with 
 all its guilty generations, to despair. But He who counts the 
 number of the stars is set forth to us as looking at every in- 
 habitant among the millions of our species, and by the word 
 of the gospel beckoning to him with the hand of invitation, 
 and, on the very first step of his return, as moving towards 
 him with all the eagerness of the prodigal's father, to receive 
 him back again into that presence from which he had wan- 
 dered. And as to this world, in favor of which the scowling
 
 GOD'S SYMPATHY FOR MAN 
 
 107 
 
 infidel will not permit one solitary movement, all heaven is 
 represented as in a stir about its restoration ; and there can- 
 not a single son or a single daughter be recalled from sin 
 unto righteousness without an acclamation of joy amongst the 
 hosts of paradise. Ay, and I can say it of the humblest and 
 the unworthiest of you all, that the eye of angels is upon him, 
 and that his repentance would at this moment send forth a 
 wave of delighted sensibility throughout the mighty throng 
 of their innumerable legions. 
 
 Now, the single question I have to ask is, On which of the 
 two sides of this contrast do we see most of the impress of 
 heaven ? Which of the two would be most glorifying to God ? 
 Which of them carries upon it most of that evidence which lies 
 in its having a celestial character? For if it be the side of the 
 infidel, then must all our hopes expire with the ratifying of that 
 fatal sentence, by which the world is doomed, through its in- 
 significancy, to perpetual exclusion from the attentions of the 
 Godhead. I have long been knocking at the door of your 
 understanding, and have tried to find an admittance to it for 
 many an argument. I now make my appeal to the sensibilities 
 of your heart ; and, tell me, to whom does the moral feeling 
 within it yield its readiest testimony — to the infidel, who would 
 make this world of ours vanish away into abandonment — or 
 to those angels who ring throughout all their mansions the 
 hosannas of joy, over every one individual of its repentant 
 population ? 
 
 And here I cannot omit to take advantage of that opening 
 with which our Saviour has furnished us by the parables of 
 this chapter, and admits us into a familiar view of that prin- 
 ciple on which the inhabitants of heaven are so awake to the 
 deliverance and the restoration of our species. To illustrate 
 the difference in the reach of knowledge and of affection be- 
 tween a man and an angel, let us think of the difference of 
 reach between one man and another. You may often witness 
 a man who feels neither tenderness nor care beyond the pre- 
 cincts of his own family ; but who, on the strength of those 
 instinctive fondnesses which nature has implanted in his 
 bosom, may earn the character of an amiable father or a kind 
 husband, or a bright example of all that is soft and endearing 
 in the relations of domestic society. Now, conceive him, in
 
 108 CHALMERS 
 
 addition to all this, to carry his affections abroad without, at 
 the same time, any abatement of their intensity towards the 
 objects which are at home — that, stepping across the limits of 
 the house he occupies, he takes an interest in the families which 
 are near him — that he lends his services to the town or the 
 district wherein he is placed, and gives up a portion of his 
 time to the thoughtful labors of a humane and public-spirited 
 citizen. By this enlargement in the sphere of his attention he 
 has extended his reach ; and, provided he has done so at the 
 expense of that regard which is due to his family — a thing 
 which, cramped and confined as we are, we are very apt, in 
 the exercise of our humble faculties, to do — I put it to you, 
 whether, by extending the reach of his views and his affec- 
 tions, he has not extended his worth and his moral respecta- 
 bility along with it? 
 
 But I can conceive a still further enlargement. I can figure 
 to myself a man, whose wakeful sympathy overflows the field 
 of his own immediate neighborhood — to whom the name of 
 country comes with all the omnipotence of a charm upon his 
 heart, and with all the urgency of a most righteous and re- 
 sistless claim upon his services — who never hears the name 
 of Britain sounded in his ears, but it stirs up all his enthusi- 
 asm in behalf of the worth and the welfare of its people — who 
 gives himself up, with all the devotedness of a passion, to the 
 best and purest objects of patriotism — and who, spurning 
 away from him the vulgarities of party ambition, separates 
 his life and his labors to the fine pursuit of augmenting the 
 science, or the virtue, or the substantial prosperity of his na- 
 tion. Oh ! could such a man retain all the tenderness, and 
 fulfil all the duties which home and which neighborhood re- 
 quire of him, and at the same time expatiate, in the might of 
 his untired faculties, on so wide a field of benevolent contem- 
 plation — would not this extension of reach place him still 
 higher than before, on the scale both of moral and intellectual 
 gradation, and give him a still brighter and more enduring 
 name in the records of human excellence? 
 
 And lastly, I can conceive a still loftier flight of humanity 
 — a man, the aspiring of whose heart for the good of man 
 knows no limitations — whose longings, and whose conceptions 
 on this subject, overleap all the barriers of geography — who,
 
 GOD'S SYMPATHY FOR MAN 109 
 
 looking on himself as a brother of the species, links every 
 spare energy which belongs to him with the cause of its 
 melioration — who can embrace within the grasp of his ample 
 desires the whole family of mankind — and who, in obedience 
 to a heaven-born movement of principle within him, separates 
 himself to some big and busy enterprise, which is to tell on 
 the moral destinies of the world. Oh ! could such a man mix 
 up the softenings of private virtue with the habit of so sub- 
 lime a comprehension — if, amid those magnificent darings of 
 thought and of performance, the mildness of his benignant 
 eye could still continue to cheer the retreat of his family, 
 and to spread the charm and the sacredness of piety among 
 all its members — could he even mingle himself, in all the gen- 
 tleness of a soothed and a smiling heart, with the playfulness 
 of his children — and also find strength to shed blessings of 
 his presence and his counsel over the vicinity around him ; 
 oh ! would not the combination of so much grace with so much 
 loftiness, only serve the more to aggrandize him? Would 
 not the one ingredient of a character so rare, go to illustrate 
 and to magnify the other? And would not you pronounce 
 him to be the fairest specimen of our nature, who could so 
 call out all your tenderness, while he challenged and com- 
 pelled all your veneration? 
 
 Nor can I proceed, at this point of my argument, without 
 adverting to the way in which this last and this largest style 
 of benevolence is exemplified in our own country — where the 
 spirit of the gospel has given to many of its enlightened dis- 
 ciples the impulse of such a philanthropy as carries abroad 
 their wishes and their endeavor to the very outskirts of human 
 population — a philanthropy, of which, if you asked the extent 
 or the boundary of its field, we should answer, in the language 
 of inspiration, that the field is the world — a philanthropy which 
 overlooks all the distinctions of caste and of color, and spreads 
 its ample regards over the whole brotherhood of the species 
 — a philanthropy which attaches itself to man in the general ; 
 to man throughout all his varieties ; to man as the partaker 
 of one common nature, and who, in whatever clime or latitude 
 you may meet with him, is found to breathe the same sym- 
 pathies, and to possess the same high capabilities both of bliss 
 and o/ Q improvement. It is true that, upon this subject, there
 
 no CHALMERS 
 
 is often a loose and unsettled magnificence of thought, which 
 is fruitful of nothing but empty speculation. But the men to 
 whom I allude have not imaged the enterprise in the form of 
 a thing unknown. They have given it a local habitation. They 
 have bodied it forth in deed and in accomplishment. They 
 have turned the dream into a reality. In them, the power of 
 a lofty generalization meets with its happiest attemperment 
 in the principle and preservance, and all the chastening and 
 subduing virtues of the New Testament. And, were I in 
 search of that fine union of grace and of greatness which I 
 have now been insisting on, and in virtue of which the en- 
 lightened Christian can at once find room in his bosom for 
 the concerns of universal humanity, and for the play of kind- 
 liness towards every individual he meets with — I could no- 
 where more readily expect to find it, than with the worthies 
 of our own land — the Howard of a former generation, who 
 paced it over Europe in quest of the unseen wretchedness 
 which abounds in it — or in such men of our present genera- 
 tion as Wilberforce, who lifted his unwearied voice against the 
 biggest outrage ever practised on our nature, till he wrought 
 its extermination — and Clarkson, who plied his assiduous task 
 at rearing the materials of its impressive history, and at length 
 carried, for this righteous cause, the mind of Parliament — 
 and Carey, from whose hand the generations of the East are 
 now receiving the elements of their moral renovation — and, 
 in fine, those holy and devoted men, who count not their lives 
 dear unto them ; but, going forth every year from the island 
 of our habitation, carry the message of Heaven over the face 
 of the world ; and in the front of severest obloquy are now 
 laboring in remotest lands ; and are reclaiming another and 
 another portion from the wastes of dark and fallen humanity ; 
 and are widening the domains of gospel light and gospel prin- 
 ciple amongst them ; and are spreading a moral beauty around 
 the every spot on which they pitch their lowly tabernacle ; and 
 are at length compelling even the eye and the testimony of 
 gainsayers, by the success of their noble enterprise ; and are 
 forcing the exclamation of delighted surprise from the charmed 
 and the arrested traveller, as he looks at the softening tints 
 which they are now spreading over the wilderness, and as he 
 hears the sound of the chapel bell, and as in those haunts , here.
 
 GODS SYMPATHY FOR MAN in 
 
 at the distance of half a generation, savages would have scowled 
 upon his path, he regales himself with the hum of mission- 
 ary schools, and the lovely spectacle of peaceful and Christian 
 villages. 
 
 Such, then, is the benevolence, at once so gentle and so 
 lofty, of those men, who, sanctified by the faith that is in 
 jesus, have had their hearts visited from heaven by a beam 
 of warmth and of sacredness. What, then, I should like to 
 know, is the benevolence of the place from whence such an 
 influence cometh ? How wide is the compass of this virtue 
 there, and how exquisite is the feeling of its tenderness, and 
 how pure and how fervent are its aspirings among those un- 
 fallen beings who have no darkness, and no encumbering 
 weight of corruption to strive against ! Angels have a mightier 
 reach of contemplation. Angels can look upon this world, 
 and all which it inherits, as the part of a larger family. Angels 
 were in the full exercise of their powers even at the first in- 
 fancy of our species, and shared in the gratulations of that 
 period, when at the birth of humanity all intelligent nature 
 felt a gladdening impulse, and the morning stars sang togethef 
 for joy. They loved us even with the love which a family on 
 earth bears to a younger sister ; and the very childhood of our 
 tinier faculties did only serve the more to endear us to them ; 
 and though born at a later hour in the history of creation, did 
 they regard us as heirs of the same destiny with themselves, 
 to rise along with them in the scale of moral elevation, to bow 
 at the same footstool, and to partake in those high dispensa- 
 tions of a parent's kindness and a parent's care, which are 
 ever emanating from the throne of the Eternal on all the mem- 
 bers of a duteous and affectionate family. Take the reach of 
 an angel's mind, but, at the same time, take the seraphic fervor 
 of an angel's benevolence along' with it; how, from the emi- 
 nence on which he stands he may have an eye upon many 
 worlds, and a remembrance upon the origin and the succes- 
 sive concerns of every one of them ; how he may feel the full 
 force of a most affecting relationship with the inhabitants of 
 each, as the offspring of one common Father ; and though it 
 be both the effect and the evidence of our depravity, that we 
 cannot sympathize with these pure and generous ardors of a 
 celestial spirit ; how it may consist with the lofty comprehen-
 
 lis CHALMERS 
 
 sion, and the ever-breathing love of an angel, that he can both 
 shoot his benevolence abroad over a mighty expanse of planets 
 and of systems, and lavish a flood of tenderness on each in- 
 dividual of their teeming population. 
 
 Keep all this in view, and you cannot fail to perceive how 
 the principle, so finely and so copiously illustrated in this 
 chapter, may be brought to meet the infidelity we have thus 
 long been employed in combating. It was nature — and the 
 experience of every bosom will affirm it — it was nature in the 
 shepherd to leave the ninety-and-nine of his flock forgotten 
 and alone in the wilderness, and, betaking himself to the moun- 
 tains, to give all his labor and all his concern to the pursuit of 
 one solitary wanderer. It was nature ; and we are told in the 
 passage before us, that it is such a portion of nature as belongs 
 not merely to men, but to angels ; when the woman, with her 
 mind in a state of listlessness as to the nine pieces of silver 
 that were in secure custody, turned the whole force of her 
 anxiety to the one piece which she had lost, and for which she 
 had to light a candle, and to sweep the house, and to search 
 diligently until she found it. It was nature in her to rejoice 
 more over that piece, than over all the rest of them, and to 
 tell it abroad among friends and neighbors, that they might 
 rejoice along with her — ay, and sadly effaced as humanity is, 
 in all her original lineaments, this is a part of our nature, the 
 very movements of which are experienced in heaven, " where 
 there is more joy over one sinner that repenteth, than over 
 ninety-and-nine just persons who need no repentance." For 
 anything I know, the every planet that rolls in the immensity 
 around me may be a land of righteousness ; and be a member 
 of the household of God ; and have her secure dwelling-place 
 within that ample limit which embraces His great and uni- 
 versal family. But I know at least of one wanderer ; and how 
 wofully she has strayed from peace and purity ; and how in 
 dreary alienation from Him who made her, she has bewildered 
 herself amongst those many devious tracts, which have carried 
 her afar from the path of immortality ; and how sadly tar- 
 nished all those beauties and felicities are, which promised, 
 on that morning of her existence when God looked on her, 
 and saw that all was very good — which promised so richly to 
 bless and to adorn her ; and how, in the eye of the whole un-
 
 GOD'S SYMPATHY FOR MAN II3 
 
 fallen creation, she has renounced all this goodliness, and is 
 fast departing away from them into guilt, and wretchedness, 
 and shame. Oh ! if there be any truth in this chapter, and any 
 sweet or touching nature in the principle which runs through- 
 out all its parables, let us cease to wonder, though they who 
 surround the throne of love should be looking so intently 
 towards us — or though, in the way by which they have singled 
 us out, all the other orbs of space should, for one short season, 
 on the scale of eternity, appear to be forgotten — or though, 
 for every step of her recovery, and for every individual who is 
 rendered back again to the fold from which he was separated, 
 another and another message of triumph should be made to 
 circulate amongst the hosts of paradise — or though, lost as 
 we are, and sunk in depravity as we are, all the sympathies of 
 heaven should now be awake on the enterprise of Him who 
 has travailed, in the greatness of His strength, to seek and to 
 save us. 
 
 And here I cannot but remark how fine a harmony there 
 is between the law of sympathetic nature in heaven and the 
 most touching exhibitions of it on the face of our world. When 
 one of a numerous household droops under the power of dis- 
 ease, is not that the one to whom all the tenderness is turned, 
 and who, in a manner, monopolizes the inquiries of his neigh- 
 borhood, and the care of his family? When the sighing of 
 the midnight storm sends a dismal foreboding into the mother's 
 heart, to whom of all her offspring, I would ask, are her 
 thoughts and her anxieties then wandering? Is it not to her 
 sailor boy whom her fancy has placed amid the rude and angry 
 surges of the ocean? Does not this, the hour of his appre- 
 hended danger, concentrate upon him the whole force of her 
 wakeful meditations ? And does not he engross, for a season, 
 her every sensibility, and her every prayer? We sometimes 
 hear of shipwrecked passengers thrown upon a barbarous 
 shore ; and seized upon by its prowling inhabitants ; and hur- 
 ried away through the tracks of a dreary and unknown wil- 
 derness ; and sold into captivity ; and loaded with the fetters 
 of irrecoverable bondage; and who, stripped of every other 
 liberty but the liberty of thought, feel even this to be another 
 ingredient of wretchedness, for what can they think of but 
 home, and as all its kind and tender imagery comes upon their 
 remembrance, how can they think of it but in the bitterness of 
 Vol. II.— 8
 
 ii 4 CHALMERS 
 
 despair? Oh, tell me, when the fame of all this disaster reaches 
 his family, who is the member of it to whom is directed the 
 full tide of its griefs and of its sympathies? Who is it that, 
 for weeks and for months, usurps their every feeling, and calls 
 out their largest sacrifices, and sets them to the busiest ex- 
 pedients for getting him back again? Who is it that makes 
 them forgetful of themselves and of all around them ; and tell 
 me if you can assign a limit to the pains, and the exertions, 
 and the surrenders which afflicted parents and weeping sisters 
 would make to seek and to save him ? 
 
 Now conceive, as we are warranted to do by the parables 
 of this chapter, the principle of all these earthly exhibitions to 
 be in full operation around the throne of God. Conceive the 
 universe to be one secure and rejoicing family, and that this 
 alienated world is the only strayed, or only captive member 
 belonging to it ; and we shall cease to wonder, that from the 
 first period of the captivity of our species, down to the con- 
 summation of their history in time, there should be such a 
 movement in heaven ; or that angels should so often have sped 
 their commissioned way on the errand of our recovery ; or 
 that the Son of God should have bowed Himself down to the 
 burden of our mysterious atonement ; or that the spirit of 
 God should now, by the busy variety of His all-powerful in- 
 fluences, be carrying forward that dispensation of grace which 
 is to make us meet for readmittance into the mansions of the 
 celestial. Only think of love as the reigning principle there ; 
 of love, as sending forth its energies and aspirations to the 
 quarter where its object is most in danger of being forever 
 lost to it; of love, as called forth by this single circumstance 
 o its uttermost exertion, and the most exquisite feeling of its 
 ■tenderness; and then shall we come to a distinct and familiar 
 explanation of this whole mystery. Nor shall we resist by 
 our incredulity the gospel message any longer, though it tells 
 us that throughout the whole of this world's history, long in 
 our eyes, but only a little month in the high periods of im- 
 mortality, so much of the vigilance, and so much of the ear- 
 nestness of heaven, should have been expended on the recovery 
 of its guilty population. 
 
 There is another touching trait of nature, which goes finely 
 to heighten this principle, and still more forcibly to demon- 
 strate its application to our present argument. So long as
 
 GOD'S SYMPATHY FOR MAN 115 
 
 the dying child of David was alive, he was kept on the stretch 
 of anxiety and of suffering with regard to it. When it ex-, 
 pired, he arose and comforted himself. This narrative of King 
 David is in harmony with all that we experience of our own 
 movements, and our own sensibilities. It is the power of un- 
 certainty which gives them so active and so interesting a play 
 in our bosoms ; and which heightens all our regards to a ten- 
 fold pitch of feeling and of exercise ; and which fixes down 
 our watchfulness upon our infant's dying bed ; and which 
 keeps us so painfully alive to every turn and to every symptom 
 in "the progress of its malady; and which draws out all our 
 affections for it to a degree of intensity that is quite unutter- 
 able; and which urges us on to ply our every effort and our 
 every expedient, till hope withdraw its lingering beam, or 
 till death shut the eyes of our beloved in the slumber of its 
 long and its last repose. 
 
 I know not who of you have your names written in the 
 book of life — nor can I tell if this be known to the angels which 
 are in heaven. While in the land of living men, you are under 
 the power and application of a remedy, which, if taken as the 
 gospel prescribes, will renovate the soul, and altogether pre- 
 pare it for the bloom and the vigor of immortality. Wonder 
 not then that with this principle of uncertainty in such full 
 operation, ministers should feel for you ; or angels should feel 
 for you ; or all the sensibilities of heaven should be awake 
 upon the symptoms of your grace and reformation ; or the 
 eyes of those who stand upon the high eminences of the celestial 
 world, should be so earnestly fixed on the every footstep and 
 new evolution of your moral history. Such a consideration 
 as this should do something more than silence the infidel ob- 
 jection. It should give a practical effect to the calls of re- 
 pentance. How wall it go to aggravate the whole guilt of our 
 impenitency, should we stand out against the power and the 
 tenderness of these manifold applications — the voice of a be- 
 seeching God upon us — the word of salvation at our very door 
 — the free offer of strength and of acceptance sounded in our 
 hearing — the spirit in readiness with His agency to meet our 
 every desire and our every inquiry — angels beckoning us to 
 their company — and the very first movements of our awakened 
 conscience drawing upon us all their regards and all their 
 earnestness !
 
 ARBITRATION 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD PALMERSTON 
 
 (Henry John Temple)
 
 HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, VISCOUNT PALMERSTON 
 
 1784— 1865 
 
 There was an Irish strain in Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmer- 
 ston, which colored his character, and without which he would very likely 
 have failed to impress himself upon the imagination of the English 
 people. His intellectual abilities were not extraordinary ; but there was 
 an easy jollity about him, an audacity, or faculty of " bluff," which, 
 in combination with more commonplace qualities, and with remark- 
 able good fortune, not always deserved, made him a leading figure 
 in English politics for many years, and, during the last ten years of 
 his long life. Prime Minister. He loved the bustle of affairs, and had 
 the power of applying himself diligently to business; or at all events — 
 what for practical purposes was almost as good, if not better — of seem- 
 ing busy ; so that men his superiors in intellect, but less active and 
 omnipresent, delegated important functions to him, and placed a con- 
 fidence in him which he was clever enough not to forfeit, even when 
 he did not fairly merit it. Upon the whole, he was a man of prodigious 
 native talent, and his position in life gave him an immense experience; 
 he dominated or silenced men far his superiors in real ability by his 
 humorous savoir-faire and cool imperturbability. The people made a 
 pet of him; he was known to them as few public men have been, 
 largely owing to the caricatures of John Tenniel in " Punch," which 
 hit off his happy-go-lucky air and optimistic temperament, his shrewd- 
 ness, his shallowness, and his knowingness, in a way which captivated 
 the general fancy, and made him immensely popular. 
 
 Palmerston was born at the family estate of Broadlands in 1784, and 
 died at Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire in 1865. The Temple family had 
 an English and an Irish branch, and Palmerston belonged to the latter. 
 He went to Harrow School ; afterwards he went to the University of 
 Edinburgh ; and matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge. 
 
 His father died in 1802, and he inherited his title and the family es- 
 tates. In 1807 he took his seat in Parliament as member for Newtown, 
 Isle of Wight, and held office as Junior Lord of the Admiralty under the 
 Duke of Portland. From 1809 f o 1828 he was Secretary of War. Taking 
 Pitt for his political ideal, he was a consistent Tory, and favored the 
 emancipation of th< Roman Catholics. But when Lord Grey came into 
 power in 1830, he embraced Whiggism, and made a reputation in foreign 
 affairs, being active in the policy which placed Leopold of Saxe-Coburg 
 on the Belgian throne. After 1840 he went out of office for five years; 
 but became prominent again under Lord John Russell, and expressed his 
 sympathy with the revolutionary party which was so much in evidence 
 on the Continent in those days. His dallying with Louis Napoleon 
 caused him to be dismissed from the foreign office; but he came in once 
 more with Aberdeen in 1853. In 1855 he became Prime Minister, thus 
 shouldering the responsibility of the Crimean War. He retained the 
 office of Prime Minister, with the interval of Lord Derby's administra- 
 tion in 1858, until his death. 
 
 His discourses were business-like, off-hand affairs, such as business 
 men address to one another. His self-confidence bred confidence in his 
 hearers, and prompted them to believe that he could do anything, and 
 would never be at the end of his resources. It was not so much by 
 peeches as by his management of debates, and by his work behind 
 the scenes, that he produced his results and carried his purposes. His 
 speech on " Arbitration " is an excellent example of his practical, 
 common-sense manner of reasoning on public affairs. 
 
 118
 
 ARBITRATION 
 
 Delivered in the House of Commons, June 12, 1849 
 
 SIR, I beg to assure my honorable friend, the member for 
 the West Riding, that in rising to state my intention of 
 opposing his motion, I am far from wishing to speak 
 either of the sentiments he has himself expressed, or of the 
 opinions of those whose organ he is, with anything but the 
 greatest possible respect. I entirely agree with my honorable 
 friend, and with those of whose opinion he has been on this 
 occasion the organ, in attributing the utmost possible value to 
 this motion, and in feeling the greatest dislike, and I may say 
 horror, of war in any shape. I will not go into those common- 
 place remarks which must be familiar to the mind of every man 
 who has contrasted the calamities of war with the various 
 blessings and advantages which attend upon peace. I cannot 
 conceive that there exists in this country the man who does not 
 attach the utmost value to the blessings of peace, and who 
 would not make the greatest sacrifices to save his country from 
 the calamities attendant upon war. And although I differ from 
 my honorable friend, and although I am not ready to accede to 
 his motion, yet I cannot say but that I am glad he has made 
 that proposition, because it will be useful for this country and 
 for Europe at large that every man should know that in this 
 assembly, and among the vast masses of men of whom we are 
 the representatives, there is a sincere and honest disposition 
 to maintain peace. But that which I wish to guard against 
 — the impression that I wish should not be entertained any- 
 where, either in this country or out of it — is that while 
 there is in England a fervent love of peace, an anxious and 
 steady desire to maintain it, there should- not exist the im- 
 pression that the manly spirit of Englishmen is dead — that 
 
 119
 
 120 LORD PALMERSTON 
 
 England is not ready, as she is ever, to repel aggression and 
 resent injury, and that she is ready to defend her rights, al- 
 though she never will he found acting aggressively against any 
 other power. Sir, it would be most dangerous indeed to the 
 interests of peace that a contrary opinion should prevail. I can 
 conceive nothing that would bring more into jeopardy the 
 peaceful relations of this country, than that an idea should pre- 
 vail among foreign nations, that we are so attached to peace 
 that we dare not make war, and that, therefore, any aggression 
 or any injury may be safely ventured against English subjects, 
 because England has such a rooted aversion to war that she will 
 not repel it. That is the principle on which I differ from the ob- 
 servations made by my honorable friend, when he condemned 
 those provident supplies — so I may call them — for military 
 defence, which he said, he had found by his examination in a 
 committee above stairs had been laid up in store by this and the 
 last Government. I quite agree with those who think that it is 
 a useless expenditure of the public money to keep in pay an ex- 
 cessive number of men, either by sea or by land, beyond what 
 the existing service of the country may demand, on an imagin- 
 ary expectation of future and contingent hostilities. I think 
 that is a wasteful application of the public money, but I cannot 
 go along with the honorable member in condemning that prov- 
 ident provision of things which cannot be created at a moment's 
 notice — which would be necessary if we were called on to de- 
 fend ourselves from foreign aggression — and the absence of 
 which, if known to foreign countries, would form an incitement 
 and temptation to commit wrong against this country. There- 
 fore I think that a Government acts wisely and prudently when 
 they gradually and without overstraining the burden on the 
 country, lay up a store of those things which may be wanted 
 on the first outbreak of war, if it should unfortunately occur, 
 and which must be provided beforehand, while they abstain 
 from useless augmentations of men, which can be raised when 
 the emergency arises, and in a short period would be just as 
 effective as if they had been longer in military training. Sir, 
 I cannot agree with the proposal of my honorable friend be- 
 cause I think it is founded on an erroneous principle, and that 
 it would be impracticable if attempted to be carried out. My 
 honorable friend comes to his conclusion by an analogy which
 
 ARBITRATION 121 
 
 he draws between private life and the intercourse of nations. 
 He says, in the ordinary transactions between man and man, 
 what is so common as an agreement between individuals, that 
 in the event of disputes occurring they shall be referred to ar- 
 bitration? It is very true that is a common and very advan- 
 tageous practice, but how stand these individuals ? Why, if the 
 sentence of arbitration is not conformable to the opinion of 
 both parties there is a higher and superior authority — the au- 
 thority of some legal tribunal, which enforces concurrence ; to 
 that tribunal the parties previously agree to submit, and it is 
 this superior force that gives value and efficacy to the agree- 
 ment for arbitration. But my honorable friend at once per- 
 ceives, and fairly acknowledges, that that element is wanting 
 in the machine by which he proposes to settle international 
 differences ; and unless we have recourse to the plan of my 
 honorable friend who spoke last for a general tribunal of na- 
 tions, with a military force to compel compliance with its de- 
 crees, it is plain that the arbitration of my honorable friend 
 the member for the West Riding would, in truth, simply, and 
 in most cases, resolve itself into mediation, that is, the proposal 
 by a third party of an arrangement of differences between two 
 other parties. Honorable members ought not to lose sight of 
 the distinction, which is frequently forgotten, between arbitra- 
 tion and mediation — arbitration consisting in the pronouncing 
 of a final decision by a third party which is to be binding on the 
 other two ; mediation consisting in the good offices of a third 
 party to bring about, by the consent and acquiescence of the 
 other two, an amicable termination of differences that may have 
 arisen between them. Now, sir. my honorable friend is so in- 
 ternally aware of the difficulty attending the practical execution 
 of his own idea, that he has been obliged to abandon that which 
 most persons imagined to be his plan. 
 
 [Mr. Cobden here said: I beg pardon; I never altered or 
 abandoned my motion in the slightest degree.] 
 
 Viscount Palmerston : I will not say my honorable friend 
 has abandoned, but he has been obliged not to propose, what 
 many persons, myself included, imagined to be his plan — 
 namely, that the court of arbitration should consist of some 
 foreign government or governments : in turning over the mat- 
 ter, and bringing it to a practical bearing, he has found it neces-
 
 122 LORD PALMERSTON 
 
 sary to substitute commissions taken from private life. Now, 
 sir, it is obvious that that which would be to any person think- 
 ing of this matter for the first time the natural arrangement — 
 and whenever the principle of my honorable friend has been 
 acted upon the plan that has been fully practised — is that of 
 making the arbitrator the government of some foreign state. 
 The plan of my honorable friend, so far as I am aware, has never 
 been attempted. It is perfectly true that there are cases in which 
 arbitration has been resorted to, but in those cases the arbitra- 
 tor chosen has been a sovereign or a government ; in no case 
 has final arbitration been consented to resting on private indi- 
 viduals. What are the reasons why my honorable friend ab- 
 stained from that proposal which was generally expected to 
 come from him on the present occasion ? My honorable friend 
 who has just sat down said that it would be a very desirable 
 thing if an European tribunal could be composed that would act 
 invariably on the principle of justice and of right, which would 
 always give equitable decisions, and which of course, should 
 have force to compel acquiescence in its judgments ; but un- 
 fortunately the world is not yet come to that happy state of 
 things. If you could find the governments of Europe all per- 
 fectly just, perfectly impartial, perfectly disinterested, and, by 
 the possession of these qualities competent to form the tri- 
 bunal my honorable friend imagines, why, such a tribunal 
 would supersede itself; because if all governments were 
 perfectly just, impartial, and disinterested, they would settle 
 any little disputes that might arise between their respective 
 subjects without having recourse to the extreme of war, which 
 this tribunal was intended to prevent. But, unfortunately, it 
 so happens that in the present imperfect condition of human 
 nature, governments, like individuals, are actuated by un- 
 founded and suspicious jealousies of each other — by that 
 which, in men, is called covetousness, which in nations is called 
 ambition — by interested motives of various kinds, interests con- 
 flicting with each other; and it is a matter so difficult that it 
 may almost be deemed impossible to find, in a quarrel between 
 two nations, a tliird party whose judgment each of the two 
 contending parties would place confidence in. If you were to 
 propose to the governments of Europe to enter now, to-day or 
 to-morrow, into a prospective agreement that in cases of differ-
 
 ARBITRATION 
 
 123 
 
 ence they would submit their disputes to any third party to be 
 named now or to be named afterwards — if the engagement 
 were that the third party should be named now, you never 
 would get them to consent ; and if the engagement were to 
 name the third party when the dispute arose, you would have 
 made very little progress towards the establishment of your ar- 
 bitration. There is one case where a dispute arose between this 
 country and the government of the United States, with respect 
 to the Maine boundary, which was by the Treaty of Ghent sub- 
 mitted to arbitration. My honorable friend would have said, 
 " You only want geographers for such a purpose ; two mem- 
 bers of the Geographical Society have only to draw the line, 
 and there it is." But my honorable friend can hardly imagine 
 how much time elapsed before we could come to any agreement 
 as to the choice of the sovereign who was to be the arbitrator in 
 that case, which certainly is not a happy illustration of the re- 
 sults of arbitration ; because the King of the Netherlands, hav- 
 ing been chosen by the two powers as arbitrator in that differ- 
 ence, did after a very long period of time, pronounce an award, 
 which the United States, not finding suitable to their notions 
 of the terms of reference, refused to submit to ; the matter was 
 left in a worse condition than before the arbitration began ; 
 and if that arbitration did not lead to war, I can assure my hon- 
 orable friend it was no merit of the principle of arbitration, but 
 only because the two governments were mutually inspired by 
 a most intense desire to settle the question without having re- 
 course to arms. Well, then, I say, if my honorable friend had 
 proposed, as men generally thought he intended to propose, a 
 court of arbitration, to consist of some third or foreign govern- 
 ments, the answer wouki have been that the mutual jealousies 
 of governments, the rivalry of conflicting interests, the — I was 
 going to say — intrigues, but the hostile policy of nations to- 
 wards each other, would make it, I am satisfied, perfectly im- 
 possible to bring countries to acquiesce in the prospective ar- 
 rangement, and I, for one, must say, it would be dangerous to 
 the interests of this country to submit the vital rights and in- 
 terests of England to the chances of a decision by the judgment 
 of any foreign power. Well, but my honorable friend very 
 wisely steers clear of that difficulty, and proposes the appoint- 
 ment of commissioners. I am not sure that I quite comprehend
 
 I24 LORD PALMERSTON 
 
 the proposal of my honorable friend, but he will correct me if I 
 am wrong. I understand him to propose that a treaty should 
 be made containing a stipulation that, in the event of differ- 
 ences, each government should name commissioners of its own 
 to discuss the point at issue, and that they, either before they 
 met, or after they met, should name some third person not in 
 the employment of either government ; but a man of science, 
 or a man in private life, to be the arbitrator between the com- 
 missioners in case they should not be able to agree. That, so 
 far as I understood, was the manner in which the proposal of my 
 honorable friend was to be carried out. Now, sir, if it is ob- 
 jectionable, as I think it is, to commit the interests of a great 
 country to the decision of what may be a rival power, upon 
 matters of vital interest, or upon matters concerning most im- 
 portant and essential rights, I must say my objection to submit 
 such matters to the arbitration and final decision of a third 
 party would not be removed by substituting for a government, 
 which at least is a public and responsible body, persons irre- 
 sponsible and taken from private life. At all events, a govern- 
 ment acts in the face of the world ; it is accustomed to deal with 
 matters of the kind submitted to it for decision ; but if you take 
 a man from private life he is perfectly irresponsible in any pub- 
 lic way ; his habits and pursuits may have been very different 
 from those that would qualify for the decision of questions sub- 
 mitted to him ; in my humble opinion almost all the same ob- 
 jections would apply, and other objections apply which would 
 not apply to a government. There was one instance, to be sure, 
 to show that these learned men are not always persons who are 
 the readiest to come to a decision on a simple matter. There is 
 one well known problem the difficulty of solving which is uni- 
 versally acknowledged. No one denies the difficulty of finding 
 the longitude. But if a man be required to ascertain the latitude 
 of any given place, or the position of any parallel of latitude, it 
 it deemed to be a very simple process. Now, by the Treaty of 
 Ghent, the commissioners appointed to settle the boundary dis- 
 pute were to trace a line which should coincide with or come 
 within a specified distance of a certain given parallel of latitude. 
 Of course it will be said that nothing could be more easy than 
 that ; nothing was easier, it might be said, than to appoint two 
 geographers as two commissioners, who would at once deter-
 
 ARBITRATION 
 
 "5 
 
 mine the matter, it being the simplest thing possible ; they had 
 only their boundary to mark along the line indicated by the 
 treaty : that was precisely the sort of thing that suited the views 
 of my honorable friend the member for the West Riding — noth- 
 ing seemed easier than to find two learned men such as he 
 would elect, and put them at once to find the parallel of latitude. 
 But it so happened that there was not a chance of agreeing upon 
 any such point, for one maintained that the parallel was to de- 
 pend upon calculations commencing at the centre of the earth, 
 and the other that the computations were to be made from the 
 centre of the sun ; they were, therefore, as far apart as the earth 
 from the sun — they were further than the poles asunder — they 
 were unable to agree about that which might be settled at once 
 by anyone who was able to set a village sun-dial. Neither Baron 
 von Humboldt nor Professor Tiarcks, who was associated with 
 him in the undertaking, could arrive at any satisfactory re- 
 sult. [Mr. Cobden: The question is settled.] True, but not by 
 geographers. However, I feel assured that the House will agree 
 with me when I say that it would not be safe to trust such inter- 
 ests as those, or at all events such interests as usually give rise 
 to differences between nations — it would not be safe to leave 
 them to arbitration ; and, though the matter was eventually 
 settled in the usual way, I do think that the case is less of an ex- 
 ample to be followed, than of a beacon to be avoided. Then m 
 honorable friend says there is nothing new at bottom in the 
 proposition which he has made to the House, for he says that 
 the powers which we were accustomed to give to negotiators we 
 might in future give to two commissioners, one to be appointed 
 by either nation concerned, giving them power to call in a 
 third as final arbitrator, and my honorable friend instanced the 
 case of Lord Castlereagh, who, on behalf of this country, at- 
 tended the Congress of Vienna, and took a part in the transac- 
 tions which occurred on that memorable occasion. Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh was then enabled to say adsum qui feci; he might say 
 he had done it ; he was there upon his own responsibility, for 
 least to a considerable extent upon his own responsibility, for 
 Lord Castlereagh at that time held the office of Secretary of 
 State for Foreign Affairs. But here it may be necessary for me 
 to mention a matter well deserving to be borne in mind during 
 the discussion which now occupies the attention of the House. It
 
 I2 6 LORD PALMERSTON 
 
 is this — that no person goes out from this country, or usually 
 from any other, with full powers in the strict sense of those 
 words. Some discretion may be left to him, but he does not go 
 out with full and entire discretion — quite the contrary. Every 
 minister plenipotentiary receives instructions. He is always told 
 what he may agree to and what he may not, and he has oppor- 
 tunities, of which ministers often avail themselves, to send home 
 for further instructions. As long as he confines himself to his 
 instructions he may proceed with some degree of confidence ; 
 but the government by which he is accredited are still not finally 
 bound by his acts, and everything that an ambassador does he 
 does subject to the approbation of the government which he 
 represents. It is perfectly competent to that government to dis- 
 avow the acts of the minister whom they have sent out as an am- 
 bassador, and to disavow and reject all that he has done, if they 
 think it expedient so to do ; and a striking example has been 
 furnished in the occurrences of the past week of the exercise of 
 this power. It is, therefore, quite a mistake to suppose that, ac- 
 cording to the present and prevailing practice, governments are 
 at the mercy of their envoys ; nothing is binding upon a gov- 
 ernment unless 'A be in strict accordance with communications 
 made to other governments in the precise words of the instruc- 
 tions. A treaty may be signed and concluded but it is of no 
 value without ratification, and this sort of provision is necessary 
 in order that no government may be bound by the indiscreet or 
 unauthorized act of any of its agents ; and therefore if an envoy 
 should go against his instructions, the arrangements he may 
 make are of no value beyond the paper on which they are writ- 
 ten. Therefore do I state that my honorable friend the member 
 for the West Riding makes an admission that his plan is new in 
 principle. The House will not have forgotten that my honor- 
 able friend quoted several cases of international transactions ; 
 but he did not succeed in making out the case which he ap- 
 peared to think was necessary for his purpose. The cases which 
 he mentioned were not cases of arbitration, but of mediation, 
 or else they were cases of no mediation at all, settled neither 
 by arbitration nor by intervention — such as those which 
 he mentioned between Russia and England, and the case also 
 of the Vixen. In the boundary case it seemed as if there 
 had been some show of arbitration; but it was notorious
 
 ARBITRATION 127 
 
 that in that case arbitration failed ; and when arbitration had 
 totally failed, the parties concerned settled the matter for 
 themselves in the usual manner ; and let the fact not be over- 
 looked, that the Oregon question was settled in pretty nearly 
 the same way ; at all events it was not settled by geog- 
 raphers, in the manner that my honorable friend would pro- 
 pose. If it were to have been so settled by geographers, I con- 
 fess, I should not very much envy the gentlemen who might be 
 employed upon such an undertaking; for I believe there can 
 be no doubt that the district through which they would have 
 had to penetrate is one of extraordinary wildness and difficulty, 
 where the means of subsistence are hardly to be obtained. Now, 
 the case of the Caroline was a remarkable one in reference to 
 the question of arbitration, and it was one of those few cases in 
 which it was manifest that it would be unavailing to arbitrate. 
 It was not a case of dispute between this country and the United 
 States, for the federal authority of that government was not 
 sufficient to meet the exigency of the case. The government 
 of the United States said they were sorry for what had occurred, 
 but they had no power to interfere — the supreme government 
 of the United States possessed no power over the local author- 
 ity or government with which the dispute arose. Now, if we in 
 that case possessed a treaty of arbitration, of what use would 
 it be to us? For the Government of the United States would 
 repeat its declaration that it could not interfere with the local 
 government. They would say, " We are very sorry, but we can 
 obtain you no redress from the State of New York." Your prin- 
 ciple then of arbitration would be of not the least avail in such 
 a case. It leaves you precisely where you were before the intro- 
 duction of such a plan. The cases then which my honorable 
 friend has quoted, are cases in which the principle of arbitration 
 proved useless, or they are cases which have been settled by the 
 ordinary authorities, or they are cases of mediation in which a 
 friendly power has exercised its good offices, as in the sulphur 
 question with France, or they are cases settled in the usual 
 way after arbitration has wholly failed. I do think, however, 
 and I have always thought, that when two nations have had any 
 difference capable of being settled by arbitration, it is most de- 
 sirable that they should allow a third party to come in to assist 
 them in the good work of making a satisfactory arrangement —
 
 I2 8 LORD PALMERSTON 
 
 it is at all times most desirable that a third party not actuated 
 by the same passions which heat those immediately concerned, 
 should step in, and bring the disputants to something like a 
 compromise — there must be a giving and taking on both sides, 
 for neither party in such cases can expect to get all that he may 
 reasonably or fairly demand, and all such negotiations should 
 therefore be entered upon in a spirit of accommodation and 
 mutual concession, with a view to prevent an appeal to arms, 
 and with a view to open the door to that kind of negotiation 
 which may lead to peace, in the course of which the ministers 
 engaged on both sides may receive from their respective gov- 
 ernments fresh instructions, in which answers may be received, 
 in which remonstrances may be made, further replies given, and 
 thus a long time elapses before any actual rupture occurs, and 
 before recourse is had to that appeal which arms alone afford. 
 In the course of those proceedings opportunities occur for one 
 or other of the parties to obtain the opinion of a third nation 
 friendly to both, and having no private or separate interest to 
 promote. A nation so circumstanced may, I think, well offer its 
 mediation, and I have incurred no small amount of obloquy, 
 and perhaps ridicule also, on the ground that I have been too 
 forward to offer mediation in such cases as those which I have 
 just been describing. But I confess that I feel perfectly easy 
 under the influence of such attacks, for I feel quite persuaded 
 that the good-will, at least manifested in such attempts, cannot 
 fail eventually to be appreciated, and that in cases where Eng- 
 land has nothing either to gain or to lose, a sincere desire to 
 prevent war must, sooner or later, be attended with beneficial 
 results ; and I cannot help thinking that it must be most satis- 
 factory to my honorable friend the member for the West 
 Riding, and to those who support his motion, to know that 
 mediation has been of much more frequent occurrence of late 
 years than in times past ; but those honorable gentlemen must, 
 at the same time, bear in mind that the principle of arbitration 
 is not applicable to the present state of Europe. Wars are now 
 proceeding in various parts of the Continent, blood is being 
 shed, lives being sacrificed ; but these occurrences do not arise 
 from international wars. It is to civil wars that they must be im- 
 puted, and, except in rare instances indeed, the intervention 
 of foreigners, or third parties, or arbitrators, would be either im-
 
 ARBITRATION 
 
 129 
 
 practicable, or, if possible, might be mischievous ; and it must 
 be obvious to everyone that the kind of war now prevailing on 
 the Continent of Europe is not the species of hostility to which 
 the principle of arbitration can be applied. In those wars, how- 
 ever, I am happy to be able to perceive striking evidence of the 
 improved civilization of the people of Europe — evidence not 
 only of improvement in the governments of Europe, but of ad- 
 vancing civilization amongst the masses of the people. If such 
 events as have recently taken place in Europe had occurred half 
 a century ago we should have had not only civil wars, but con- 
 flicts between nations of the most fatal character — fatal alike to 
 prosperity and civilization. It is consoling, then, to see that 
 great masses of men, instead of standing forth as the aggres- 
 sors of their neighbors, confine their disputes to their own terri- 
 tories, to the communities to which they properly belong, and 
 to their own internal affairs. It is gratifying to think that they 
 have not been led into warfare with other nations, either by 
 feelings of ambition or by any different description of impulse. 
 I hope, then, that now sufficient proof has been given that we 
 should not advance the interest of nations by recognizing the 
 principle for which my honorable friend contends, at the same 
 time that I cannot find fault with him for introducing this ques- 
 tion, or for affording an opportunity for the expression of that 
 general feeling which animates members of this House upon the 
 present occasion. The cultivation of that feeling forms a great 
 example to the rest of Europe — it tends to inspire not only gov- 
 ernments but nations with the sentiments which my honorable 
 friend feels and has made known to the House this evening; 
 and I conceive that it will take away nothing from the force of 
 those sentiments, but rather add to their influence, when 
 I say that ever since the year 1825 down to the present 
 period, the practice of mediation has been preferred by many 
 governments, and several cases have arisen in which it 
 has been advantageously adopted. I believe that the pres- 
 ent government, and any other which may succeed to the 
 task of conducting the affairs of this country, would feel it 
 not only their duty, but their pride, to avail themselves of every 
 occasion when they think they can do good by softening the 
 asperities between conflicting powers, and by effecting be- 
 tween governments and countries that may differ, an amicable 
 Vol. II.— 9
 
 i 3 o LORD PALMERSTON 
 
 settlement of their disputes, either without war, or by shorten- 
 ing war if war should unfortunately arise. The proposition of 
 my honorable friend, however, is not one to which I can advise 
 the House to accede. I do not quarrel with the principle upon 
 which it is founded ; but I think its practical effect would be 
 dangerous to this country, and that its practical adoption by 
 other countries would be impossible. Indeed, I believe that no 
 country would agree to such a proposal. No country would 
 consent blindfold to submit its interests and its rights on all 
 future occasions to the decision of any third party, whether 
 public or private, whether governments or men of science ; and 
 I think, therefore, the proposition is one which would be at- 
 tended with no possible results as regards foreign countries. 
 I confess also that I consider it would be a very dangerous 
 course for this country itself to take, because there is no country 
 which from its political and commercial circumstances, from its 
 maritime interests, and from its colonial possessions, excites 
 more envious and jealous feelings in different quarters than 
 England does ; and there is no country that would find it more 
 difficult to discover really disinterested and impartial arbiters. 
 There is also no country that would be more likely than Eng- 
 land to suffer in its important commercial interests from sub- 
 mitting its case to arbiters not disinterested, not impartial, and 
 not acting with a due sense of their responsibility. For these 
 reasons it is not in my power to assent to the motion. I should, 
 however, be sorry to meet it in a way that might, even by mis- 
 construction, be considered as negativing the principle upon 
 which it is founded. I shall not, therefore, propose a direct neg- 
 ative, although that is the mode which, according to the usual 
 practice of the House, ought to be adopted by those who differ 
 from my honorable friend. The " previous question " is not 
 technically applicable to this case, but the previous question 
 being the most courteous mode of disposing of such a motion 
 as that before the House, and one less liable than any other to 
 the imputation — however unfounded it may be — of negativing 
 the principle of peace, which is the foundation of my honorable 
 friend's proposal, I beg leave to move the previous question.
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD JOHN RUSSELL
 
 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 
 
 1792 — 1878 
 
 John Russell, the record of whose life is so intimately interwoven 
 with the fortunes of the Whig party for nearly half a century, was born 
 in London, August 18, 1792. He was the third son of the sixth duke 
 of Bedford. He received his early education at Westminster school 
 and with a private tutor in Woodnesborough, in Kent. He studied at 
 Edinburgh from the autumn of 1809 till the summer of 1812. Lord 
 Russell visited the Peninsula in 1812, and during this visit he met 
 Wellington at Burgos, and in 1814 Napoleon at Elba. While still under 
 age, in July, 1813, he was elected member of Parliament for the borough 
 of Tavistock in the interest of the Whig party. And with his return to 
 Parliament began his long and useful career as a statesman. At the 
 general election in 1820 he was returned for Huntingdonshire. Hence- 
 forth, for twelve years, he devoted himself to the pressing of Parlia- 
 mentary reforms. After the accession to power of Earl Grey, Lord 
 Russell, though then not a member of Parliament, was intrusted with 
 the task of explaining the Government Reform Bill to the House of 
 Commons. His speech on this occasion marks an epoch in his career. 
 In March, 1835, Russell brought in a motion to consider the temporali- 
 ties of the Irish Church, which was carried by a considerable majority 
 alter a three nights' debate, and when Lord Melbourne's ministry again 
 came into power during the same year he was made Home Secretary 
 with a seat in the Cabinet. 
 
 As Colonial Secretary in 1839 Russell pacified the Canadians, whose 
 claims to self-government he allowed. His proposal of a fixed duty on 
 foreign grain led to the defeat of Melbourne's administration and made 
 way for Peel, who in 1845 made public announcement of his conver- 
 sion to the immediate repeal of the Corn Laws. After Peel's resignation 
 in consequence, his recall to power, and another resignation, all within 
 a twelvemonth, Russell became what he in reality had been under the 
 Melbourne administration — Prime Minister. In 1846, 1847, and 1848 
 we find him engaged in adjusting the affairs of Ireland. In the Cabinet 
 of the Earl of Aberdeen, Russell became Foreign Secretary with the 
 leadership of the House of Commons, but was forced to resign on ac- 
 count of the unpopularity incurred by his attitude at the Congress of 
 Vienna. In 1859 Russell became Foreign Secretary a second time un- 
 der the second administration of Palmerston, which office he held till 
 1865. He threw his whole influence on the side of Italian unity and 
 preserved a strict neutrality in the Civil War in America. He was 
 created Earl Russell in 1861, and entered the House of Lords. On the 
 death of Lord Palmerston in 1865 he became Prime Minister a second 
 time. The reform bill which he introduced with Gladstone in 1866 was 
 rejected and his ministry shortly after resigned. From now on, up 
 to the time of his death, May 28, 1878, he remained an active member 
 of the Liberal party in the House of Lords. In private life, says a 
 competent authority, Russell was a genial companion, never happier 
 than when surrounded by his children and his books. 
 
 As a statesman he was a sincere, but not a demonstrative, patriot. 
 He championed every measure that he believed would increase the hap- 
 piness of his people. Though his voice was weak and his delivery 
 somewhat affected, Earl Russell was an admirable and successful de- 
 bater, his speeches rising to a high order of eloquence. The speech on 
 " The Church of Ireland " is characteristic of Russell's style of oratory. 
 
 132
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND 
 
 Delivered in the House of Commons, March jo, 1835 
 
 I RISE fully sensible of the arduous task I have undertaken ; 
 but although I am well aware both of the difficulty of that 
 task, and of the responsibility I incur, yet the confidence 
 I feel in the nature of the question I am to bring forward dimin- 
 ishes much of my anxiety, because I cannot but think that the 
 clearness of the proposition I shall submit will compensate for 
 any obscurity in the arguments I may use to enforce it. I am 
 confident that the truth and justice of the cause will prevail 
 though the weakness and incompetence of the advocate should 
 be manifest. 
 
 With no further preface, therefore, I shall enter upon the 
 consideration of the subject of the Church of Ireland ; and 
 in doing so, let me advert, in the first instance, to a motion 
 made on April 22, in the last year. The honorable member for 
 the city of Dublin then introduced a motion for a committee to 
 inquire into the means by which the union with Ireland had 
 been effected, and as to the expediency of continuing it. The 
 honorable member was met by an amendment in the form of an 
 address to the Crown, which was carried by a large majority, 
 and in the minority appeared only one member for England, 
 and no member for Scotland. The answer to the motion of the 
 honorable and learned member, therefore, was given by the 
 Representatives of England and Scotland, supported by a great 
 part of those from Ireland. The address was in these terms: 
 ' We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Com- 
 mons, in Parliament assembled, feel it our duty humbly to ap- 
 proach your Majesty's throne, to record in the most solemn 
 manner our fixed determination to maintain unimpaired and 
 undisturbed the legislative union between Great Britain and 
 Ireland, which we consider to be essential to the strength and 
 
 133
 
 134 
 
 LORD RUSSELL 
 
 stability of the empire, to the continuance of the connection 
 between the two countries, and to the peace, and security, and 
 happiness, of all classes of your Majesty's subjects. We feel 
 this our determination, to be as much justified by our views 
 of the general interests of the state, as by our conviction that 
 to no other portion of your Majesty's subjects is the mainten- 
 ance of the legislative union more important than to the inhab- 
 itants of Ireland themselves. We humbly represent to your 
 Majesty that the imperial Parliament have taken the affairs of 
 Ireland into their most serious consideration, and that various 
 salutary laws have been enacted, since the union, for the ad- 
 vancement of the most important interests of Ireland, and of the 
 empire at large. In expressing to your Majesty our resolution 
 to maintain the legislative union inviolate, we humbly beg leave 
 to assure your Majesty that we shall persevere in applying our 
 best attention to the removal of all just causes of complaint, and 
 to the promotion of all well-considered measures of improve- 
 ment." 
 
 This address was carried by the House to the foot of the 
 throne, and His Majesty was pleased to return an answer in 
 which he stated that he should be " at all times anxious to afford 
 his best assistance in removing all just causes of complaint, and 
 in sanctioning all well-considered measures of improvement." 
 This was the answer of His Majesty to the claim in the petitions 
 of a large portion of the people of Ireland, enforced by a mem- 
 ber of this House, in whom they had the greatest confidence, 
 and who undoubtedly possessed abilities to place his arguments 
 in the best and strongest point of view. In pursuance of this 
 answer which was adopted by the House of Lords, and thereby 
 became, as it were, a solemn compact between the Parliament 
 of the United Kingdom and the people, given by the King, re- 
 ceived by the Commons, and approved by the Lords, I am come 
 before you to-day to represent to you what I consider " a well- 
 considered measure of improvement." My complaint is, that 
 nothing of that sort has yet been done or attempted, and I have 
 referred to this discussion, not only on account of its strict con- 
 nection with my motion, but because I think it ought to refute 
 any answer to it founded upon some supposed danger, some 
 distant apprehension, that what we may do to remove a " just 
 cause of complaint," and to adopt a " well-considered measure
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND 
 
 135 
 
 of improvement " with regard to Ireland, may have an injurious 
 effect at some distant and indefinite time on one of the institu- 
 tions of the country. I say you are not at liberty, after having 
 agreed to this address, to put in that answer, and thus to bar a 
 remedy. 
 
 One of two things must be admitted : Either you are pre- 
 pared to do justice to Ireland — to consider her grievances, 
 and redress her wrongs — or you are not. But if you tell 
 us that your position is such that any measure of that kind 
 would be injurious to England, and dangerous to her church 
 establishment, which prevents the remedy of the abuses of the 
 Church of Ireland, you surely, then, have no right to say that 
 it is fit to enforce the legislative union. You are not to tell us 
 that you cannot listen to the well-founded grievances of Ireland, 
 and are not prepared to do her justice, and yet insist on an ad- 
 herence to the legislative union. I hold that such an answer 
 would be most impolitic as regards Ireland, and most danger- 
 ous as regards the whole empire. I am one of those who think 
 that, with perfect safety to the Church of England, you may rem- 
 edy what is defective in the Church of Ireland, and, remedying 
 that, may persist in your demand for the preservation of the 
 legislative union. I own I cannot understand how any mem- 
 bers of this House can confess their inability to remove the 
 grievances of Ireland ; on account of a remote and contingent 
 apprehension ; and yet can maintain, as absolutely as I do, that 
 the legislative union ought not to be disturbed. The state of 
 Ireland has long been, and is now, a source of great embar- 
 rassment to every statesman of this country. There is no 
 doubt that the moral, no less than the physical condition of that 
 people, is one of great degradation. With respect to the phys- 
 ical condition — with respect to the poverty and distress preva- 
 lent in Ireland — if I were to bring forward a motion on that 
 subject, I should be obliged to state grounds for thinking that 
 some measures were necessary, by assessment or otherwise, to 
 lessen that serious evil. But that is a question of another kind, 
 and for another day. The question which I have to consider is, 
 the moral condition of the people, and how far the church es- 
 tablished in Ireland bears on that condition. Whether our acts 
 of temporary coercion — our acts for enforcing the collection of 
 tithes, and to compel the due administration of the law, have, or
 
 I3 6 LORD RUSSELL 
 
 have not been effectual, there exists, as we unhappily know, a 
 strong propensity to violence and outrage, not merely among 
 a few lawless and ill-regulated persons, but among all, or nearly 
 all, classes of the community. This defiance of the law arises 
 from an opinion that the law is not fairly and equally adminis- 
 tered. Dreadful acts of murder have been committed in vari- 
 ous parts of Ireland. A murder has been perpetrated, at one 
 time, on a clergyman of a most unoffending character, and at 
 another time a Roman Catholic has fallen a victim to the ani- 
 mosity of those whom he had never intended to injure. It not 
 infrequently has happened that an individual, wishing to pre- 
 serve the safety of his own person, has had more reason to fear 
 the combinations of those who set up against the law, than the 
 ministers who execute the law. It has too often happened 
 that when Justice has raised her head, a stronger power has re- 
 sisted her efforts, her balance has been destroyed, and her 
 sword turned aside from its purpose by the intervention of a 
 multitude. 
 
 Every relation of life in Ireland, as Viscount Melbourne said 
 in the House of Lords last year, has been, and still is, liable to be 
 disturbed, by this lawless condition of affairs. The payment 
 of rent, the hiring of land, the settlement of wages between em- 
 ployer and servant, in short, the conclusion of every bargain 
 has been frequently impeded by threats on the part of those who 
 appear to have no concern with making the engagements, and 
 to complete them would be attended with personal danger. If 
 we look to the causes, although no doubt many might be 
 named, yet we cannot help being struck by the fact that there 
 has been no time in the history of Ireland since this country 
 obtained footing and dominion there, in which there was not 
 some dreadful contest, something amounting to a civil war, 
 and a state of law which induced the people to consider them- 
 selves rather as the victims of tyranny than the subjects of just 
 government. 
 
 Tt has happened, by a kind of fatality, that those periods 
 most remarkable and most glorious in English history have 
 been marked by indications of some new calamity in Ire- 
 land. While we justly boast of the statutes passed in the reign 
 of our first Edward, an epoch remarkable in our civil history, 
 for Edward has been called the English Justinian, the inhabi-
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND 137 
 
 tants of Ireland vainly petitioned for a removal of those invid- 
 ious distinctions which deprived them of the benefit of English 
 laws. A similar remark applies to the reign of Edward IV. 
 Throughout the reign of Elizabeth, when the Reformation was 
 so prosperously completed, and when the glory of England 
 was so resplendent, not only in arms, but in arts of literature, 
 the Irish suffered the most grievous oppressions, and a new dis- 
 tinction was introduced, viz., that distinction of which I shall 
 have so much to say to-day, brought about by changing the 
 faith of the great body of the clergy, without the faith of the 
 people undergoing the same change. Passing over the period 
 of the Commonwealth, the great event of the Revolution, to 
 which we look back with such proud and just satisfaction, was 
 attended with new calamities to Ireland. New distinctions 
 were made, to the disadvantage of that unhappy people ; and 
 on the score of their religion they were suspected of an attach- 
 ment to the monarch whom England had banished. They 
 were accordingly visited by laws which Mr. Burke truly desig- 
 nated as a barbarous code — they were proscribed, humiliated, 
 and degraded, and treated as enemies, both to the throne and to 
 the altar. At the same time our ingenuity was tormented 
 to discover modes of restricting the trade of Ireland with our 
 colonies, and the progress of her internal improvement was 
 industriously impeded ; such were the circumstances which in 
 Ireland corresponded with the most glorious events of English 
 history. 
 
 Towards the end of the last and the beginning of the present 
 century, a better era seemed promised to Ireland ; many odious 
 restrictions were removed, and she freed herself from bonds 
 which had previously most unjustly confined her. The power 
 of legislation was restored to her, and about this period some 
 religious distinctions were removed, and she approached nearer 
 to the enjoyment of equal laws and to the possession of civil 
 rights. The conviction of a long course of injustice and suffer- 
 ing, which naturally impressed the minds of the people, induced 
 them, even in this dawn of a happier day, to look a little into 
 the cause of improvement in their prospects and condition. It 
 was said by a statesman, of no democratic turn, no lover of pop- 
 ular innovation — the late Lord Grenville — that concession to 
 Ireland was always the result, not of kindness, but of necessity.
 
 I3 8 LORD RUSSELL 
 
 Such was the case when, in the midst of the American war, 
 with eighty thousand volunteers in arms, England was obliged 
 to make an appeal to Ireland. Such was the case in 1792, when 
 the elective franchise, first obstinately denied, was at length 
 conceded, because a French war was impending. Such was 
 the case, I am sorry to add, since the period when Lord Gren- 
 ville spoke, when Catholic emancipation was reluctantly grant- 
 ed. That concession arose out of no admission of the justice 
 of the claim on the part of those who proposed it, but proceeded 
 avowedly from the fear of civil war. The point having been 
 yielded in this manner, it cannot be expected that the minds 
 of the people of Ireland should be so changed as to be reconciled 
 to their remaining disadvantages ; ancient hatred and former 
 animosities still necessarily prevail, and it seems to have been 
 too often thought by them that what force once extorted, force 
 could again compel. I now come to you, and ask you to legis- 
 late in a different and a liberal spirit. I come to you, to ask you, 
 although the Reformation and the Revolution were periods of 
 calamity, and not of gratulation to Ireland, to make this era 
 (when a Parliament has been assembled representing, I believe, 
 fairly, the opinions of the united people) celebrated in her an- 
 nals for its justice and impartiality, inspiring her inhabitants 
 with better hopes, and laying the foundation of a lasting settle- 
 ment. 
 
 In considering the state of the Church of Ireland I am 
 obliged to look back and consider a question that has been of 
 late a good deal mooted, viz. : the utility and object of a church 
 establishment. I am one of those fully concurring in the de- 
 fence set up last year by one of our prelates, that an establish- 
 ment tends to promote religion, to maintain good order, and 
 I further agree with him as to the fact that it is agreeable to the 
 sentiments of the majority of the people of this part of the em- 
 pire. But as a friend of the United Kingdom, I call upon you 
 to consider whether with respect to the Church of Ireland you 
 can set up the same defence ? Does it tend to promote religion, 
 or to maintain good order? On this part of the subject I will 
 take the liberty of reading a passage from Archdeacon Paley, 
 where he speaks of a church establishment. " The authority 
 of a church establishment is founded in its utility, and when- 
 ever, upon this principle, we deliberate concerning the form,
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND i 39 
 
 propriety, or comparative excellency of different establish- 
 ments, the single view under which we ought to consider any 
 of them is, that of ' a scheme of instruction,' the single end we 
 ought to propose by them is, ' the preservation and communi- 
 cation of religious knowledge.' Every other idea, and every 
 other end, that have been mixed with this, as the making of the 
 Church an engine, or even an ally of the State, converting it 
 into the means of strengthening or diffusing influence ; or re- 
 garding it as a support of regal, in opposition to popular, forms 
 of government ; have served only to debase the institution, and 
 to introduce into it numerous abuses and corruptions." I 
 agree also with a right reverend prelate, who stated in one of 
 his charges last year, that the " avowed object for which the 
 Church is established is the spiritual instruction of all classes 
 of the people." He adds, elsewhere, that the whole contro- 
 versy is reduced to this — "whether the religious instruction of 
 a nation is not more effectually carried on by means of an en- 
 dowed and an established church ? " That is precisely the ques- 
 tion I propose to apply to the state of Ireland, and I ask whether 
 this great object has been advanced by the mode in which the 
 Church revenues are at present appropriated in Ireland — 
 whether the religious instruction of the people has been pro- 
 moted by the establishment of the Protestant Church ? I will 
 first consider what are now the revenues of the Irish Church 
 as compared with its revenues in former times. Upon this 
 point a passage which I shall beg to read from a letter of Arch- 
 bishop King to Archbishop Wake, after the death of the Arch- 
 bishop of Tuam, dated March 29, 1716, is instructive. He says, 
 " We have but about six hundred beneficed clergymen in Ire- 
 land, and perhaps of these hardly two hundred have £100 per 
 annum, and for you to send your supernumeraries to be pro 
 vided out of the least of these, does look too like the rich man in 
 Nathan's parable." At that period, then, it will be seen that 
 there were not more than six hundred benefices in Ireland, and 
 the total revenue of the Church at that time, even including 
 lay impropriations, was not more than £110,000. Now, my 
 honorable friend [Mr. Ward] , in his speech of last year, made a 
 statement of the present revenues of the Church of Ireland, 
 which has not been disputed, and the exactness of which I be- 
 lieve there is no reason to doubt. It is as follows : " The
 
 I4 o LORD RUSSELL 
 
 total number of benefices is 1,456, of which seventy-four range 
 from £800 to £1,000 a year ; seventy-five from £ 1,000 to £ 1,500 ; 
 seventeen from £1,500 to £2,000, and ten from £2,000 to £2,800, 
 which is the maximum. There are four hundred and seven 
 livings, varying from £400 to £800 per annum ; and three hun- 
 dred and eighty-six livings exceeding £200." I have before 
 mentioned that the total revenue of the Church of Ireland in 
 1716 was £110,000, being made up of the sum of £60,000 for 
 benefices, and about £50,000 for lay impropriations. Now, let 
 us see what is its amount at present. I find it thus stated : 
 
 Tithe composition ,£534433 
 
 Episcopal revenues exclusive of tithes 141 ,896 
 
 Deans and chapters and economy estates 5-399 
 
 Minor canons and vicars choral 5,183 
 
 Dignitaries, prebendaries, and canons 6,560 
 
 Glebe lands 68,250 at 15s. 
 
 Perpetuity purchase fund 30,000 
 
 Total £791,71 1 
 
 These are the present revenues of the Church of Ireland, so 
 that in the whole they amount to little less than £800,000. We 
 therefore at once come to the question whether this large sum 
 has really been applied to the religious instruction of the people, 
 or to whose benefit it has been applied ? — whether, while during 
 the last century, there has been this enormous increase in the 
 revenues of the Church, there has been a corresponding in- 
 crease in the number of conversions to the Protestant religion ? 
 — whether the activity and zeal of the clergy have been such, 
 and whether such has been their success, that the greater por- 
 tion of the inhabitants of Ireland have become attached to the 
 Protestant Church, and whether this beneficial change has been 
 owing to the instructions of its ministers ? I am sorry to say, 
 that the result has been the reverse. I am afraid that in the last 
 century, although it is not so now, it was considered rather an 
 advantage, that there were but a few Protestant clergymen re- 
 siding on their benefices ; as they had no glebe-houses, and no 
 churches, they had a very fair plea for neglecting their spiritual 
 duties. Tt is mentioned by more than one traveller that such 
 was the ordinary case, and even at a late date, many of the 
 clergy considered themselves rather part of a large political
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND 141 
 
 body than as persons appointed for the spiritual instruction of 
 the people. 
 
 It has been stated to me by a reverend gentleman who 
 has addressed me, and who once held a benefice in Ireland, 
 that when first he went there he considered the character of the 
 clergy of that Church very different from the character of the 
 Church of England. They had many very small flocks ; they 
 had difficulty in collecting their tithes. Their attention was 
 therefore too much absorbed by the means of collecting their 
 tithes, and they did not partake of the character which does 
 so much honor to the clergy of the Church of England. This 
 statement was made to me by a highly respected gentleman, 
 who held a benefice in Ireland for many years and afterwards 
 gave it up and returned to this country ; and he mentioned an 
 instance of a clergyman who thought himself aggrieved in be- 
 ing deprived of his benefice because he would persist in holding 
 a commission in a yeomanry corps. All the information that 
 we have, and it is abundant, tends to show that such was for- 
 merly the actual condition of the Church. By Tighe's " History 
 of Kilkenny," it appears that the number of Protestant fami- 
 lies in 1 73 1 was 1,055, DUt * n JSoo they had been reduced to 
 nine hundred and forty-one. The total number of Protestants 
 at the former period was 5,238, while the population of the 
 country, which in 1800 was 108,000, in 1731 was only 42,108 
 souls. From Stewart's " History of Armagh/' we find that 
 sixty years ago the Protestants in that county were as two to 
 one ; now they are as one to three. In 1733, the Roman Catho- 
 lics in Kerry were in the proportion of twelve to one Protestant, 
 and now the former are much more numerous than even that 
 proportion. In Tullamore, in 1731, there were sixty-four Prot- 
 estants to six hundred and thirteen Roman Catholics, but ac- 
 cording to Mason's " Parochial Survey," in 18 18, the Protest- 
 ants had diminished to only five, while the Roman Catholics 
 had augmented to 2,455. O n tne whole, from the best compu- 
 tation I have seen, and I believe it is not exaggerated one way 
 or the other, the entire number of Protestants belonging to the 
 Established Church in Ireland can hardly be stated higher than 
 750,000 ; and of those, 400,000 are resident in the ecclesiastical 
 province of Armagh. Without going into particulars, for 
 which indeed I do not pretend to be prepared, it may be said
 
 142 
 
 LORD RUSSELL 
 
 that in Armagh the numbers are seven or eight to one, and in 
 other parts of Ireland the disproportion is larger. I have, how- 
 ever, an account relating to different dioceses, which I believe to 
 be very accurate, and which I will state to the House. 
 
 The noble lord read several particulars, of which the follow- 
 ing table is a summary : 
 
 Dioceses 
 
 Members of 
 
 Established 
 
 Church 
 
 Roman Cath- 
 olics 
 
 Presbyterians 
 
 Other 
 Protestant 
 Dissenters 
 
 Total 
 
 
 7,529 
 30,583 
 35,677 
 13,986 
 
 235 
 19,149 
 20,404 
 
 8,002 
 25,626 
 
 5,301 
 
 297,131 
 61,465 
 58,516 
 
 122,577 
 34,606 
 
 359,585 
 170,083 
 
 207,688 
 
 377,430 
 
 43,371 
 
 IOI,627 
 
 59,385 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 6 
 198 
 164 
 671 
 no 
 
 27 
 
 3,557 
 818 
 
 334 
 
 326 
 281 
 382 
 199 
 
 433 
 
 304,687 
 197,232 
 
 Killaloe 
 
 154,409 
 136,956 
 
 34,845 
 379,076 
 
 190,966 
 
 216,236 
 
 403,926 
 
 49,225 
 
 
 166,492 
 
 i,732,45 2 
 
 162,174 
 
 6,357 
 
 2,067,558 
 
 Thus, in the diocese of Ardfert, the Protestants only form 
 one forty-first part of the population ; in Down, one-eighth ; in 
 Lismore, one twenty-seventh ; in Waterford, one-ninth ; in Kil- 
 laloe, one-nineteenth ; and in Dromore, one-fourth of the popu- 
 lation. Thus, too, it will be seen, that while in some parts of 
 Ireland the members of the Established Church form a con- 
 siderable proportion of the population, and it is therefore held 
 that they require a considerable number of clergymen, in other 
 parts they form but a small proportion — so small that it cannot 
 be necessary or right that there should be so large an establish- 
 ment as in other parts of the country. Having shown that these 
 are the general results with respect to the proportions of the 
 population — and everyone knows, that by no computation can 
 the members of the Established Church be made to form more 
 than one-ninth of the whole population — I may venture, with 
 the less fear, to give some particular instances of the propor- 
 tions which the members of the Church of England bear to the 
 amount of money drawn from tithes, and applied to the spiritual 
 instruction of a small portion of the people. The instances
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND 
 
 M3 
 
 which I will state to the House are taken from a memorandum 
 furnished by my right honorable friend, the member for Staf- 
 fordshire [Mr. Littleton]. They are as follows: 
 
 Parishes 
 
 Taghmon .... 
 Ballycormick . 
 
 Ballynilty 
 
 Dunleer 
 
 Drumcar 
 
 Monachebone 
 Moyleary .... 
 
 Cuppog 
 
 Rathdrummin 
 Carrickbogget 
 
 Port 
 
 Ullard 
 
 Graig 
 
 Ossory , 
 
 Balsoon , 
 
 Value 
 
 Established 
 Church 
 
 Roman 
 Catholic 
 
 ,£446, Glebe ^50 
 
 133 
 
 2,920 
 
 95 
 82 
 
 153, Glebe £6 
 
 IO 
 21 
 
 159 
 
 50I 
 
 39° 
 1,460 
 
 53 
 
 I20 
 
 1,528 
 
 107 
 
 173, Glebe ^30 
 
 9 
 13 
 
 737 
 1,148 
 
 120 
 82, Glebe ^20 
 
 1 
 7 
 
 530 
 662 
 
 57 
 
 142, Glebe ^5 
 280, Glebe ^45 
 
 5 
 
 5o 
 
 332 
 
 800 
 
 2,213 
 
 440 
 62 
 69 
 
 63 
 
 4 
 7 
 
 4,779 
 107 
 
 3 J 3 
 
 This, sir, will be sufficient for my present purpose. I believe 
 that similar instances, without end, might be produced from the 
 knowledge, and, I may say, the personal acquaintance, of gen- 
 tlemen residing in Ireland. Their tendency is to show that 
 there is a very large mass of the £800,000 raised for the spiritual 
 instruction of a small class of the people, while all the rest of 
 the people derive no benefit whatever from that expenditure. 
 I believe that more care and more attention have been given 
 of late years, particularly during the last seven years, to the 
 spiritual cure of members of the Church of England, than have 
 been afforded at a former period. I believe that, in this respect, 
 the Church of Ireland now stands high, and that there are 
 clergymen belonging to that church who exert themselves to 
 the utmost to afford spiritual instruction to the people. But 
 we must not fall into the error of supposing that it is only neces- 
 sary to build churches and glebe-houses in order to convert 
 men to the religion which we ourselves profess. There were 
 times, perhaps — I know not whether it were so or not — when, 
 by kindness and care, the English Church might have obtained 
 a much more extensive footing in Ireland than it possesses
 
 I4 4 LORD RUSSELL 
 
 now; but it is evident that, as regards a people, so much at- 
 tached to their own faith as the Roman Catholics are, you can- 
 not hope, by merely placing a clergyman in a glebe-house, and 
 advising him to preach every Sunday — you cannot hope that, 
 by such means, any real advances will be made in their conver- 
 sion. Everything contradicts such a supposition; and, if it 
 were not contradicted merely by the present state of the facts, 
 I am sorry to say, that what has occurred of late years would 
 tend to diminish very much any such hopes that might have 
 been entertained. It was thought fit some years ago to call to- 
 gether public meetings in Ireland, and to endeavor by contro- 
 versy and dispute to bring over members of the Catholic 
 Church to the Protestant Church. Now, sir, I must say 
 that those who took this course acted in defiance of all 
 history and all experience. I can well conceive, that in 
 the case of a rich Church established in a country in which 
 it was enjoying large benefits without attending properly 
 to the cure of souls, individuals, even though themselves 
 were in error, might hope, by pointing out the corruptions 
 and defects of such a Church, to obtain many converts ; 
 but that persons belonging to a Church like the Church of Eng- 
 land: — that they, belonging to a Church so large, and main- 
 tained by tithes paid by the people generally who dissent from 
 it — that they should attempt a sort of crusade against the vol- 
 untary leaders of men who support their own Church, and hope 
 to gain the supremacy in the controversy, does show, I think, 
 greater zeal and rashness than prudence or wisdom. What, 
 sir, was the consequence ? It might have happened that things 
 might have gone on in their usual course ; but this controversy 
 being commenced, the Catholic clergy considered themselves 
 attacked, and raised a spirit of resistance to the legal payment 
 of that clergy to whom they were religiously and theologically 
 opposed. I am far from thinking that that resistance was justi- 
 fied ; still less do I think that encouragement ought to have 
 been given to it. But I feel it to be my duty to place before 
 you the facts — to acquaint you with the state of things which 
 naturally resulted from what was attempted, in order that you 
 may see that the effect was to throw an additional obstacle in 
 the way of the success of the Church of England in its endea- 
 vors to win over a large class of the Roman Catholics to its
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND 145 
 
 spiritual doctrines. In the parish of Graig a system of violence 
 was commenced, and it was said that the Roman Catholic 
 priests advised the people not to pay tithes. If they did so all 
 parties must blame them. A Protestant clergyman, on the 
 other hand, seized a horse from a tithe-payer who was the 
 Roman Catholic parish priest, and blame must be given to him 
 for taking that course. I do think it is most lamentable, that 
 instead of the clergy of the different persuasions recommend- 
 ing the mild precepts of the gospel which they teach in com- 
 mon, they should have been the originators of disputes and 
 strife ; it is surely most lamentable, I say, that such differences 
 should have been commenced by those who ought to be the 
 ministers of peace. Unfortunately there has prevailed through- 
 out Ireland, for several years, a spirit of resistance to the pay- 
 ment of tithes, so inveterate that no exertions of the clergy, 
 and no efforts of the government, have succeeded in enforcing 
 the collection of them. The extent of the evil is admitted by all 
 parties. The laws passed during the late administration hav- 
 ing proved ineffectual, the right honorable gentleman opposite, 
 the Chief Secretary for Ireland, the other night came down to 
 the House, and, in his introduction of a measure relating to this 
 subject, earnestly deprecated the use of military force for the 
 collection of tithes. What, then, is the state of the Church of 
 Ireland ? You, in the first place, are unable to diffuse its spir- 
 itual and religious doctrines amongst the great mass of the peo- 
 ple ; and you have, in the second place, by your system of tithes, 
 been constantly brought into collision with them. You have 
 been constantly producing a state of things which, while it has 
 led to the disturbance of the country, was irreconcilable with 
 those spiritual objects for which the Bishop of London has said 
 a church establishment alone ought to exist. Allow me, sir, 
 to call the attention of the House to the principle which the 
 great authority I have quoted lays down. That authority 
 states that church establishments should be considered as the 
 means of moral and spiritual instruction, and nothing else ; 
 the great object in establishing them was to be essentially 
 useful. 
 
 Bearing in mind what has occurred at Graig and Rathcormac, 
 I would ask whether the great permanent objects of a church 
 
 establishment can ever be secured by your determining that 
 Vol. II. -10
 
 I4 6 LORD RUSSELL 
 
 funds shall be demanded for the purpose of enforcing the doc- 
 trines of the Church of England, and for no other purpose what- 
 ever? Well, then, what do I propose to do in this case? I 
 propose that there should be instituted such a reform of the 
 Church of Ireland as would enable us to adapt the establish- 
 ment to the spiritual instruction of those who belong to the 
 Church, and that there should be no unnecessary surplus. If 
 you adopt this principle, you cannot do otherwise than greatly 
 reduce the Church of Ireland. I propose, therefore, that you 
 should undertake this object, and that you should apply what 
 shall appear to be the surplus in some way by which the moral 
 and religious improvement of the people of Ireland may be 
 advanced, by which their interests may be considered, and by 
 which they may hereafter believe that the funds which are raised 
 nominally for their benefit, are used for their benefit in reality. 
 It is with this view, then, that I mean to propose this resolution 
 to the House, of which I have given notice. That resolution is 
 as follows : " That this house resolve itself into a committee of 
 the whole House to consider the temporalities of the Church of 
 Ireland." The House having resolved itself into a committee, 
 I shall move, " That it is the opinion of this committee that any 
 surplus which may remain after fully providing for the spiritual 
 instruction of the members of the established church in Ireland, 
 ought to be applied locally to the general education of all classes 
 of Christians." In proposing this course I feel that I am not 
 doing more than the case requires. A similar course was taken 
 in 1828 with respect to the Catholic claims, on the proposition 
 of my honorable friend the member for Westminster. I beg 
 leave to explain the view I take, because I shall thus answer the 
 honorable gentleman opposite who asked me in what manner 
 I intended to proceed. The motion to which I have alluded, 
 that the House should resolve itself into a committee of the 
 whole House to consider the state of the Roman Catholics, was 
 carried by a majority of six. The committee then did resolve 
 that it was expedient to consider the state of the laws affecting 
 the Roman Catholics, with a view to their final adjustment. 
 It was then moved that the resolution be sent to the Lords, in 
 order that their concurrence might be asked. The Commons 
 and the Lords held a conference on the subject, after which the 
 latter fixed a day for the debate, the result being that the mo-
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND 147 
 
 tion for their concurrence to the resolution that had been adopt- 
 ed by the House of Commons was lost. I now propose that 
 this House shall resolve to go into committee, I shall propose 
 a resolution which will embody the spirit and substance of my 
 present motion. On that resolution being reported, I shall 
 move an address to the Crown. I shall move that the resolu- 
 tion be presented to the Crown, with a humble entreaty to His 
 Majesty that His Majesty would be most graciously pleased to 
 enable the House to carry it into effect. I think that this is the 
 course which we took on the question of the " Church Tempo- 
 ralities Act." After that bill had been read a first time, the 
 question was raised whether we could dispose of the ecclesiasti- 
 cal patronage of the Crown without the special approval of His 
 Majesty ; and it was decided, sir, by your predecessors, that the 
 question having been brought under the consideration of the 
 House by the King's speech, the bill might be read a second 
 time, but that, afterwards, it would be proper that a special mes- 
 sage should be received. I call the attention of the House to 
 that question, because I think the manner of proceeding which 
 I recommend is the best, not only in point of form, but because 
 I do also think that the only manner in which a satisfactory 
 measure can be proposed to the House, is by the concurrence 
 of the Crown. In proposing this, I know not whether the right 
 honorable gentleman opposite [the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer] will think it proper to follow the course he took in 
 1829. After a resolution had been carried by a majority of six 
 the right honorable gentleman went down to the King, and in- 
 formed His Majesty that the House of Commons had decided 
 by a majority in favor of the Roman Catholic claims, and that 
 the state of Ireland being such as to induce well-founded alarm, 
 it was his duty to change his course, and to propose a measure 
 of relief. Whether the right honorable gentleman opposite will 
 follow that precedent or not, I know not ; but I do think that it 
 is as competent to him to adopt such a course on the present 
 occasion as it was for him to adopt the course he took on the 
 Roman Catholic question. The right honorable gentleman 
 has, I know, stated his opinion on the subject, and that is an 
 opinion which is against this proposition ; but he has spoken in 
 no more decided terms against it than he did with respect to the 
 Roman Catholic question — a measure which he afterwards in-
 
 i 4 8 LORD RUSSELL 
 
 troduced. The right honorable baronet, in his address to his 
 constituents, which he professed to be a declaration of the prin- 
 ciples on which he intended to act, stated, with respect to church 
 reform : " Then, as to the great question of church reform, 
 on that head I have no new professions to make. I cannot 
 give my consent to the alienation of church property, in any 
 part of the United Kingdom, from strictly ecclesiastical pur- 
 poses. But I repeat now the opinion that I have already ex- 
 pressed in Parliament, in regard to the church establishment 
 in Ireland — that if by an improved distribution of the revenues 
 of the Church, its just influence can be extended, and the true 
 interest of the established religion promoted, all other consider- 
 ations should be made subordinate to the advancement of ob- 
 jects of such paramount importance." The right honorable 
 gentleman stated his opinion, in this very emphatic manner, 
 very soon after he took office. When subsequently the right 
 honorable gentleman was asked a question in this House, as to 
 what he proposed to do in regard to measures resulting from 
 the commission now making inquiries in Ireland, he answered 
 that he was averse to any new distribution of the revenues 
 of the Church, which would promote the interest and extend the 
 influence of the Church ; but any measure to which he con- 
 sented must be confined in its object to the promotion of the 
 doctrines of the Church. In some observations upon the Tithe 
 Bill lately brought before the House, in which the question of 
 the appropriation of Church revenues was involved, the right 
 honorable baronet said that he would consent to their applica- 
 tion to their present purposes, but the amount must be confined 
 to those purposes, spiritual and ecclesiastical, viz., those pur- 
 poses for which the Church of England at present exists. Now, 
 I do say, sir, that the right honorable baronet having stated his 
 opinion thus broadly on this question, it is quite clear, that 
 whatever may be the result of the inquiries which the commis- 
 sion is yet to pursue, it is necessary that the House of Com- 
 mons should come to some decision on that point, and either 
 adopt or reject the principle adopted by the right honorable 
 baronet. 
 
 If the House be determined to confine the revenues of the 
 Church to purposes strictly ecclesiastical, it is better for 
 that determination to be declared; but if the House is not
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND 
 
 149 
 
 of that opinion, it is certainly of no use for us to be passing 
 through the different stages of the bills for the commutation 
 of tithes. We ought, in my opinion, to proceed with that bill, 
 while this great question is unsettled — while it is yet unknown 
 whether the ministers and the House of Commons agree as to 
 the question, or are at variance upon it. I think, sir, that this 
 consideration is a full justification of the course I take in pro- 
 posing this resolution to the House. It is quite clear that the 
 late ministry, or any similar ministry, on the report of the 
 Church commissioners becoming known, would have been dis- 
 posed to act on the spirit of that report, and, if necessary, would 
 have proposed to reduce the church establishment in Ireland. 
 But the right honorable baronet tells us at once, immediately 
 on his assuming office, again on appearing in this House, and 
 also in proposing the Tithe Bill — three separate times he tells 
 us — that the commission may go on prosecuting its inquiries, 
 but he should care for its report no otherwise than as it would 
 enable him to effect a better distribution of Church property 
 among the members of the Church ; and whatever the nature of 
 the report, whatever the surplus, however extensive the reduc- 
 tion which the Protestant Church might bear consistently with 
 the preservation of its stability, and the extension of its really 
 beneficial influence, he has made up his mind already not to 
 consent to forego the principle of maintaining the property of 
 the Church to its present purposes. That being the case, it is 
 quite necessary, as it appears to me, to come to some distinct 
 resolution on the question. It is for the advantage of everyone 
 — for the advantage of this country — for the advantage of Ire- 
 land — and, indeed, for the general advantage of the empire — 
 that there should be, on this great and vital question, an admin- 
 istration in harmony with the House of Commons, acting 
 according to its sense. And if the right honorable gentleman 
 has the confidence of the House, or if his opinions and the opin- 
 ions of those acting with him being adverse, he is prepared to 
 take the course he took on a former occasion — in either case 
 it is far better that at once we should come to some decision, 
 and not be voting supplies and not going on night after night, 
 and week after week, without knowing whether the ministers 
 of the Crown do enjoy the confidence of the House on this 
 great question, or do not. Well, then, sir, I think that what I
 
 i5° 
 
 LORD RUSSELL 
 
 have said will be considered a sufficient answer to any argument 
 that may be drawn from the fact of the report of the commis- 
 sion not being yet on the table of the House. The honorable 
 gentleman opposite may say that it is inconsistent thus to bring 
 forward a motion on this subject, without the report being be- 
 fore us, and they are quite welcome, if they please, to throw 
 those taunts upon us ; but I think it sufficient to state in reply 
 that the state of the question has been entertained, that it is a 
 question no longer open — on the contrary, it is one on which a 
 decided opinion has been formed by the honorable gentleman 
 on the other side of the House ; and that decided opinion having 
 been pronounced, it is quite necessary that we should ask 
 whether or no the principle which we propose — whether the 
 appropriation of the revenue of the Church of Ireland, or any 
 part of it, to uses by which the people of Ireland generally can 
 be benefited — will secure the sanction of the House. I come 
 now to the question with respect to the purposes to which I 
 would apply the surplus. 
 
 The other night an honorable gentleman asked me whether 
 I proposed that any part of the money should go for the pur- 
 pose of affording religious education to the Roman Catholics, 
 on the principles of the Roman Catholic religion. My an- 
 swer is, that I propose to adopt the principle acted on by the 
 National Board of Education for Ireland. The measure, con- 
 stituting that board, was proposed by my noble friend, the 
 member for Lancashire; and, according to that measure, 
 members of all creeds, children of all persuasions, can re- 
 ceive religious and moral instruction, and are brought up in 
 harmony and at peace with each other. I have considered 
 that, in the present state of Ireland, no measure would tend so 
 much to its future peace as the expending of large funds for the 
 purpose of promoting education. From the earliest times it 
 will be found that the Protestants have been desirous of improv- 
 ing the condition of the people of Ireland by means of educa- 
 tion. It was the object of the 12th of Elizabeth, chapter first. 
 The preamble of that act actually states that much good is ex- 
 pected to result from the establishment of a good system of edu- 
 cation in Ireland. But, in after times, and in times much later, 
 there have been those who considered that it was of the utmost 
 importance that instruction should be given to the people of
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND i S i 
 
 Ireland in such a manner as would not interfere with their re- 
 ligious faith. In support of this statement, I beg the attention 
 of the House, while I read to them the copy of a letter from the 
 Lord Bishop of Clonfert to the Rev. Mr. Moore, of Boughton- 
 Blean, near Canterbury : ' Though I had not the pleasure of 
 receiving your very informing discourse on Sunday-schools at 
 the time you intended, I have since got it, and read it with the 
 greatest satisfaction. It is an admirable defence and recom- 
 mendation of this new institution, which I hope will daily 
 become more general, and produce the best moral effects, by im- 
 pressing the children of the poor with a sense of duty and reli- 
 gion, at the only time and age when they are capable of impres- 
 sions. A poor man's creed need not be long, but it should be 
 struck in early, and a true and right one. If he believes, as the 
 common proverb says, that he is to die like a dog, he will un- 
 doubtedly live like one. The communication of education is 
 certainly a very great blessing to the poor ; and had Mandeville, 
 and they who, to serve political purposes, are for denying all 
 instruction to the lower classes, only pushed their argument 
 far enough, they might have proved that they had a right to 
 maim, or put out the eyes of, the common people, in order to 
 make them more manageable, and more in the power of their 
 superiors. 
 
 Having never seen the paragraph in the English papers 
 concerning me, to which you allude in your appendix, I can 
 say nothing to it ; but what I have endeavored to do in my dio- 
 cese, ever since my appointment, is this — there are twenty Cath- 
 olics to one Protestant in it. To attempt their conversion, or 
 to think of making them read Protestant books, would be in 
 vain. I have, therefore, circulated amongst them some of the 
 best of their own authors, particularly one Gother, whose wri- 
 tings contain much pure Christianity, useful knowledge, and 
 benevolent sentiments. He wrote eighteen volumes of relig- 
 ious extracts, and died about the year 1696. Unable to make 
 the peasants about me good Protestants, I wish to make them 
 good Catholics, good citizens, and good anything. I have es- 
 tablished, too, a Sunday-school, open to both Protestants and 
 Catholics, at my residence in the country, have recommended 
 the scheme to my clergy, and hope to have several on foot in 
 the summer. Pastoral works, however, of this nature, go on
 
 152 LORD RUSSELL 
 
 very heavily in a kingdom so unsettled and so intoxicated with 
 politics as this is. I return you my best thanks for your oblig- 
 ing present." 
 
 I cannot conceive, sir, that funds intended for the religious in- 
 struction of the people can be misapplied when devoted to ob- 
 jects likely to make them good subjects of the State, and relig- 
 ious and moral. Objects of a similar kind were kept in view, 
 when, in 1806 a commission was appointed, which consisted of 
 the Archbishop of Armagh, Mr. Grattan, and Mr. Edgeworth. 
 After several years spent in inquiry, they agreed to a report, in 
 which they carefully laid down the principle that any new system 
 of education ought to be such as would not interfere with the re- 
 ligious tenets of any particular party. In an appendix to the re- 
 port there is a letter from Mr. Grattan, who, in speaking of the 
 sort of schools that should be formed, says that they ought to 
 be founded on more extensive and comprehensive principles. 
 The board for promoting Irish education is composed of the 
 Archbishop of Dublin, the Duke of Leinster, and others. I am 
 sure that all must have heard that the schools of the kind estab- 
 lished by the recommendation of that board, have been con- 
 ducted with the utmost harmony, and attended with the most 
 beneficial effects — moral and religious instruction has been 
 conveyed generally to the people without reference to one par- 
 ticular and exclusive creed. I come now to meet one or two ob- 
 jections which have been urged, but which I do not think well 
 founded. 
 
 The first is the assertion of that principle that the property of 
 the Church ought not to be diverted from the use of the Church 
 to which it belongs. With respect to that principle, I am not dis- 
 posed to go at large into the general question as to Church prop- 
 erty being considered private or not. I am disposed to consider 
 that question as Burke was disposed to consider the right of 
 taxation over a colony, as he expressed his opinion in his speech 
 made on the motion for the conciliation of America. And I be- 
 lieve that if I were to attempt entering on that question, I should 
 run great risk of overwhelming myself in that 
 
 " great Serbonian bog 
 
 Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, 
 Where armies whole have sunk."
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND 
 
 iS3 
 
 Burke has also said, "From the earliest considerations of religion 
 and constitutional policy, from their opinion of a duty to make a 
 sure provision for the consolation of the feeble and the instruc- 
 tion of the ignorant, they have incorporated and identified the 
 estate of the church with the mass of private property, of which 
 the State is not the proprietor, either for use or dominion, but 
 the guardian only and the regulator. They have ordained that 
 the provision of the Establishment might be as stale as the earth 
 on which it stands, and should not fluctuate with the Euripus of 
 funds and actions." Now, I do not hold the opinion that this 
 is private property, and that we can no more interfere with the 
 revenues of a bishop than with the estate of an earl. Mine, how- 
 ever, is not the doctrine of right honorable gentlemen opposite. 
 If they made their stand on the question of private right — if they 
 said that ecclesiastical property shall not be disposed of other- 
 wise than as it was originally devised or distributed — I could 
 easily understand them; but this is not their argument. They 
 hold that the State may distribute Church property otherwise 
 than as at present; that the State, for example, can take from a 
 bishop, and give to a rector or curate. Does that doctrine, then 
 I ask, bear any resemblance whatever to the law which recog- 
 nizes private property? Does Parliament ever proceed on that 
 principle in the latter case, and say, "There are one hundred or 
 two hundred great proprietors in this country, and it is expedient 
 that wealth should be more equally distributed?" If Church 
 property be private property, we cannot, for a moment, stop to 
 inquire whether the Bishop of Durham has too much. We are 
 satisfied it is private, and we cannot touch it. On what princi- 
 ple, then, do we proceed, and to what conclusion does our pro- 
 ceeding necessarily lead? My noble friend, the member for 
 Lancashire, Lord Stanley, proposed a bill, which was passed into 
 a law, and which diminished the number of bishops in Ireland. 
 The number was too great, and the funds were to be distrib- 
 uted — in what manner? To those next in order — to deans and 
 chapters. But supposing there was enough for them, and still 
 a surplus, what then? Why, then it was to be applied to rectors, 
 to churches, and glebe-houses. But it might also happen, that 
 the bishops had too great a revenue still, so that there would be a 
 surplus after all these objects had been accomplished. How is 
 it possible to say that we can redistribute this property, and yet
 
 I54 LORD RUSSELL 
 
 not carry out the principle to its legitimate length, and distribute 
 the surplus in a manner in which it may be most useful ? On 
 what principle do we go? Upon no other than this — that it is 
 useful for the purpose of religious instruction that there should 
 be a redistribution. And what do we come to? To a principle 
 totally distinct from, and at variance with, every law by which 
 private property is affected. I maintain, we can only do that on 
 the grounds of public expediency, of public right, and of public 
 advantage. 
 
 If then, I show that public right, public expediency, and 
 public advantage, require the application of some portion of 
 those revenues to works of religious education and charity, 
 where, I would ask, is the distinction between them? and how 
 can the right honorable gentleman pretend that he left that prop- 
 erty more sacred than I do? I confess, that to my mind the right 
 honorable gentleman and his colleagues have no ground to stand 
 upon, and I cannot see how they keep themselves out of the 
 Serbonian bog to which Mr. Burke alluded. On the one hand, 
 they may stand on the notion of private property, and maintain 
 the ecclesiastical revenues intact and inviolate to their original 
 destination ; or, on the other hand, admitting the right of Parlia- 
 ment to interfere, they must hold that, for the benefits of the sub- 
 jects of the realm, for their religious instruction, for the well- 
 being and harmony of the State, it may so interfere. But there 
 is resting between the two propositions; to say that it should be 
 partly distributed, and partly kept sacred, partly interfered with 
 for public objects, and partly considered private property, does 
 seem to me to couple, in one proposition, the utmost absurdity 
 with the utmost inefficiency. Sir, I do hope that honorable gen- 
 tlemen opposite will grapple with this great question on clear 
 and intelligible grounds. I must protest against any proposi- 
 tion not founded on distinct and known principles, and which 
 does not tend directly to the good of the State. But we are told, 
 in defence of the present mode of applying Church property in 
 Ireland — that the greatest number — fifteen to one, it is said — of 
 the owners of the land in fee — are members of that Church. 
 Sir, if I could fancy that anyone would hold such a doctrine as 
 this — that a church establishment was intended originally for the 
 exclusive benefit of the rich — that spiritual instruction should be 
 given only to men who had an estate of inheritance — that none
 
 THE CHURCH OF IRELAND 
 
 155 
 
 but a man who possessed a freehold estate should be entitled to 
 the comforts and consolations of religion — I could then under- 
 stand the argument to which I have alluded; but when I refer to 
 any of the great authorities I have quoted, who cannot be ques- 
 tioned or repudiated, and when I find it laid down that a church 
 establishment is intended for the benefit of all classes, and more 
 especially for the benefit, the instruction, and consolation of the 
 poor, it is not enough to tell me that those who originally con- 
 tribute the sums which constitute the revenues of the Church 
 are Protestants and members of that Church ; for I am bound to 
 look at the effect of the payment of tithe, on the whole, as a sys- 
 tem. Besides, on whomsoever the charge of maintaining 
 the Establishment may fall ultimately, it is perfectly notorious 
 that those, on whom, for the most part, the tithe is levied, and 
 on whom it first falls, are members of the Roman Catholic 
 faith. 
 
 The right honorable gentleman [Sir Henry Hardinge] stated 
 to the House the other evening that sums were collected every 
 day, and will continue to be collected as long as leases are in force, 
 of sixpence, fourpence, and one penny from those who do not 
 belong to the Establishment — from which, indeed, they derive no 
 benefit whatever. The alleged circumstance, then, that the orig- 
 inal proprietors of land happen to be members of the Church 
 ought not to be an objection to the proposition for which I con- 
 tend. On these grounds, and unaffected by those objections I 
 have noticed, I am prepared to move the resolution which I call 
 on the House to sanction and affirm. I do think, that if — with- 
 out adopting some such course as that which I venture to recom- 
 mend — we pass the Tithe Bill in the shape in which it has been 
 proposed, appropriating solely to the benefit of the Irish Church 
 all its existing revenues, we shall neither obtain peace, nor act 
 ultimately for the harmony and advantage of Ireland. I believe 
 that the Irish people have warm affections, and are strongly at- 
 tached to those who confer any benefit on them. Notwith- 
 standing those outrages and acts of violence to which I referred 
 in the commencement of my speech, it is a singular fact that no 
 traveller ever goes into Ireland who does not declare that he has 
 been received everywhere by the poorest peasant, not only in the 
 most hospitable manner, but with the utmost friendly and open- 
 hearted kindness. Those who do not belong to Ireland, but
 
 I5 6 LORD RUSSELL 
 
 have lived in that country, have assured me, over and over again, 
 that the gratitude, and the overflowing of the affection of the 
 peasantry towards those who manifest kindness towards them is 
 very great. Such being the feeling, and such the conduct of that 
 nation to individuals, the House has now an opportunity of earn- 
 ing that gratitude and making that affection its own, by asserting 
 the principle for which I contend, and by thus doing justice to 
 the people of Ireland. We have now the power of acting free 
 from fear — free from any compulsion ; there is no fear of foreign 
 war before us, nor of civil war in Ireland. It is in our power at 
 length to settle and gain the affections of that country, to silence 
 the question of a repeal of the union, to gain the tribute of grate- 
 ful homage from a people so warm-hearted, so eminently brave 
 and loyal ; while we shall, at the same time, have the satisfaction 
 of reflecting, that in doing justice to Ireland we shall have con- 
 tributed more, than by any other measure we can adopt, to the 
 future prosperity of the empire, making her unconquerable by 
 her enemies, and an example of religious liberality to the rest of 
 the world. I shall now conclude by moving, " That the House 
 do resolve itself into a committee of the whole House to con- 
 sider the temporalities of the Church of Ireland."
 
 LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 BY 
 
 THE EARL OF DERBY 
 
 (Edward Henry Smith Stanley)
 
 EDWARD HENRY SMITH STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY 
 
 1826 — 1893 
 
 Edward Henry Smith Stanley was born at the family seat of Knows- 
 ley, Lancashire, on July 21, 1826. He was at Rugby under Arnold and 
 later went to Cambridge, where he graduated with highest honors. 
 During his absence on a tour to America he was elected to Parliament 
 for King's Lynn to succeed Lord George Bentinck, lately deceased. 
 While absent on a tour in India he was appointed Under Secretary for 
 Foreign Affairs under his father's first administration. During the suc- 
 ceeding year he joined Cobden and Bright in resisting " the policy of 
 drifting into war," and, no doubt, influenced by these men, he became, 
 and always remained, a strong supporter of movements for the benefit 
 and improvement of the working classes and of all reforms of a moderate 
 and liberal character. In the second administration of his father he 
 became, in February, 1858, Colonial Secretary and, later, First Secre- 
 tary of State for India. After the great mutiny he had a large share 
 in the reconstruction of the government for India, performing his work 
 with consummate skill and judgment. 
 
 In July, 1866, during his father's third administration, he was ap- 
 pointed Foreign Secretary. He kept Great Britain neutral during the 
 war of Prussia and Italy with Austria, and acted as mediator between 
 France and Prussia in the Luxembourg affair. He resigned on the ac- 
 cession of the Gladstone ministry in 1868. 
 
 Early in the following year he was made Lord Rector of the Univer- 
 sity of Glasgow, and in October of the same year, on the death of his 
 father, he took his seat in the House of Lords. Derby again became 
 Foreign Secretary under Disraeli in 1874, but owing to a disagreement 
 with his chief on the Eastern question he resigned in March, 1878. 
 
 He severed his connection with the Conservatives in 1880, and was 
 soon accepted as the leader of the Liberals. From December, 1882, to 
 1885 he was Colonial Secretary in Gladstone's second administration. 
 Gladstone's Home Rule plans induced him to join the newly formed 
 party of Liberal-Unionists early in 1886. He was their leader in the 
 House of Lords till 1891, when he retired from public life to give his 
 attention to the study of social questions. His last public speech was 
 at the unveiling of the Bright monument at Manchester in October, 1892. 
 He died April 21, 1893. In Parliament, though not a prominent^ de- 
 bater, and though his enunciation was imperfect, he spoke impressively 
 and had a great gift " of making speeches with which everyone must 
 agree, and which at the same time were never commonplace." His ora- 
 tion on " Life and Culture," delivered on assuming the Lord Rector- 
 ship of Glasgow University, is one of the most perfect orations ever 
 delivered within the walls of that historic institution. 
 
 is8
 
 LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 Delivered on assuming the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow 
 University, April i, 1869 
 
 IT is with no common satisfaction, but at the same time with 
 a sense of diffidence which I cannot shake off, and do not 
 care either to deny or to conceal, that I take my place for 
 the first time in this hall among those by whom I have been 
 raised to a post of honor on my part unsought and unsolicited, 
 but on that very account doubly gratifying, not the less so be- 
 cause just thirty-five years ago it fell to my father's lot to stand 
 in this room, and with powers very different from mine, but cer- 
 tainly not with more anxiety to exert them to the utmost in 
 your service, to discharge the honorable function which de- 
 volves on me to-day. 
 
 Gentlemen, the Lord Rector of this university, be he who he 
 may, looks back on a series of more than ordinarily illustrious 
 predecessors, and cannot but feel honored by the association, 
 although but casual and temporary, of his name with theirs. It 
 is something to be the successor, however unworthily, of Burke 
 and Adam Smith, of Jeffrey, Mackintosh, and Brougham, of 
 literary men such as Campbell and Lytton ; of politicians like 
 Palmerston and Peel. Rightly and wisely, you have not con- 
 fined the highest honor at your disposal within either local or 
 professional limits. Rightly and wisely, you have sought in 
 your Lord Rectors for representative men, not literary men 
 alone, nor men of science, nor politicians, nor lawyers, but each 
 and all of these in their turn ; sympathizing with honest and 
 strenuous effort in whatever branch of human exertion, and 
 recognizing that not literature exclusively, nor exclusively 
 science, but action directed to useful public objects, is the true 
 end and purpose of that large and comprehensive training 
 which it is your glory and your privilege to bestow. 
 
 i59
 
 ^o EARL OF DERBY 
 
 Gentlemen, if I came here merely to indulge in the language 
 of compliment I might justly congratulate you on the patriotic 
 munificence which has given to your ancient university a new 
 and suitable home — on your four centuries of energetic and 
 successful existence, dating from a time when Glasgow itself 
 was little more than what we should now call a village — on your 
 1,200 students, your twenty-five professorial chairs — on the 
 encouragement you afford to struggling and otherwise unaided 
 talent — on the practical and varied character of the instruction 
 given within these walls — on the long list of justly distinguished 
 names, which, from the days of Buchanan to our own, has testi- 
 fied to the reality of the work you do, and illustrated the long 
 series of your annals. But, gentlemen, it is not merely in the 
 language of compliment that I wish to speak here. Words 
 that lead to nothing are words wasted, and I should very ill re- 
 pay your kindness if, on the only occasion when it will probably 
 ever be my lot to meet you face to face, I should confine myself 
 to expressions of gratitude, however sincerely felt, or to the 
 language of vague and general panegyric, however much I 
 might feel it to be deserved. 
 
 But there is one circumstance connected with the studies of 
 this place that seems to me worthy of notice, because it may 
 very well serve as a model to other and even greater communi- 
 ties than Glasgow — I mean the facilities supplied here to com- 
 paratively poor men to obtain the knowledge they seek for, and 
 to compete on equal terms with the rich. Comparisons are no- 
 toriously invidious, but I believe it is not to be denied that in 
 that respect you set us, the English, a good example, and one 
 which we should do well to follow. No doubt, it is difficult to 
 check undue expenditure in the case of young men whose 
 means allow it ; but if I were to say that both in our English 
 schools and colleges more might be done in that respect than is 
 now done I believe I should express an opinion which is very 
 generally entertained among those whom it most directly con- 
 cerns. 
 
 The combination of high attainments, persevering study, and 
 limited means, is perhaps rarer in these islands, taking them as 
 a whole, than in some other European countries. Yet, though 
 learning needs some degree of leisure, there is no natural con- 
 nection between learning and opulence. Scholarship has few
 
 LIFE AND CULTURE 161 
 
 greater names than that of Heine — yet Heine's existence, up to 
 the age of thirty, was a constant struggle against poverty and 
 privation, extending even to privation of the very means of sub- 
 sistence. Simpson, the mathematician, a weaver's boy, was 
 taken away from the humble school which he frequented, from 
 want of means to keep him there. The early struggles of our 
 great painter, Turner, are well known to all who have followed 
 the history of modern art in the pages of perhaps the most elo- 
 quent of living English writers. I do not multiply such exam- 
 ples — they are recorded in a hundred familiar works ; but Scot- 
 land, and Glasgow especially, owes much to Buchanan ; and 
 never more strikingly than in Buchanan's case were the hard- 
 ships and trials of a poor scholar's life displayed. 
 
 I might, indeed, carry the argument one step further, and 
 say that, as on the one hand mental energy is stunted and chilled 
 by absolute penury, and the necessity of daily labor for daily 
 bread, so on the other it is at least as likely to be repressed and 
 destroyed by too abundant leisure, by the sense of security 
 which belongs to an assured position, and by the thousand op- 
 portunities of easy enjoyment which wealth and leisure confer. 
 I am not speaking here from theory. It is a matter of 
 which illustrations occur in every-day existence. A mid- 
 dle station, equally removed from poverty and luxury, is that 
 temperate zone of life (if I may so speak) in which mental de- 
 velopment appears most to flourish. And the reason is simple. 
 Work, as work, is not pleasant to anyone at first. The tasto 
 for it is an acquired taste. It becomes, I believe, with some 
 men one of the strongest tendencies of their nature ; the active 
 brain requires its accustomed exercise as much as the active 
 limbs need theirs. But the apprenticeship in ninety-nine cases 
 out of one hundred is not pleasant, and perhaps there is no one 
 respect in which the importance of early training is more deeply 
 felt. Men may supply, well or ill, in later life, the want of ac- 
 quired knowledge. They may accommodate their habits and 
 thoughts to the necessities of a changed position ; they may 
 develop their natures in ways wholly unexpected ; but one de- 
 fect, I believe, can hardly ever be made good when the time of 
 youth and early manhood is past — or, if made good, it can be 
 so only as a result of painful and singular effort : the want, I 
 mean, of habits of steady application and industry. They are 
 Vol. II.— ii
 
 162 EARL OF DERBY 
 
 mostly hard at any age to acquire, but there is this counter- 
 vailing advantage about them, that once acquired they are not 
 easily lost. 
 
 To the man who has made intellectual work the habit of his 
 life it is actual pain to be long unemployed. And, be sure of 
 this, that, apart from all merely material and practical results 
 (though I do not undervalue these), apart from these chances 
 of rising in the world, of professional, or literary, or artistic 
 distinction, of which we are perhaps all apt to think too much 
 because, after all, they are prizes which can fall to the lot of 
 very few, and which those who have got them generally find 
 worth less than they supposed — apart, I say, from accidental 
 and adventitious results, there is no greater blessing for a man 
 than to have acquired that healthy and happy instinct which 
 leads him to take delight in his work for the work's sake ; not 
 slurring it over, not thinking how soon it will be done and got 
 rid of, nor troubling himself greatly about what men will say 
 of it when it is done (I suspect the best kind of workers think 
 as little of that as Newton did when he hesitated whether to 
 publish his discoveries or not), but putting his whole heart 
 and mind into it, feeling that he is master of it, feeling that 
 the thing which he has turned out — be it a legal argument, or 
 a book, or a picture, or anything else — is conscientiously and 
 honestly perfected to the best of his power. 
 
 Look at the matter only from a point of view of a man's 
 personal happiness and welfare. What is the secret of the low 
 amusements, the pleasure that is not pleasure, with which so 
 many unhappy men contrive at once to waste and to shorten 
 their lives? Why these things are, in ninety-nine cases out of 
 one hundred, merely the resources which they adopt to fill up 
 vacant hours — to get rid of the intolerable weariness of unem- 
 ployed existence — to kill the sense of apathy and ennui which is 
 killing them. I am not trying or desiring to lay down for all 
 men a single and uniform rule. There are some of us who 
 seem born for action rather than for study, to whom abstract 
 thought is repugnant, and who want always to be doing some- 
 thing, and to see the result of their labor before them. There 
 are others whose natural turn is rather for thinking — for the 
 exercise of the intellectual powers purely and simply — than for 
 what are called, by a somewhat unmeaning distinction, the
 
 LIFE AND CULTURE 163 
 
 practical pursuits of life. Each temperament is probably bet- 
 ter for having some admixture of the other, and the most 
 complete and perfect organization is that which combines both 
 in the most equal proportions. But there is room in the world 
 for both ; and no greater folly can be committed by men than 
 that of seeking to assimilate all individual character to one and 
 the same type. 
 
 What I do say is that, whether the bent of a man's mind be 
 study or business, whatever it is, let him throw himself heartily 
 into it. I do not believe that an unemployed man ; however 
 amiable and otherwise irreproachable, ever was, or ever can be, 
 really happy. Our work is our life ; show me what you can do 
 and I will show you what you are. I have spoken of love of 
 one's work as being the best preventive of merely low and 
 vicious tastes. I will go further and say I believe it is the best 
 preservative against petty anxieties and the annoyances which 
 arise out of indulged self-love. Men have thought before now 
 that they could take a refuge from trouble and vexation by shel- 
 tering themselves, as it were, in a world of their own. The 
 experiment has often been tried, and always with one result. 
 You cannot escape from anxiety and labor — it is the destiny 
 of humanity. You may avoid, indeed some at least may to a 
 great extent, taking part in the struggle of life in the sharp and 
 eager competition of an open profession, or the not less intense 
 pursuit of some worthy object of study. But, by what seems 
 to me a just and wholesome retribution, those who shrink from 
 facing trouble find that trouble comes to them. The indolent 
 man may contrive that he shall have less than his share of the 
 world's work to do ; but Nature, proportioning the instrument 
 to the work, contrives that that little shall to him be much and 
 hard. The man who has only himself to please finds, sooner or 
 later, and probably sooner rather than later, that he has got a 
 very hard master, and the more excusable weakness which 
 shrinks from responsibility has its own punishment, too ; for 
 where great interests are excluded little matters become great, 
 and the same wear and tear of mind that might have been at 
 least usefully and healthfully expended on the real business of 
 life is often wasted on petty and imaginary vexations such as 
 breed and multiply in the unoccupied brain. 
 
 There is yet another point from which I may press upon you
 
 164 EARL OF DERBY 
 
 the duty of industry. We sometimes hear it said, " So-and-so 
 is a man of fortune, who can afford to do nothing." There are, 
 of course, in a country like this many thousands who do not 
 need to earn their bread, or to increase their income, and who, 
 perhaps, would be doing more harm than good if they embarked 
 in any one of our already overcrowded professions. But there 
 is a moral as well as a material aspect of these questions. No 
 one can pass through his allotted term of years — no matter how 
 plainly and simply — much less can he do so living as the wealth- 
 ier classes live, without profiting by and consuming the fruits of 
 other men's toil. All capital is accumulated labor. Of course, 
 as far as human law and the regulations of society go, he may 
 legitimately do that, rendering himself no labor in return, so 
 long as he pays honestly for what he uses. But if the matter 
 is to be dealt with in foro conscicnticc, I think a scrupulous and 
 high-minded man will always feel that to pass out of the world 
 in the world's debt — to have consumed much and produced 
 nothing, to have sat down, as it were, at the feast and gone away 
 without paying his reckoning — is not, to put it in the mildest 
 way, a satisfactory transaction, however unimpeachable, and 
 rightly so, it may be in the eye of economical and social law. 
 You cannot very well lay down a formula for these things ; it 
 is often easier to ask for suitable occupation than to find it ; but 
 I think it is only a natural feeling for anyone living at his ease 
 to wish and strive that at least his country shall be no loser by 
 him, that in some form, by some means, whether by speech or 
 writing, or useful action, no matter how obscure, he shall re- 
 place to the public the expenditure of human labor that has been 
 made upon him. 
 
 I know very well that with the best will in the world that feel- 
 ing is not always easy to act upon. It is one thing to wish for 
 a suitable sphere of duty and another to be able to obtain one. 
 There are many persons who, if not wholly idle, are yet unable 
 to employ their faculties as they best might from the mere 
 want of opportunity. I own that for such persons, assuming 
 the fault not to rest with them, I have more compassion than for 
 those who may be inclined to complain of the chances and 
 struggles of professional life. Overwork, or what we may be 
 inclined to consider as such, is bad enough ; but it is probably a 
 cause of less suffering in the aggregate than the consciousness 
 of faculties unused and of energies which can find no vent.
 
 LIFE AND CULTURE 165 
 
 But, gentlemen, I do not forget that in addressing you 
 I am speaking to young men who, for the most part, have every 
 external, as well as internal, inducement to lead an energetic 
 and industrious life. To warn you, therefore, against mere in- 
 dolence and neglect of opportunities is, I hope, superfluous. It 
 is perhaps more to the purpose to ask you — at least to ask some 
 of you — to recollect that overwork and overhaste (they are 
 mostly the same thing) are as fatal as carelessness. We live 
 in days of perhaps overstrained competition ; and even those 
 who, so far as their personal feelings are concerned, would prob- 
 ably be satisfied with moderate success and a tranquil career, 
 have, in most professions, hardly the choice. A rising law- 
 yer cannot refuse briefs, a young surgeon or physician cannot 
 decline practice. It is rarely, I fancy, in the power of any pro- 
 fessional man to say, " Up to such a limit I will work, and 
 no farther." It may be, for my own part I think it is, a mis- 
 fortune that such should be the case — that, from the tendency 
 of mankind to run after well-known names, one competitor 
 in a profession should have more labor cast upon him than 
 it is physically possible that he should attend to properly ; 
 while others, hardly, if at all, less capable, are standing by un- 
 employed. But that is a result — I suppose an inevitable re- 
 sult — of open competition in a fair field, and we can only accept 
 the laws of the game as we find them. Every man, therefore, 
 who works with his brain must be prepared, in an open pro- 
 fession, to find, in the event of obtaining the success which he 
 hopes for, that his bodily as well as mental powers will be taxed 
 to the utmost. And if that possibility is realized, the question, 
 all-important for him, whether he will be able to hold his own 
 or whether he will break down, will depend very much on the 
 nature of his early training. 
 
 This is a subject on which there exists, I think, a good deal 
 of prejudice and want of information. We have often heard of 
 men crushed in youth by excessive mental strain. That such 
 cases do occur I cannot in the face of evidence deny. But I 
 believe that nine times out of ten they are the result of simple 
 mismanagement. I doubt whether — speaking of young men, 
 not of very young boys or children — honest work, steadily and 
 regularly carried on, ever yet hurt anybody. The men who fail, 
 and whose failure is pointed to as an illustration of the evils of
 
 1 66 EARL OF DERBY 
 
 over-study, are generally those who, rashly and foolishly, try 
 to make up for past neglect by excessive temporary efforts ; 
 or else those who, absorbed in a single idea, and possibly ignor- 
 ant of their own physical constitution, overlook the most ordin- 
 ary requirements of bodily health. We used to say at Cam- 
 bridge that any man who had it in him to become a senior 
 wrangler — that is, to take the highest honor known to the uni- 
 versity in the driest and most laborious branch of study — could 
 do so by means of six or seven hours' reading in the twenty-four. 
 Never to hurry, never except for some brief interval wholly to 
 relax — to remember that neglected bodily health involves a 
 weakened brain, and that it is possible to wear out in preparation 
 the strength that should be reserved for the final effort — above 
 all, to content one's self with the idea that one is doing one's 
 best, and to await the event with as little of worry or anxiety as 
 is compatible with the infirmity of nature — these are, I know, 
 very simple and homely rules, but for being simple they are 
 not less true ; and though assuredly I do not say to anyone 
 that their observance is a guarantee for well-doing, I believe it 
 will, to say the least, strike off from the list certain causes of 
 otherwise inevitable failure. There is nothing new to be said in 
 these matters. The mens sana in corpore sano is, as much now 
 as it was two thousand years ago, the most rational object of 
 human wishes, and the most necessary condition of human 
 success. 
 
 One word, and only one word, more on this subject. I am 
 convinced that as a rule we overrate — I think our tendency is 
 enormously to overrate — the difference between men's powers 
 for purposes of practical action. Of course, these differences, 
 after all deductions made, remain very great. But it is a mat- 
 ter of common observation in every profession, even the 
 most intellectual — I think I have noticed it myself again and 
 again — how often the very acutest intellects, for some reason or 
 another, do not seem able to procure for their possessors the 
 first place ; while that place is often secured and kept by powers 
 which seem, and which, intellectually considered, are very 
 greatly inferior. I believe that with no extraordinary quick- 
 ness or brilliancy, but with perseverance, memory, accuracy, 
 and that soundness of judgment which habits of patient inquiry 
 confer — all qualities with which cultivation has more to do than
 
 LIFE AND CULTURE 167 
 
 nature — a man may rise very high in almost any department of 
 human labor, and may pass by in the race many whom at school 
 or at college, or possibly even in later life, he regarded as hope- 
 lessly superior to himself. But of all these qualities, for 
 every purpose, whether for action or speculation, I hold that 
 one to be most valuable which it is almost entirely within our 
 own power to acquire, and which nature unassisted never yet 
 gave to any man. I mean a perfectly accurate habit of thought 
 and expression. This is, as far as I can see, one of the very rarest 
 acquirements. For it implies a good deal — carefulness, close 
 attention to details, a certain power of memory, and the habit 
 of distinguishing between things which are alike but not iden- 
 tical. I lay stress on this because it seems to me the character- 
 istically distinguishing mark of good and faulty teaching, of real 
 and unreal learning. The best thing is to know your subject 
 thoroughly — the next best to know nothing about it, and to be 
 aware that you do know nothing — the worst is to know a little, 
 and to know that little vaguely and confusedly. 
 
 Much is said in the present day for and against the system 
 of competitive examinations. Like most other things, they 
 may have their defects, but this advantage they undoubtedly 
 possess, that if well managed they are an effective check — a 
 check, I think, more effective than any other — on the impos- 
 ture of half-knowledge. What man can write out clearly, cor- 
 rectly, and briefly, without book or reference of any kind, that 
 he undoubtedly knows, whatever else he may be ignorant of. 
 For knowledge that falls short of that — knowledge that is 
 vague, hazy, indistinct, uncertain — I, for one, profess no respect 
 at all. And I believe that there never was a time nor a coun- 
 try where the influences of careful training were in that respect 
 more needed. Men live in haste, write in haste — I was going 
 to say think in haste, only that perhaps the word thinking is 
 hardly applicable to that large number who, for the most part, 
 purchase their daily allowance of thought ready made. You 
 find ten times more people now than ever before who can string 
 together words with facility and with a general idea of their 
 meaning, and who are ready with a theory of some kind about 
 most matters. All that is very well as far as it goes ; but it is 
 one thing to be able to do this and quite another to know how 
 to use words as they should be used, or really to have thought 
 out the subject which you discuss.
 
 1 68 EARL OF DERBY 
 
 Eor one of these purposes there is, I believe, no training bet- 
 ter than the old classical training whose merits are now so much 
 disputed. 1 do not deny that in English schools it has been car- 
 ried to folly and pedantry. I doubt if any human being was 
 ever the better or the wiser for being set to spin verses in a 
 foreign and dead language. But, speaking of the rational use 
 and not the abuse of classical literature, I think it has one great 
 merit which is not easily to be found elsewhere. Even those 
 who feel most strongly the incomparably wider range of mod- 
 ern thought will seldom deny that in precision, in conciseness, 
 in dignity of style, and in verbal felicity, the great writers of 
 ancient times have scarcely been equalled. It is suggestive to 
 think how, under the influence of the mercantile principle, mak- 
 ing books to be paid for in proportion, not to their merits, but to 
 their length, and of the lifelong hurry which prevents us from 
 studying condensation, such narratives as those of Caesar and 
 Tacitus would in modern hands have swelled into the dimen- 
 sions of a modern historical composition, with the certain result 
 that they would have occupied in men's memories no more en- 
 during place than this last. Posterity preserves only what will 
 pack into small compass. Jewels are handed down from age to 
 age ; less portable valuables tend to disappear. And do not 
 fancy that this is a question of words alone. You cannot sep- 
 arate manner from matter. It is very seldom, I fancy, that clear 
 thought and confused expression go together. A man can 
 hardly give pains and time to the manner of saying a thing 
 without the idea at least crossing his mind — what do I really 
 mean ? What story have I got to tell? What is the upshot of 
 all this? I say, then, to those whose leisure will allow it, do 
 not be led into the folly of treating classical study as a thing anti- 
 quated and useless. It is not what people used to think it, the 
 only training; but it is a training, and not the worst. Only 
 let it be taken up in earnest, or not at all. If a young man has 
 time and taste for Latin literature, so much, I think, the better. 
 But a mere beginning of that — and, still more, a mere begin- 
 ning both of Latin and Greek, which does not last long enough 
 to give familiar acquaintance with either language — is sheer 
 folly and waste of time. In this, as in everything else, a man 
 should proportion his means to his ends, and not begin by lay- 
 ing the foundations of a house three times bigger than he can
 
 LIFE AND CULTURE 169 
 
 ever hope to finish. It is, I think, the neglect of this very ob- 
 vious rule, it is the aiming at more than can possibly be accom- 
 plished in the time allowed that more than anything else has 
 tended to bring classical training into disrepute. 
 
 And what I say to you in regard to classics I would extend 
 also to those other studies whose importance is being increas- 
 ingly recognized in every modern system of education. I will 
 not undertake to lay down a rule (I tell you frankly I do not 
 see my way to do it) as to the proportion which the cultivation 
 of science in its various forms should bear to that of literature 
 and language. We are in a transition state as regards these 
 matters, and it may last, for aught I can see, a long while yet. 
 Much must depend, I conceive, on individual taste and tem- 
 perament — something on the future destination of the student 
 — something on the opportunities afforded, and the custom of 
 the time and place. But this I think I do see clearly — and it 
 adds to rather than lessens the intricacy of the whole question — 
 that, looking on the one hand to the immense range of scientific 
 knowledge, and on the other to the inevitable shortness of time 
 allotted for learning, in the case of that great majority whose 
 study here is a mere introduction to active life, it is idle to 
 suppose that the actual amount of instruction acquired can bear 
 any appreciable proportion to that which must remain un- 
 touched. To learn a little of everything under the sun is barely 
 possible, and questionably useful, if it were possible. Com- 
 pendia, dispcndia. The value of all teaching, as I take it, con- 
 sists far less in the facts acquired than in the action on the mind 
 of the individual produced by the process of acquiring them. 
 
 The question which life asks of us all is not, " What do you 
 know?" but, "What can you do?" I believe that any one 
 study, steady and earnestly followed, is useful in that respect ; 
 and perhaps the difference in their respective values is less 
 than we are apt to suppose. If a man wants only to train himself 
 to be a good walker it matters very little what road he chooses 
 to walk upon. But more than that — if you will allow me to 
 express an opinion which I know may provoke dissent, but 
 which I entertain very strongly — I believe that no course of 
 reading or lecture-hearing is of much avail unless something is 
 to follow, either in the way of public examination — which I 
 hold to be best — or, failing that, of close and careful self-exami-
 
 l 7 o EARL OF DERBY 
 
 nation by the student himself, to test and measure how much of 
 what has been read is retained. What is merely listened to or 
 run over by the eye is mostly forgotten ; what has to be assim- 
 ilated and reproduced in another shape becomes, as it were, 
 worked into the very substance of the brain. 
 
 One word more on these points and I shall have done. Every 
 age has its fashions, some of them sensible, some very much the 
 reverse ; and one of the literary fashions of our time is to sneer 
 at and depreciate what is termed " culture," as though it tended 
 at best to make men skilful in doing things, which, being done, 
 are worthless, and as though there were some natural connec- 
 tion between strength of mind and that kind of simplicity which 
 arises from ignorance. It is noticeable, I think, that that tend- 
 ency often appears strongest in those whose own culture has 
 been carried to the highest point ; and the explanation I would 
 suggest of it is that the discontent with what has been ac- 
 complished, which is characteristic of a stirring and progressive 
 time, and that painful sense of the shortness of individual life, 
 compared with what has to be learned and done in it, takes in 
 such minds the form of an undue disparagement of those ac- 
 quirements which they are conscious of possessing, and a 
 proportionably excessive appreciation of those which they have 
 been compelled to neglect. As a general rule, I think that 
 the aim of a liberal education ought to be not to fit men for this 
 or that special profession exclusively, but to supply such ac- 
 quirements and to sharpen such faculties as shall be useful in 
 any walk of life. It is not good, I am sure, for anybody to be 
 too early and exclusively buried in his own special pursuit. 
 If from circumstances it is necessary that he should be, let 
 him accept the necessity for that as for any other privation, 
 without complaining. But do not let him assert or think that 
 it is in itself a good. Law, medicine, architecture, engineering, 
 practical art — all these are pursuits of the highest usefulness, 
 and even necessity ; but no man can even dabble in them all ; 
 nor has the architect any particular use for law ; nor the 
 lawyer for architecture. What they both want, what they both 
 have a use for, is accuracy of thought, clearness of expression, 
 and that indefinable something — excluding pedantry on the one 
 hand and vulgar coarseness on the other — which marks the 
 man to whom literature has been more than the amusement 
 of a casual hour.
 
 LIFE AND CULTURE 171 
 
 You will sometimes hear it said — it is one of the crotchets of 
 the day — that what is called culture is unfavorable to moral 
 earnestness. Do not believe that. No doubt, like most untrue 
 opinions, it has a shadow of plausibility. A man whose ac- 
 quirements are few, whose range of knowledge is scanty and 
 limited, is probably more apt than his educated neighbor to 
 throw himself into some cause or controversy with an intense 
 and unreasoning conviction that he is right, and that everybody 
 else is wrong ; and he is more likely also to underrate the com- 
 plexity of human affairs, and to overvalue enormously the im- 
 portance to mankind of that particular subject which has 
 monopolized his attention. I do not say that that tendency is 
 always and under all circumstances injurious. We are but 
 weak at the best ; and, perhaps, if the best and wisest of us all 
 could see in how infinitesimal a degree the destinies of society 
 can be affected by his utmost exertions, such clear-sightedness 
 would serve rather to damp than to stimulate his energy. 
 Happily, one may say in passing, there does not seem the 
 slightest reason to apprehend, in the case of most of us, any 
 process of that kind taking place. 
 
 But, admitting all this — admitting that knowledge is often a 
 check on action, and that great questions are often most ear- 
 nestly taken up by those who can only see one side of them — 
 I think there can be no doubt on which side the balance of ad- 
 vantage lies. If cultivated apathy has done its share of mischief 
 (and recollect that you are just as likely to have the apathy with- 
 out the cultivation), unreasoning activity, enthusiasm without 
 knowledge or judgment, has done a hundred times more. If 
 increased intellectual light, or what seemed such, has weakened 
 some men's convictions, shaken their faith in the principles 
 which govern mankind, and left them simply perplexed and 
 helpless in face of the great problems of existence, let us point 
 on the other hand to the horrible calamities which men, from 
 the earliest ages of the world to our own, have brought on one 
 another — not, we may hope, in wilful wickedness, but in the 
 confused struggle to defend errors ignorantly and honestly mis- 
 taken for truth. No, gentlemen, whatever may come of it, let 
 us not ignore or shrink from our responsibility. Every one of 
 us is bound, not merely to do the thing which seems to him 
 right, but to do also what lies in his power, that the thing which
 
 172 EARL OF DERBY 
 
 seems to him right may be that which really is right. Good in- 
 tentions will not help or save you if you take poison instead of 
 medicine ; and in social matters we well know that ignorant 
 philanthropy has often caused, perhaps often causes even now, 
 as much mischief as could be done by deliberate ill-will. We 
 want zeal. We want earnestness for truth and justice. But 
 the zeal of ignorance is a poor affair ; and the earnestness must 
 be very shallow and unreal which will not bear the strictest 
 scrutiny of the objects to which it is directed. Action is the 
 end of all thought, but to act justly and effectively you must 
 think wisely. The time is not wasted which is spent in laying 
 solid foundations for the future ; nor that which soldiers pass in 
 preparatory drill before they are trusted to take the field. 
 
 Recollect, too, that the stock of intellectual furniture which 
 a man takes with him into business or professional life is not 
 likely to be much increased afterwards. With most of us, I 
 fear, the faculty of receiving new ideas is the very earliest part 
 of our organization that decays. Special acquirements, profes- 
 sional experience, the caution and prudence and tact that come 
 of protracted intercourse with the world, are the growth of mid- 
 dle age ; but I suspect that most busy men if they took stock of 
 their intellectual gains and losses, would find that after a cer- 
 tain time — say five-and-thirty, or forty — the former had not 
 been considerable. Make the most, then, of your opportunity, 
 for it will not last long. Waste no regret on the past if it has 
 done less for you than it ought. There is leisure to redeem all 
 that. Dream no dreams of the future, the future will take 
 care of itself ; and whatever may be the difficulties you foresee, 
 whatever the successes you expect, it is a hundred to one that 
 neither the former nor the latter will come upon you in the way 
 you now anticipate. But make your footing good at every 
 step you take ; do manfully the task that is allotted to you, 
 know thoroughly the thing you have to learn, discipline your 
 energies without exhausting them, and have faith enough in 
 yourselves and in the good sense of your own fellow-men to be- 
 lieve that whatever temporary success may be won by puffing 
 and quackery (and, thank Heaven, such success is seldom more 
 than temporary), the capable workman mostly gets the tools 
 into his hands ; opportunity sooner or later comes to nearly all 
 who work and wait ; and though I do not contend that there is
 
 LIFE AND CULTURE 
 
 173 
 
 no such thing as unmerited failure or unrewarded effort, yet 
 even in that rare and painful case it is something to be able to 
 think that you have tried your best, that though worsted in fair 
 fight you have done justice to yourself and to yours, and that, 
 if advancement and fortune have not been obtained you will 
 have at least preserved that inward content, that sense of honest 
 self-approval, with which neither obscurity nor poverty is an 
 unendurable affliction — without which, neither by world-wide 
 fame nor untold wealth, can any real and lasting happiness be 
 secured. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have nothing more to add. It is, perhaps, pre- 
 sumption on my part to offer you advice as I have done. I only 
 ask you to believe that it is sincerely given, and that it comes 
 from one whose strongest sympathies are with intellectual la- 
 bor. I know very well that spoken or written counsel cannot 
 avail much — that to each man his own experience, his own mis- 
 takes, are the best, perhaps the only real, instruction. May 
 your experience be as painless, your mistakes as few, as is com- 
 patible with the conditions under which we all live and work ; 
 and whatever you become, or wherever you go, I think you will 
 always keep a warm corner in your hearts for that noble old 
 university in which you have had your early training.
 
 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN
 
 JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 1801 — 1890 
 
 John Henry Newman was the son of a London banker, and his early 
 days were therefore passed in the comfort and ease which, in men of 
 his spiritual temperament, promote religious meditation and intellectual 
 studies. English refinement and high-breeding were in him united with 
 freedom from materiality and physical grossness. Newman was of a 
 delicate make; yet so well were the elements of his organization bal- 
 anced, that he lived for ninety years, devoting his whole existence to 
 thought and action upon the highest subjects that can engage the human 
 mind. He was born within a few weeks of the birthday of the nine- 
 teenth century — on February 25, 1801. 
 
 He went to Oxford, where he took his degree in 1820, from Trinity 
 College ; and two years later he was elected a fellow of Oriel. Here 
 he began his friendship with Edward Bouverie Pusey, whose influence 
 upon church thought and procedure was later to become historical. 
 Pusey was less than a year older than Newman, was also a fellow of 
 Oriel, and his mind tended to the same lines of development as did that 
 of the future cardinal. 
 
 In 1832, Newman made a voyage up the Mediterranean, which in its 
 effects might be called a religious sentimental pilgrimage. It was dur- 
 ing this journey that the poem or hymn, " Lead, Kindly Light," was 
 composed. On returning to Oxford, he began to take an active part 
 in the religious discussions of that epoch. There had been a strong drift 
 towards liberalism in the Church of England, and the so-called Oxford 
 Movement was designed to conteract this, and to bring the Church back 
 to the primitive simplicity and faith of the Christian Fathers. Tracts 
 were written and published with this end in view, and what is known 
 as Tractarianism soon became important. Both Newman and Pusey 
 contributed to the propaganda ; and the tone of their writings gradually 
 brought them nearer to a belief which was hardly to be distinguished 
 from Roman Catholicism. Pusey was disbarred from preaching for three 
 years for publishing his sermon on " The Holy Eucharist a Comfort to 
 the Penitent " ; and it was from his initiative that the practice of con- 
 fession was established among extreme ritualists of the Established 
 Church. Pusey, however, never took the final step which would have 
 separated him from the English communion ; but Newman, though for 
 some years he hoped that a middle ground between the Roman and 
 the English dispensations might be found, finally gave up that hope, 
 and in 1843 he formally withdrew from the Anglican Church ; and 
 two years afterwards the Roman Catholic Church accepted him as a 
 convert. In 1849 he established an English branch of the Oratory of 
 St. Philip Neri, a Roman Catholic religious order founded in 1575, 
 which is composed of simple priests, under no vows. The latter part 
 of his pure and tranquil life was spent in writing and preaching, and 
 under his influence, the Church of Rome received many recruits from 
 England. Newman's literary style is exquisite; and his eloquence as a 
 preacher had a sacred sweetness and fire, and a lofty gentleness of per- 
 suasion, unsurpassed in his day. 
 
 176
 
 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 
 
 What shall a man give in exchange for his soulf — Matt. xvi. 26 
 
 I SUPPOSE there is no tolerably informed Christian but con- 
 siders he has a correct notion of the difference between our 
 religion and the paganism which it supplanted. Every- 
 one, if asked what it is we have gained by the gospel, will 
 promptly answer, that we have gained the knowledge of our 
 immortality, of our having souls which will live forever; that 
 the heathen did not know this, but that Christ taught it and that 
 His disciples know it. Everyone will say, and say truly, that 
 this was the great and solemn doctrine which gave the gos- 
 pel a claim to be heard when first preached, which arrested the 
 thoughtless multitudes who were busied in the pleasures and 
 pursuits of this life, awed them with the vision of the life to 
 come, and sobered them till they turned to God with a true 
 heart. It will be said, and said truly, that this doctrine of a 
 future life was the doctrine which broke the power and the fas- 
 cination of paganism. The poor benighted heathen were en- 
 gaged in all the frivolities and absurdities of a false ritual, which 
 had obscured the light of nature. They knew God, but they 
 forsook Him for the inventions of men ; they made protectors 
 and guardians for themselves ; and had " gods many and lords 
 many." 1 They had their profane worship, their gaudy proces- 
 sions, their indulgent creed, their easy observances, their sensual 
 festivities, their childish extravagance such as might suitably be 
 the religion of beings who were to live for seventy or eighty 
 years, and then die once for all, never to live again. " Let us 
 eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," was their doctrine and 
 their rule of life. " To-morrow we die ; " this the Holy Apostles 
 admitted. They taught so far as the heathen ; " To-morrow 
 we die ; " but then they added, " And after death the judg- 
 
 1 1 Cor. viii. 5. 
 
 Vol. II.— 13 177
 
 178 CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 ment " ; judgment upon the eternal soul, which lives in spite 
 of the death of the body. And this was the truth, which awak- 
 ened men to the necessity of having a better and deeper religion 
 than that which had spread over the earth, when Christ came 
 — which so wrought upon them that they left that old false 
 worship of theirs, and it fell. Yes ! though throned in all the 
 power of the world, a sight such as eye had never before seen, 
 though supported by the great and the many, the magnificence 
 of kings and the stubbornness of people, it fell. Its ruins 
 remain scattered over the face of the earth ; the shattered works 
 of its great upholders, that fierce enemy of God, the pagan 
 Roman Empire. Those ruins are found even among ourselves, 
 and show how marvellously great was its power, and therefore 
 how much more powerful was that which broke its power ; 
 and this was the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. So 
 entire is the revolution which is produced among men wherever 
 this high truth is really received. 
 
 I have said that every one of us is able fluently to speak of this 
 doctrine, and is aware that the knowledge of it forms the funda- 
 mental difference between our state and that of the heathen. 
 And yet, in spite of our being able to speak about it and our 
 " form of knowledge " 2 (as St. Paul terms it), there seems 
 scarcely room to doubt that the greater number of those who 
 are called Christians in no true sense realize it in their own 
 minds at all. Indeed, it is a very difficult thing to bring home 
 to us, and to feel that we have souls ; and there cannot be a 
 more fatal mistake than to suppose we see what the doctrine 
 means as soon as we can use the words which signify it. So 
 great a thing is it to understand that we have souls, that the 
 knowing it, taken in connection with its results, is all one with 
 being serious, i.e., truly religious. To discern our immortality 
 is necessarily connected with fear and trembling and repent- 
 ance in the case of every Christian. Who is there but would 
 be sobered by an actual sight of the flames of hell-fire and the 
 souls therein hopelessly enclosed ? Would not all his thoughts 
 be drawn to that awful sight, so that he would stand still, gazing 
 fixedly upon it, and forgetting everything else ; seeing nothing 
 else, hearing nothing, engrossed with the contemplation of it ; 
 and when the sight was withdrawn, still having it fixed in his 
 
 a Rom. ii. 20.
 
 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 179 
 
 memory, so that he would be henceforth dead to the pleasures 
 and employments of this world, considered in themselves, think- 
 ing of them only in their reference to that fearful vision ? This 
 would be the overpowering effect of such a disclosure, whether 
 it actually led a man to repentance or not. And thus absorbed 
 in the thought of the life to come are they who really and 
 heartily receive the words of Christ and His Apostles. Yet to 
 this state of mind, and therefore to this true state of knowledge, 
 the multitude of men called Christians are certainly strangers ; 
 a thick veil is drawn over their eyes ; and in spite of their being 
 being able to talk of the doctrine, they are as if they never had 
 heard of it. They go on just as the heathen did of old ; they eat, 
 they drink ; or they amuse themselves in vanities, and live in the 
 world, with fear and without sorrow, just as if God had not 
 declared that their conduct in this life would decide their destiny 
 in the next ; just as if they either had no souls, or had nothing 
 or little to do with the saving of them, which was the creed of 
 the heathen. 
 
 Now let us consider what it is to bring home to ourselves that 
 we have souls, and in what the special difficulty of it lies ; for 
 this may be of use to us in our attempt to realize that awful 
 truth. 
 
 We are from our birth apparently dependent on things about 
 us. We see and feel that we could not live or go forward with- 
 out the aid of man. To a child this world is everything; he 
 seems to himself a part of this world — a part of this world in the 
 same sense in which a branch is part of a tree ; he has little 
 notion of his own separate and independent existence, that is, he 
 has no just idea he has a soul. He views himself merely in his 
 connection with this world, which is his all ; he looks to this 
 world for his good as to an idol ; and when he tries to look 
 beyond this life he is able to discern nothing in prospect, be- 
 cause he has no idea of anything, nor can fancy anything, but 
 this life. And if he is obliged to fancy anything, he fancies this 
 life over again ; just as the heathen, when they reflected on 
 those traditions of another life, which were floating among 
 them, could but fancy the happiness of the blessed to consist 
 in the enjoyment of the sun, and the sky, and the earth, as be- 
 fore, only as if these were to be more splendid than they are now. 
 
 To understand that we have souls is to feel our separation
 
 180 CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 from things visible, our independence of them, our distinct ex- 
 istence in ourselves, our individuality, our power of acting for 
 ourselves this way or that way, our accountableness for what 
 we do. These are the great truths which lie wrapped up in- 
 deed even in a child's mind, and which God's grace can unfold 
 there in spite of the influence of the external world ; but at first 
 this outward world prevails. We look off from self to the things 
 around us, and forget ourselves in them. Such is our state — a 
 depending for support on the reeds which are no stay, and over- 
 looking our real strength — at the time when God begins His 
 process of reclaiming us to a truer view of our place in His 
 great system of providence. And when He visits us, then in a 
 little while there is a stirring within us. The unprofitableness 
 and feebleness of the things of this world are forced upon our 
 minds ; they promise but cannot perform, they disappoint us. 
 Or, if they do perform what they promise, still (so it is) they do 
 not satisfy us. We still crave for something, we do not well 
 know what ; but we are sure it is something which the world 
 has not given us. And then its changes are so many, so sudden, 
 so silent, so continual. It never leaves changing; it goes on 
 to change, till we are quite sick at heart ; then it is that 
 our reliance on it is broken. It is plain we cannot continue to 
 depend upon it unless we keep pace with it and go on changing 
 too; but this we cannot do. We feel that, while it changes, 
 we are one and the same ; and thus under God's blessing we 
 come to have some glimpse of the meaning of our independence 
 of things temporal, and our immortality. And should it so 
 happen that misfortunes come upon us (as they often do), then 
 still more are we led to understand the nothingness of this 
 world ; then still more are we led to distrust it, and are weaned 
 from the love of it, till at length it floats before our eyes merely 
 as some idle veil, which, notwithstanding its many tints, cannot 
 hide the view of what is beyond it — and we begin by degrees to 
 perceive that there are but two things in the whole universe — 
 our own soul, and the God who made it. 
 
 Sublime, unlooked-for doctrine, yet most true! To every 
 one of us there are but two beings in the whole world, himself 
 and God ; for, as to this outward scene, its pleasures and pur- 
 suits, its honors and cares, its contrivances, its personages, its 
 kingdoms, its multitude of busy slaves, what are they to us?
 
 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 181 
 
 Nothing — no more than a show. ' The world passeth away 
 and the lust thereof." And as to those others nearer to us, 
 who are not to be classed with the vain world, I mean our 
 friends and relations, whom we are right in losing, these, too, 
 after all, are nothing to us here. They cannot really help or 
 profit us ; we see them, and they act upon us only (as it were) 
 at a distance, through the medium of sense ; they cannot get at 
 our souls ; they cannot enter into our thoughts, or really be 
 companions to us. In the next world it will, through God's 
 mercy, be otherwise ; but here we enjoy, not their presence, but 
 the anticipation of what one day shall be ; so that, after all, 
 they vanish before the clear vision we have, first, of our own 
 existence, next of the presence of the great God in us and over 
 :s, as our governor and judge, who dwells in us and by our con- 
 science, which is His representative. 
 
 A. id now consider what a revolution will take place in the 
 mind that is not utterly reprobate, in proportion as it realizes 
 this relation between itself and the Most High God. We never 
 in this life can fully understand what is meant by our living for- 
 ever, but we can understand what is meant by this world's not 
 living forever, by its dying never to rise again. And, learning 
 this, we learn that we owe it no service, no allegiance, it has no 
 claim over us, and can do us no material good nor harm. On the 
 other hand, the law of God written on our hearts bids us serve 
 Him, and partly tells us how to serve Him, and Scripture com- 
 pletes the precepts which nature began. And both Scripture 
 and conscience tell us we are answerable for what we do, and 
 that God is a righteous judge ; and, above all, our Saviour, as 
 our visible Lord God, takes the place of the world as the only 
 begotten of the Father, having shown himself openly, that we 
 may not say that God is hidden. And thus a man is drawn 
 Forward by all manner of powerful influences to turn from 
 things temporal to things eternal, to deny himself, to take up 
 his cross and follow Christ. For there are Christ's awful threats 
 and warnings to make him serious, His precepts to attract and 
 elevate him, His promises to cheer him, His gracious deeds and 
 sufferings to humble him to the dust, and to bind his heart once 
 and forever in gratitude to Him who is so surpassing in mercy. 
 All these things act upon him ; and, as truly as St. Matthew 
 rose from the receipt of custom when Christ called, heedless
 
 182 CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 what bystanders would say of him, so they who, through grace, 
 obey the secret voice of God, move onward contrary to the 
 world's way, and careless what mankind may say of them, as 
 understanding that they have souls, which is the one thing they 
 have to care about. 
 
 I am well aware that there are indiscreet teachers gone forth 
 into the world, who use language such as I have used, but mean 
 something very different. Such are they who deny the grace of 
 baptism, and think that a man is converted to God all at once. 
 But I have no need now to mention the difference between 
 their teaching and that of Scripture. Whatever their peculiar 
 errors are, so far as they say that we are by nature blind and 
 sinful, and must, through God's grace and our own endeavors, 
 learn that we have souls and rise to a new life, severing ourselves 
 from the world that is, and walking in what is unseen and 
 future, so far they say true, for they speak the words of Scrip- 
 ture ; which says, " Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from 
 the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See, then, that ye 
 walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the 
 time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, 
 but understanding what the will of the Lord is." 3 
 
 Let us, then, seriously question ourselves, and beg of God 
 grace to do so honestly, whether we are loosened from the world ; 
 or whether, living as dependent on it, and not on the eternal au- 
 thor of our being, we are in fact taking our portion with this 
 perishing outward scene, and ignorant of our having souls. I 
 know very well that such thoughts are distasteful to the minds 
 of men in general. Doubtless, many a one there is, who, on hear- 
 ing doctrines such as I have been insisting on, says in his heart 
 that religion is thus made gloomy and repulsive ; that he would 
 attend to a teacher who spoke in a less severe way ; and that in 
 fact Christianity was not intended to be a dark, burdensome law, 
 but a religion of cheerfulness and joy. This is what young 
 people think, though they do not express it in this argumenta- 
 tive form. They view a strict life as something offensive and 
 hateful ; they turn from the notion of it. And then, as they 
 get older and see more of the world, they learn to defend their 
 opinion, and express it more or less in the way in which I have 
 just put it. They hate and oppose the truth, as it were upon 
 
 a Eph. v. 14-17.
 
 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 183 
 
 principle ; and the more they are told that they have souls the 
 more resolved they are to live as if they had not souls. But let 
 us take it as a clear point from the first, and not to be disputed, 
 that religion must ever be difficult to those who neglect it. All 
 things that we have to learn are difficult at first ; and our duties 
 to God, and to man for His sake, are peculiarly difficult, because 
 they call upon us to take up a new life, and quit the love of this 
 world for the next. It cannot be avoided ; we must fear and 
 be in sorrow before we can rejoice. The gospel must be a bur- 
 den before it comforts and brings us peace. No one can have 
 his heart cut away from the natural objects of its love without 
 pain during the process, and throbbings afterwards. This is 
 plain from the nature of the case ; and, however true it be that 
 this or that teacher may be harsh and repulsive, yet he cannot 
 materially alter things. Religion is in itself at first a weariness 
 to the worldly mind, and it requires an effort and a self-denial 
 in everyone who honestly determines to be religious. 
 
 But there are other persons who are far more hopeful than 
 those I have been speaking of, who, when they hear repen- 
 tance and newness of life urged on them, are frightened at 
 the thought of the greatness of the work ; they are disheartened 
 at being told to do so much. Now let it be well understood 
 that to realize our own individual accountableness and immor- 
 tality, of which I have been speaking, is not required of them 
 all at once. I never said a person was not in a hopeful way 
 who did not thus fully discern the world's vanity and the worth 
 of his soul. But a man is truly in a very desperate way who 
 does not wish, who does not try, to discern and feel all this. I 
 want a man on the one hand to confess his immortality with 
 his lips, and on the other to live as if he tried to understand 
 his own words, and then he is in the way of salvation ; he is in 
 the way towards heaven, even though he has not yet fully eman- 
 cipated himself from the fetters of this world. Indeed none of 
 us (of course) are entirely loosened from the world. We all 
 use words, in speaking of our duties, higher and fuller than we 
 really understand. No one entirely realizes what is meant by 
 his having a soul ; even the best of men is but in a state of prog- 
 ress towards the simple truth ; and the most weak and ignorant 
 of those who seek after it cannot but be in progress. And 
 therefore no one need be alarmed at hearing that he has much
 
 184 CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 to do before he arrives at a right view of his own condition 
 in God's sight, i.e., at faith ; for we all have much to do, and 
 the great point is, are we willing to do it? 
 
 Oh, that there were such a heart in us to put aside this visible 
 world, to desire to look at it as a mere screen between us and 
 God, and to think of Him who has entered in beyond the veil, 
 and who is watching us, trying us, yes, and blessing, and in- 
 fluencing, and encouraging us towards good day by day ! Yet, 
 alas, how do we suffer the mere varying circumstances of every 
 day to sway us ! How difficult it is to remain firm and in one 
 mind under the seductions or terrors of the world ! We feel 
 variously according to the place, time, and people we are with. 
 We are serious on Sunday, and we sin deliberately on Monday. 
 We rise in the morning with remorse at our offences and resolu- 
 tions of amendment, yet before night we have transgressed 
 again. The mere change of society puts us into a new frame of 
 mind; nor do we sufficiently understand this great weakness 
 of ours, or seek for strength where alone it can be found, in 
 the unchangeable God. What will be our thoughts in that day, 
 when at length this outward world drops away altogether, and 
 we find ourselves where we ever have been, in His presence, 
 with Christ standing at His right hand? 
 
 On the contrary, what a blessed discovery it is to those who 
 make it, that this world is but vanity and without substance ; 
 and that really they are ever in their Saviour's presence. This 
 is a thought which it is scarcely right to enlarge upon in a 
 mixed congregation, where there may be some who have not 
 given their hearts to God; for why should the privileges of 
 the true Christian be disclosed to mankind at large, and sacred 
 subjects, which are his peculiar treasure, be made common 
 to the careless liver? He knows his blessedness, and needs 
 not another to tell it him. He knows in whom he has believed ; 
 and in the hour of danger or trouble he knows what is meant 
 by that peace which Christ did not explain when He gave it to 
 His Apostles, but merely said it was not as the world could give. 
 
 " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
 Thee ; because he trusteth in Thee. Trust ye in the Lord for- 
 ever : for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." * 
 
 * Isaiah, xxvi. 3, 4.
 
 CHOICE EXAMPLES OF EARLY PRINTING AND 
 
 ENGRAVING. 
 
 Fac-similes from Rare and Curious Books. 
 
 /■:. 1 RL Y 1 T ENE TIAN PRIX TING. 
 
 Roman missal printed al Venice in 1520 by Lucanlonio de Giunta. 
 
 bination of red-lettering and : 1 white border which produce? an 
 
 ninently rich and majestic. At tie summit of the border St. I'eter >s 
 at a conferen e apostles. Beneath this picture is a 
 
 second, narrower border decorated with tw< Is, in true Roman 
 
 fashion, are developed into dou d ornaments. Tins narrower 
 
 border is continued down the two inner e panels, in which are 
 
 a Ion. nts and utensils. On the right is the 1 
 
 below il -opal mitre, pastoral staffs, chalices, candlesticks, rosarii 
 
 . the two keys. .. ruets on a tray. 
 
 who). arranged on a i entral line and the general 
 
 h I 1 1 harmonious distribution ol while and Mack— somewhat bizarre 
 and lace-like, linely decorative. I re
 
 en annorariombuo in margmc 
 
 adfacillime oiaque iipfo ad 
 
 alias paginal reunttuntr 
 
 muenicda:£tqiyl alicui* 
 
 fancii mifla iperfecta a 
 
 noranise locne vui 
 
 inquitioebcat/^ft, 
 
 fupcr en figtma 
 
 fcmuirarumac 
 
 euangelio^imna eroinantt/ 
 
 bus mrta materia eorema oi/ 
 
 ligenriflime accommodate 
 
 Jiutamamoumm flcgiamaflo:enun»m,il?b.ojrj
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD COBDEN
 
 RICHARD COBDEN 
 1804— 1865 
 
 Richard Cobden was a man whom the English people loved, and 
 who is held in affectionate remembrance by Americans, both on account 
 of his labors for the welfare of humanity, and because, during the Civil 
 War, he supported the cause of the North. He was born in Sussex in 
 1804, and died in London in 1865; and it was said by the man who 
 knew him best that his was " the manliest and gentlest spirit that ever 
 tenanted or quitted a human breast." 
 
 When a man of pure character and single ability devotes his entire 
 life to advocating a measure of enlightened reform and philanthropy, 
 the odds are in his favor; and Cobden, in his support of free trade, and 
 of the repeal of the Corn Laws, seems not only to have reaped the 
 natural reward of his persistent exertions, but to have been favored by 
 Providence. His youth made him acquainted with the evils of poverty 
 brought about by errors of political economy; and his young manhood 
 was passed in a situation where he could personally examine the state 
 of English industries, and the condition and needs of the working 
 people. By the time his investigation had enabled him to formulate 
 a policy by which the pressure of hard times could be relieved, he had 
 accumulated, by the calico-printing industry, a fortune sufficient to 
 support him while engaged in the work of impressing his views upon 
 Parliament and the people; and for seven years he applied himself to 
 this duty with such surprising energy, faith, and ability, that the end 
 was victory. He instituted a vast propaganda, involving a house-to- 
 house visitation throughout England, distributing pamphlets which pre- 
 sented the cause of free trade in such simple terms that anyone could 
 understand them ; and supplemented by open-air speeches, in which the 
 multitude was instructed how they might act in order to obtain the 
 repeal of the existing injurious laws. Not less than one hundred and 
 forty thousand pounds was expended in this work in the course of only 
 two years ; but the results warranted the outlay ; and when all was 
 ready, a bad agricultural season created such distress in the country and 
 so powerful a feeling in favor of Cobden's measures, that Parliament 
 was unable to withstand the pressure, and on June 26, 1846, the Reform 
 Bill was passed. Since then free trade has been the policy of England. 
 
 Cobden entered Parliament in 1841, and at once made his mark there 
 by a speech on his chosen theme. In 1854 he visited the United States, 
 and in 1859 he again entered Parliament. His style of address was plain, 
 simple, and direct, backed by an obvious honesty of purpose, and great 
 keenness and persuasiveness of argument. He was able to move the 
 great mass of the people, and to stimulate them to action, in a way 
 that no contemporary could rival. His speech, " On the Effects of 
 Protection," delivered in the House on March 13, 1845, is one of the 
 ablest and most characteristic speeches of his career. 
 
 186
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 
 
 Delivered in the House of Commons, March 13, 1845 
 
 SIR: I am relieved upon the present occasion from any 
 necessity for apologizing to the other side of the House 
 for the motion which I am about to submit. It will be 
 in the recollection of honorable members that a fortnight before 
 putting this notice upon the book I expressed a hope that the 
 matter would be taken up by some honorable member opposite. 
 I do not think, therefore, that in reply to any observations I 
 may have to make upon the question, I shall hear, as I did last 
 year, an observation that the quarter from which this motion 
 came was suspicious. I may also add, sir, that I have so framed 
 my motion as to include in it the objects embraced in both the 
 amendments which are made to it. I therefore conclude, that 
 having included the honorable gentlemen's amendments [Mr. 
 Stafford O'Brien and Mr. Wodehouse], they will not now feel it 
 necessary to press them. 
 
 Sir, the object of this motion is to appoint a select com- 
 mittee to inquire into the present condition of the agricultural 
 interests ; and, at the same time, to ascertain how the laws 
 regulating the importation of agricultural produce have affected 
 the agriculturists of this country. As regards the distress 
 among farmers, I presume we cannot go to a higher authority 
 than those honorable gentlemen who profess to be the farmers' 
 friends and protectors. I find it stated by those honorable gen- 
 tlemen who recently paid their respects to the Prime Minister 
 that the agriculturists are in a state of great embarrassment 
 and distress. I find that one gentleman from Norfolk [Mr. 
 Hudson] stated that the farmers in the county are paying their 
 rents, but paying them out of capital, and not profits. I find 
 Mr. Turner of Upton, in Devonshire, stating that one-half of the 
 smaller farmers in that county are insolvent, and that the others 
 
 187
 
 ^8 COBDEN 
 
 are rapidly falling into the same condition ; that the farmers 
 with larger holdings are quitting their farms with a view of 
 saving the rest of their property ; and that, unless some remedial 
 measures be adopted by this House, they will be utterly ruined. 
 The accounts which I have given you of those districts are 
 such as I have had from many other sources. I put it to honor- 
 able gentlemen opposite whether the condition of the farmers 
 in Suffolk, Wiltshire, and Hampshire, is better than that which 
 I have described in Norfolk and Devonshire ? I put it to county 
 members, whether — taking the whole of the south of England, 
 from the confines of Nottinghamshire to the Land's End — 
 whether, as a rule, the farmers are not now in a state of the 
 greatest embarrassment ? There may be exceptions ; but I put 
 it to them whether, as a rule, that is not their condition in all 
 parts? 
 
 Then, sir, according to every precedent in this House, this 
 is a fit and proper time to bring forward the motion of which I 
 have given notice. I venture to state that had his grace of 
 Buckingham possessed a seat in this House, he would have done 
 now what he did when he was Lord Chandos — have moved 
 this resolution which I am now about to move. The distress of 
 the farmers being admitted, the next question which arises is, 
 What is its cause? I feel a greater necessity to bring forward 
 this motion for a committee of inquiry, because I find great 
 discrepancies of opinion among honorable gentlemen opposite 
 as to what is the cause of the distress among the farmers. In 
 the first place there is a discrepancy as to the generality or 
 locality of the existing distress. I find the right honorable 
 baronet at the head of the Government [Sir Robert Peel] saying 
 that the distress is local ; and he moreover says it does not arise 
 from the legislation of this House. The honorable member for 
 Dorsetshire declares, on the other hand, that the distress is 
 general, and that it does not arise from legislation. I am at a 
 loss to understand what this protection to agriculture means, 
 because I find such contradictory accounts given in this House 
 by the promoters of that system. For instance, nine months 
 ago, when my honorable friend, the member for Wolverhamp- 
 ton [Mr. Villiers], brought forward his motion for the abolition 
 of the Corn Laws, the right honorable gentleman, then the 
 President of the Board of Trade, in replying to him, said that
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 189 
 
 the present Corn Law had been most successful in its opera- 
 tions. He took great credit to the government for the steadi- 
 ness of price that was obtained under that law. I will read you 
 the quotation, because we find these statements so often contro- 
 verted. He said : 
 
 " Was there any man who had supported the law in the year 
 1842 who could honestly say that he had been disappointed in 
 its workings ? Could anyone point out a promise or a predic- 
 tion hazarded in the course of the protracted debates upon the 
 measure, which promise or prediction had been subsequently 
 falsified ? " 
 
 Now, recollect that the right honorable gentleman was speak- 
 ing when wheat was fifty-six shillings per quarter, and that 
 wheat is now forty-five shillings. The right honorable baronet 
 at the head of the Government now says : ;< My legislation has 
 had nothing to do with wheat at forty-five shillings a quarter " ; 
 but how are we to get over the difficulty that the responsible 
 member of Government at the head of the Board of Trade, only 
 nine months ago, claimed merit for the Government having kept 
 up the price of wheat at fifty-six shillings ? These discrepancies 
 themselves between the Government and its supporters, render 
 it more and more necessary that this question of protection 
 should be inquired into. I ask, What does it mean ? The price 
 of wheat is forty-five shillings this day. I have been speaking 
 to the highest authority in England upon this point — one who is 
 often quoted by this House — within the last week, and he tells 
 me, that with another favorable harvest, he thinks it very likely 
 that wheat will be thirty-five shillings a quarter. What does 
 this legislation mean, or what does it purport to be, if you are 
 to have prices fluctuating from fifty-six shillings down to thirty- 
 five shillings a quarter, and probably lower? Can you prevent 
 it by the legislation of this House ? That is the question. There 
 is a great delusion spread abroad amongst the farmers ; and 
 it is the duty of this House to have that delusion dissipated by 
 inquiring into the matter. 
 
 Now, there are these very different opinions on the other 
 side of the House ; but there are members upon this side repre- 
 senting very important interests, who think that farmers are 
 suffering because they have this legislative protection. There 
 is all this difference of opinion. Now, is not that a fit and proper
 
 190 COBDEN 
 
 subject for your inquiry? I am prepared to go into a select 
 committee, and to bring forward evidence to show that the 
 farmers are laboring under great evils — evils that I would con- 
 nect with the legislation of this House, though they are evils 
 which appear to be altogether dissociated from it. The first 
 great evil under which the farmer labors is the want of capital. 
 No one can deny that. I do not mean at all to disparage the 
 farmers. The farmers of this country are just the same race 
 as the rest of us ; and, if they were placed in a similar position, 
 theirs would be as good a trade — I mean that they would be as 
 successful men of business — as others ; but it is notorious, as a 
 rule, that the farmers of this country are deficient in capital ; 
 and I ask, How can any business be carried on successfully 
 where there is a deficiency of capital ? I take it that honorable 
 gentlemen opposite, acquainted with farming, would admit that 
 ten pounds an acre, on an arable farm, would be a sufficient 
 amount of capital for carrying on the business of farming suc- 
 cessfully. I will take it, then, that ten pounds an acre would be 
 a fair capital for an arable farm. I have made many inquiries 
 upon this subject in all parts of the kingdom, and I give it you 
 as my decided conviction, that at this present moment farmers 
 do not average five pounds an acre capital on their farms. I 
 speak of England, and I take England south of the Trent, 
 though, of course, there are exceptions in every county ; there 
 are men of large capital in all parts — men farming their own 
 land ; but, taking it as a rule, I hesitate not to give my opinion 
 — and I am prepared to back that opinion by witnesses before 
 your committee — that, as a rule, farmers have not, upon an aver- 
 age, more than five pounds an acre capital for their arable land. 
 I have given you a tract of country to which I may add all 
 Wales; probably 20,000,000 of acres of cultivable land. I 
 have no doubt whatever that there are £100,000,000 of capital 
 wanting upon that land. What is the meaning of farming cap- 
 ital ? There are strange notions about the word " capital." It 
 means more manure, a greater amount of labor, a greater num- 
 ber of cattle, and larger crops. Picture a country in which you 
 can say there is a deficiency of one-half of all those blessings 
 which ought to, and might, exist there, and then judge what 
 the condition of laborers wanting employment and food is. 
 But you will say, capital would be invested if it could be done
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION lgi 
 
 with profit. I admit it ; that is the question I want you to in- 
 quire into. How is it that in a country where there is a plethora 
 of capital, where every other business and pursuit is over- 
 flowing with money, where you have men going to France for 
 railways and to Pennsylvania for bonds, embarking in schemes 
 for connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific by canals, railways 
 in the valley of the Mississippi, and sending their money to the 
 bottom of the Mexican mines; while you have a country rich 
 and overflowing, ready to take investments in every corner of 
 the globe ; how is it, I say, that this capital does not find its 
 employment in the most attractive of all forms — upon the soil 
 of this country ? The cause is notorious — it is admitted by your 
 highest authorities ; the reason is, there is not security for 
 capital in land. Capital shrinks instinctively from insecurity 
 of tenure ; and you have not in England that security which 
 would warrant men of capital investing their money in the soil. 
 
 Now, is it not a matter worthy of consideration, how far 
 this insecurity of tenure is bound up with that protective sys- 
 tem of which you are so enamored ? Suppose it can be shown 
 that there is a vicious circle; that you have made politics of 
 Corn Laws, and that you want voters to maintain them ; that 
 you very erroneously think that the Corn Laws are your great 
 mine of wealth, and, therefore, you must have a dependent ten- 
 antry, that you may have their votes at elections to maintain 
 this law in Parliament. Well, if you will have dependent voters, 
 you cannot have men of spirit and capital. Then your policy 
 reacts upon you. If you have not men of skill and capital, you 
 cannot have improvements and employment for your laborers. 
 Then comes round that vicious termination of the circle — you 
 have pauperism, poor-rates, county-rates, and all the other evils 
 of which you are now speaking and complaining. 
 
 But here I have to quote authorities, and I shall quote some 
 of the highest consideration with the opposite side of the 
 House. I will just state the opinion of the honorable mem- 
 ber for Berkshire [Mr. Pusey], delivered at the meeting of the 
 Suffolk Agricultural Society. That honorable gentleman said : 
 
 " He knew this country well, and he knew there was not a 
 place from Plymouth to Berwick in which the landlords might 
 not make improvements ; but when the tenant was short of 
 money, the landlord generally would be short of money too.
 
 i 9 2 COBDEN 
 
 But he would tell them how to find funds. There were many 
 districts where there was a great superfluity not only of use- 
 less, but of mischievous timber; and if they would cut that 
 down which excluded the sun and air, and fed on the soil, and 
 sell it, they would benefit the farmer by cutting it down, and 
 they would benefit the farmer and laborer too by laying out 
 the proceeds in underdraining the soil. There was another 
 mode in which they might find money. He knew that on some 
 properties a large sum was spent in the preservation of game. 
 It was not at all unusual for the game to cost £500 or £600 a 
 year ; and if this were given up, the money would employ a 
 hundred able-bodied laborers in improving the property. This 
 was another fund for the landlords of England to benefit the 
 laborers, and the farmers at the same time." 
 
 Again, at the Colchester agricultural meeting : 
 
 " Mr. Fisher Hobbes was aware that a spirit of improvement 
 was abroad. Much was said about the tenant-farmers doing 
 more. He agreed they might do more : the soil of the country 
 was capable of greater production ; if he said one-fourth more 
 he should be within compass. But that could not be done by 
 the tenant-farmer alone ; they must have confidence ; it must 
 be done by leases — by draining — by extending the length of 
 fields — by knocking down hedge-rows, and clearing away trees 
 which now shielded the corn." 
 
 But there was still higher authority. At the late meeting 
 at Liverpool, Lord Stanley declared : 
 
 " I say, and as one connected with the land I feel myself 
 bound to say it, that a landlord has no right to expect any great 
 and permanent improvement of his land by the tenant, un- 
 less that tenant be secured the repayment of his outlay, not by 
 the personal character or honor of his landlord, but by a se- 
 curity which no casualties can interfere with — the security 
 granted him by the terms of a lease for years." 
 
 Now, sir, not only does the want of security prevent capital 
 flowing into the farming business, but it actually deters from the 
 improvement of the land those who are already in the occupa- 
 tion of it. There are many men, tenants.of your land, who could 
 improve their farms if they had a sufficient security, and they 
 have either capital themselves or their friends could supply it ; 
 but with the absence of leases, and the want of security, you are
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 193 
 
 actually deterring them from laying out their money on your 
 land. They keep everything the same from year to year. You 
 know that it is impossible to farm your estates properly unless 
 a tenant has an investment for more than one year. A man 
 ought to be able to begin a farm with at least eight years before 
 him, before he expects to see a return for the whole of the 
 outlay of his money. You are, therefore, keeping your tenants- 
 at-will at a yearly kind of cultivation, and you are preventing 
 them carrying on their business in a proper way. Not only 
 do you prevent the laying out of capital upon your land, and 
 disable the farmers from cultivating it, but your policy tends 
 to make them servile and dependent ; so that they are actually 
 disinclined to improvement, afraid to let you see that they can 
 improve, because they are apprehensive that you will pounce 
 upon them for an increase of rent. I see the honorable member 
 for Lincolnshire opposite, and he rather smiled at the expression 
 when I said that the state of dependence of the farmers was such 
 that they were actually afraid to appear to be improving their 
 land. Now that honorable gentleman, the member for Lincoln- 
 shire [Mr. Christopher], upon the motion made last year for 
 agricultural statistics, by my honorable friend, the member for 
 Manchester [Mr. Milner Gibson], made the following state- 
 ment : 
 
 " It is most desirable for the farmer to know the actual quan- 
 tity of corn grown in this country, as such knowledge would in- 
 sure steadiness of prices, which was infinitely more valuable to 
 the agriculturist than fluctuating prices. But to ascertain this 
 there was extreme difficulty. They could not leave it to the 
 farmer to make a return of the quantity which he produced, for 
 it was not for his interest to do so. If in any one or two years he 
 produced four quarters per acre on land which had previously 
 grown but three, he might fear that his landlord would say: 
 4 Your land is more productive than I imagined, and I must 
 therefore raise your rent.' The interest of the farmers, there- 
 fore, would be to underrate, and to furnish low returns." 
 
 Now, I ask honorable gentlemen here, the landed gentry of 
 England, what a state of things is that when, upon their own 
 testimony respecting the farming capitalists in this country, they 
 dare not appear to have a good horse — they dare not appear to 
 be growing more than four quarters instead of three? [Mr. 
 Vol. 11. — 13
 
 ig4 COBDEN 
 
 Christopher: Hear!] The honorable member cheers, but I am 
 quoting from his own authority. I say this condition of things, 
 indicated by these two quotations, brings the tenant-farmers — if 
 they are such as these gentlemen describe them to be — it brings 
 them down to a very low point of servility. In Egypt Mehemet 
 Ali takes the utmost grain of corn from his people, who bury it 
 beneath their hearthstones in their cottages, and will suffer the 
 bastinado rather than tell how much corn they grow. Our 
 tenants are not afraid of the bastinado, but they are terrified at 
 the rise of rent. This is the state of things amongst the tenant- 
 farmers, farming without leases. In England leases are the ex- 
 ception, and not the rule. But even where you have leases in 
 England — where you have leases or agreements — I doubt 
 whether they are not in many cases worse tenures than where 
 there is no lease at all ; the clauses being of such an obsolete 
 and preposterous character as to defy any man to carry on the 
 business of farming under them profitably. 
 
 Now, I do not know why we should not in this country have 
 leases for land upon similar terms to the leases of manufactories, 
 or any " plant " or premises. I do not think that farming will 
 ever be carried on as it ought to be until you have leases drawn 
 up in the same way as a man takes a manufactory, and pays per- 
 haps £1,000 a year for it. I know people who pay £4,000 a 
 year for manufactories to carry on their business, and at fair 
 rents. There is an honorable gentleman near me who pays 
 more than £4,000 a year for the rent of his manufactory. What 
 covenants do you think he has in his lease? What would he 
 think if it stated how many revolutions there should be in a min- 
 ute of the spindles, or if they prescribed the construction of 
 the straps or the gearing of the machinery? Why, he takes 
 his manufactory with a schedule of its present state — bricks, 
 mortar, and machinery — and when the lease is over, he must 
 leave it in the same state, or else pay a compensation for the 
 dilapidation. [The Chancellor of the Exchequer: Hear! 
 hear !] The right honorable gentleman, the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, cheers that statement. I want to ask his opinion 
 respecting a similar lease for a farm. I am rather disposed to 
 think that the Anti-Corn-Law Leaguers will very likely form a 
 joint-stock association, having none but free-traders in the body, 
 that we may purchase an estate and have a model farm ; taking
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 195 
 
 care that it shall be in one of the rural counties, one of the 
 most purely agricultural parts of the country, where we think 
 there is the greatest need of improvement — perhaps in Buck- 
 inghamshire — and there shall be a model farm, homestead, and 
 cottages ; and I may tell the noble lord, the member for New- 
 ark, that we shall have a model garden, and we will not make 
 any boast about it. But the great object will be to have a model 
 lease. We will have as the farmer a man of intelligence and 
 capital. 
 
 I am not so unreasonable as to tell you that you ought to 
 let your land to men who have not a competent capital, or are 
 not sufficiently intelligent ; but I say, select such a man as that, 
 let him know his business and have a sufficient capital, and you 
 cannot give him too wide a scope. We will find such a man, 
 and will let him our farm ; there shall be a lease precisely 
 such as that upon which my honorable friend takes his factory. 
 There shall be no clause inserted in it to dictate to him how he 
 shall cultivate his farm ; he shall do what he likes with the old 
 pasture. If he can make more by ploughing it up he shall do 
 so ; if he can grow white crops every year — which I know there 
 are people doing at this moment in more places than one in this 
 country — or if he can make any other improvement or discovery, 
 he shall be free to do so. We will let him the land, with a 
 schedule of the state of tillage and the conditien of the home- 
 stead, and all we will bind him to will be this : " You shall 
 leave the land as good as when you entered upon it. If it be 
 in an inferior state it shall be valued again, and you shall com- 
 pensate us; but if it be in an improved state it shall be valued, 
 and we, the landlords, will compensate you." We will give pos- 
 session of everything upon the land, whether it be wild or tame 
 animals ; he shall have the absolute control. Take as stringent 
 precautions as you please to compel the punctual payment of 
 the rent ; take the right of reentry as summarily as you like if 
 the rent be not duly paid ; but let the payment of rent duly 
 be the sole test as to the well-doing of the tenant ; and so long 
 as he can pay the rent, and do it promptly, that is the only 
 criterion you need have that the farmer is doing well ; and if 
 he is a man of capital, you have the strongest possible security 
 that he will not waste your property while he has possession 
 of it.
 
 I9 6 ' COBDEN 
 
 Now, sir, I have mentioned a deficiency of capital as being 
 the primary want among farmers. I have stated the want of 
 security in leases as the cause of the want of capital ; but you 
 may still say : " You have not connected this with the Corn 
 Laws and the protective system." I will read the opinion of 
 an honorable gentleman who sits upon this side of the House ; 
 it is in a published letter of Mr. Hayter, who, I know, is him- 
 self an ardent supporter of agriculture. He says: 
 
 " The more I see of and practise agriculture, the more firmly 
 am I convinced that the whole unemployed labor of the country 
 could, under a better system of husbandry, be advantageously 
 put into operation ; and, moreover, that the Corn Laws have 
 been one of the principal causes of the present system of bad 
 farming and consequent pauperism. Nothing short of their 
 entire removal will ever induce the average farmer to rely upon 
 anything else than the legislature for the payment of his rent ; 
 his belief being that all rent is paid by corn, and nothing else 
 than corn, and that the legislature can, by enacting Corn Laws, 
 create a price which will make his rent easy. The day of 
 their | the Corn Laws'] entire abolition ought to be a day of 
 jubilee and rejoicing to every man interested in land." 
 
 Now, sir, I do not stop to connect the cause and effect in 
 this matter, and inquire whether your Corn Laws or your pro- 
 tective system has caused the want of leases and capital. I 
 do not stop to make good my proof, and for this reason, that 
 you have adopted a system of legislation in this House by which 
 you profess to make the farming trade prosperous. I show you, 
 after thirty years' trial, what is the depressed condition of the 
 agriculturists ; I prove to you what is the impoverished state of 
 farmers, and also of laborers, and you will not contest any one 
 of those propositions. I say it is enough, having had thirty 
 days' trial of your specific with no better results than these, 
 for me to ask you to go into committee to see if something better 
 cannot be devised. I am going to contend that free trade in 
 grain would be more advantageous to farmers — and with them 
 I include laborers — than restriction ; to oblige the honorable 
 member for Norfolk, I will take with them also the landlords ; 
 and I contend that free trade in corn and grain of every kind 
 would be more beneficial to them than to any other class of the 
 community. I should have contended the same before the pass-
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 
 
 197 
 
 ing of the late tariff, but now I am prepared to do so with ten- 
 fold more force. What has the right honorable baronet [Sir 
 R. Peel] done? He has passed a law to admit fat cattle at a 
 nominal duty. Some foreign fat cattle were selling in Smith- 
 field the other day at about fifteen pounds or sixteen pounds 
 per head, paying only about seven and one-half per cent, duty; 
 but he has not admitted the raw material out of which these fat 
 cattle are made. Mr. Huskisson did not act in this manner 
 when he commenced his plan of free trade. He began by ad- 
 mitting the raw material of manufactures before he admitted 
 the manufactured article ; but in your case you have commenced 
 at precisely the opposite end, and have allowed free trade in 
 cattle instead of that upon which they are fattened. I say give 
 free trade in that grain which goes to make the cattle. I con- 
 tend that by this protective system the farmers throughout the 
 country are more injured than any other class in the community. 
 I would take, for instance, the article of clover-seed. The hon- 
 orable member for North Northamptonshire put a question the 
 other night to the right honorable baronet at the head of the 
 Government. He looked so exceedingly alarmed that I won- 
 dered what the subject was which created the apprehension. 
 He asked the right honorable baronet whether he was going to 
 admit clover-seed into this country. I believe clover-seed is to 
 be excluded from the schedule of free importation. Now, I 
 ask for whose benefit is this exception made ? I ask the honor- 
 able gentleman, the member for North Northamptonshire, 
 whether those whom he represents, the farmers of that district 
 of the county, are, in a large majority of instances, sellers of 
 clover-seed ? I will undertake to say they are not. How many 
 counties in England are there which are benefited by the pro- 
 tection of clover-seed? I will take the whole of Scotland. If 
 there be any Scotch members present, I ask them whether they 
 do not in their country import the clover-seed from England? 
 They do not grow it. I undertake to say that there are not 
 ten counties in the United Kingdom which are interested in the 
 importation of clover-seed out of their own borders. Neither 
 have they any of this article in Ireland. But yet we have 
 clover-seed excluded from the farmers, although they are not 
 interested as a body in its protection at all. 
 
 Again, take the article of beans. There are lands in Essex
 
 198 COBDEN 
 
 where they can grow them alternate years with wheat. I find 
 that beans come from that district to Mark Lane ; and I believe 
 also that in some parts of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire they 
 do the same ; but how is it with the poor lands of Surrey or tile 
 poor down-land of Wiltshire? Take the whole of the counties. 
 How many of them are there which are exporters of beans, or 
 send them to market ? You are taxing the whole of the farmers 
 who do not sell their beans, for the pretended benefit of a few 
 counties or districts of counties where they do. Mark you, 
 where they can grow beans on the stronger and better soils, it 
 is not in one case out of ten that they grow them for the market. 
 They may grow them for their own use; but where they do 
 not cultivate beans, send them to market, and turn them into 
 money, those farmers can have no interest whatever in keeping 
 up the money price of that which they never sell. 
 
 Take the article of oats. How many farmers are there who 
 ever have oats down on the credit side of their books, as an 
 item upon which they rely for the payment of their rents? 
 The farmers may, and generally do, grow oats for feeding their 
 own horses ; but it is an exception to the rule — and a rare ex- 
 ception, too — where the farmer depends upon the sale of his 
 oats to meet his expenses. Take the article of hops. You have a 
 protection upon them for the benefit of the growers in Kent, 
 Sussex, and Surrey ; but yet the cultivators of hops are taxed 
 for the protection of others in articles which they do not them- 
 selves produce. Take the article of cheese. Not one farmer in 
 ten in the whole country makes his own cheese, and yet they 
 and their servants are large consumers of it. But what are the 
 counties which have the protection in this article? Cheshire, 
 Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, part of Derbyshire, and Leicester- 
 shire. Here are some four or five dairy counties having an in- 
 terest in the protection of cheese ; but recollect that those coun- 
 ties are peculiarly hardly taxed in beans and oats, because in 
 those counties where there are chiefly dairy farms, they are most 
 in want of artificial food for their cattle. There are the whole 
 of the hilly districts ; and I hope my friend, the member for 
 Nottingham [Mr. Gisborne], is here, because he has a special 
 grievance in this matter. He lies in Derbyshire, and very com- 
 mendably employs himself in rearing good cattle upon the hills : 
 but he is taxed for your protection for his beans, peas, oats,
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 199 
 
 Indian corn, and everything which he wants for feeding them. 
 He told me, only the other day, that he should like nothing 
 better than to give up the little remnant of protection on cattle, 
 if you would only let him buy a thousand quarters of black oats 
 for the consumption of his stock. Take the whole of the hilly 
 districts, and the down country of Wiltshire ; the whole of that 
 expanse of downs in the south of England ; take the Cheviots, 
 where the flock-masters reside ; the Grampians in Scotland ; 
 and take the whole of Wales, they are not benefited in the 
 slightest degree by the protection on these articles ; but, on the 
 contrary, you are taxing the very things they want. They re- 
 quire provender as abundantly and cheaply as they can get it. 
 Allowing a free importation of food for cattle is the only way in 
 which those counties can improve the breed of their lean stocks, 
 and the only manner in which they can ever bring their land 
 up to anything like a proper state of fertility. 
 
 I will go further and say, that farmers with thin soil — I mean 
 the stock farmers, whom you will find in Hertfordshire and Sur- 
 rey, farmers with large capitals, arable farmers — I say those 
 men are deeply interested in having a free importation of food 
 for their cattle, because they have thin, poor land. This land 
 of its own self does not contain the means of its increased fer- 
 tility ; and the only way is the bringing in of an additional 
 quantity of food from elsewhere, that they can bring up their 
 farms to a proper state of cultivation. I have been favored 
 with an estimate made by a very experienced, clever farmer in 
 Wiltshire — probably honorable gentlemen will bear me out, 
 when I say a man of great intelligence and skill, and entitled to 
 every consideration in this House. I refer to Mr. Nathaniel 
 Atherton, Kingston, Wilts. That gentleman estimates that 
 upon four hundred acres of land he could increase his profits to 
 the amount of £280, paying the same rent as at present, pro- 
 vided there was a free importation of foreign grain of all kinds. 
 He would buy five hundred quarters of oats at fifteen shillings, 
 or the same amount in beans or peas at fourteen shillings or 
 fifteen shillings a sack, to be fed on the land or in the yard ; by 
 which he would grow additional one hundred and sixty quar- 
 ters of wheat, and two hundred and thirty quarters of barley, 
 and gain an increased profit of £300 upon his sheep and cattle. 
 His plan embraces the employment of an additional capital of
 
 2oo COBDEN 
 
 £1,000 ; and he would pay £150 a year more for labor. I had an 
 opportunity, the other day, of speaking to a very intelligent 
 farmer in Hertfordshire. Mr. Lattimore, of Wheathampstead. 
 Very likely there are honorable members here to whom he is 
 known. I do not know whether the noble lord, the member for 
 Hertfordshire is present ; if so, he will, no doubt, know that Mr. 
 Lattimore stands as high in Hertford market as a skilful farmer 
 and a man of abundant capital as any in the county. He is a 
 gentleman of most unquestionable intelligence ; and what does 
 he say ? He told me that last year he paid £230 enhanced price 
 on his beans and other provender which he bought for his cat- 
 tle — £230 enhanced price in consequence of that restriction upon 
 the trade in foreign grain, amounting to fourteen shillings a 
 quarter on all the wheat he sold off his farm. 
 
 Now, I undertake to say, in the name of Mr. Atherton, of 
 Wiltshire, and Mr. Lattimore, of Hertfordshire, that they are 
 as decided advocates for free trade in grain of every kind as I 
 am. I am not now quoting merely solitary cases. I told hon- 
 orable gentlemen once before that I have probably as large 
 an acquaintance among farmers as anyone in the House. I 
 think I could give you from every county the names of some 
 of the first-rate farmers who are as ardent free-traders as I am. 
 I requested the secretary of this much dreaded Anti-Corn-Law 
 League to make me out a list of the farmers who are sub- 
 scribers to that association, and I find there are upwards of one 
 hundred in England and Scotland who subscribe to the league 
 fund, comprising, I hesitate not to say, the most intelligent 
 men to be found in the kingdom. I went into the Lothians, at 
 the invitation of twenty-two farmers there, several of whom 
 were paying upwards of £1,000 a year rent. I spent two or 
 three days among them, and I never found a body of more intel- 
 ligent, liberal-minded men in my life. Those are men who do 
 not want restrictions upon the importation of grain. They de- 
 sire nothing but fair play. They say : " Let us have our Indian 
 corn, Egyptian beans, and Polish oats as freely as we have our 
 linseed cake, and we can bear competition with any corn- 
 growers in the world." But by excluding the provender for 
 cattle, and at the same time admitting the cattle almost duty 
 free, I think you are giving an example of one of the greatest 
 absurdities and perversions of nature and common-sense that 
 ever was seen.
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 201 
 
 We have heard of great absurdities in legislation in com- 
 mercial matters of late. We know that there has been such a 
 case as sending coffee from Cuba to the Cape of Good Hope, in 
 order to bring it back to England under the law ; but I ven- 
 ture to say, that in less than ten years from this time, people 
 will look back with more amazement in their minds, at the 
 fact that, while you are sending ships to Ichaboe to bring back 
 the guano, you are passing a law to exclude Indian corn, beans, 
 oats, peas, and everything else that gives nourishment to your 
 cattle, which would give you a thousand times more productive 
 manure than all the guano of Ichaboe. 
 
 Upon the last occasion when I spoke upon this subject I was 
 answered by the right honorable gentleman, the President of 
 the Board of Trade. He talked about throwing poor lands out 
 of cultivation, and converting arable lands into pasture. I hope 
 that we men of the Anti-Corn-Law League may not be re- 
 proached again with seeking to cause any such disasters. My 
 belief is — and the conviction is founded upon a most extensive 
 inquiry among the most intelligent farmers, without stint of 
 trouble and pains — that the course you are pursuing tends every 
 hour to throw land out of cultivation, and make poor lands 
 unproductive. Do not let us be told again that we desire to 
 draw the laborers from the land in order that we may reduce 
 the wages of the work-people employed in factories. I tell you 
 that if you bestow capital on the soil and cultivate it with the 
 same skill as manufacturers bestow upon their business, you 
 have not population enough in the rural districts for the pur- 
 pose. I yesterday received a letter from Lord Ducie, in which 
 he gives precisely the same opinion. He says : " If we had 
 the land properly cultivated there are not sufficient laborers to 
 till it." You are chasing your laborers from village to village, 
 passing laws to compel people to support paupers, devising 
 every means to smuggle them abroad — to the antipodes — if you 
 can get them there ; why, you would have to run after them 
 and bring them back again if you had your land properly culti- 
 vated. I tell you honestly my conviction, that it is by these 
 means, and these only, that you can avert very great and se- 
 rious troubles and disasters in your agricultural districts. 
 
 Sir, I remember, on the last occasion when this subject was 
 discussed, there was a great deal said about disturbing an inter-
 
 202 COBDEN 
 
 est. It was said this inquiry could not be gone into because 
 we were disturbing and unsettling a great interest. I have no 
 desire to undervalue the agricultural interest. I have heard 
 it said that they are the greatest consumers of manufactured 
 goods in this country ; that they are such large consumers of 
 our goods that we had better look after the home trade, aand 
 not think of destroying it. But what sort of consumers of man- 
 ufactures think you the laborers can be, with the wages they 
 are now getting in agricultural districts ? Understand me ; I 
 am arguing for a principle that I solemnly believe would raise 
 the wages of the laborers in the agricultural districts. I be- 
 lieve you would have no men starving upon seven shillings a 
 week if you had abundant capital and competent skill employed 
 upon the soil ; but I ask what is this consumption of manufact- 
 ured goods that we have heard so much about ? I have taken 
 some pains, and made large inquiries as to the amount laid out 
 in the average of cases by agricultural laborers and their fami- 
 lies. You have 960,000 agricultural laborers in England and 
 Wales, according to the last census ; I undertake to say they do 
 not expend on an average thirty shillings a year on their fami- 
 lies, supposing every one of them to be in employ. I speak 
 of manufactured goods, excluding shoes. I assert that the 
 whole of the agricultural peasantry and their families in Eng- 
 land and Wales do not spend a million and a half per annum 
 for manufactured goods, in clothing and bedding. And, with 
 regard to your excisable and duty-paying articles, what can the 
 poor wretch lay out upon them, who out of eight shillings or 
 nine shillings a week has a wife and family to support? I un- 
 dertake to prove to your satisfaction — and you may do it 
 yourselves if you will but dare to look the figures in the face — 
 I will undertake to prove to you that they do not pay, upon an 
 average, each family fifteen shillings per annum ; that the whole 
 of their contributions to the revenue do not amount to £700,000. 
 Now, is not this a mighty interest to be disturbed? I would 
 keep that interest as justly as though it were one of the most 
 important ; but I say, when you have by your present system 
 brought down your agricultural peasantry to that state, have 
 you anything to offer for bettering their condition, or at all 
 events to justify resisting an inquiry? 
 
 On the last occasion when I addressed the House on this
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 203 
 
 subject I recollect stating some facts to show that you had no 
 reasonable ground to fear foreign competition ; those facts I do 
 not intend to reiterate, because they have never been contra- 
 dicted. But there are still attempts made to frighten people by 
 telling them : " If you open the ports to foreign corn you will 
 have corn let in here for nothing." One of the favorite fallacies 
 which are now put forth is this : " Look at the price of corn in 
 England and see what it is abroad ; you have prices low here, 
 and yet you have corn coming in from abroad and paying the 
 maximum duty. Now, if you had not twenty shillings duty 
 to pay what a quantity of corn you would have brought in, and 
 how low the price would be ! " This statement arises from a 
 fallacy — I hope not dishonestly put forth — in not understanding 
 the difference between the real and the nominal price of corn. 
 The price of corn at Dantzic now, when there is no regular 
 sale, is nominal ; the price of corn when it is coming in regu- 
 larly is the real price. Now, go back to 1838. In January of 
 that year the price of wheat at Dantzic was nominal ; there was 
 no demand for England ; there were no purchasers except for 
 speculation, with the chance, probably, of having to throw the 
 wheat into the sea ; but in the months of July and August of that 
 year, when apprehensions arose of a failure of our harvest, then 
 the price of corn in Dantzic rose instantly, sympathizing with 
 the markets of England ; and at the end of the year, in Decem- 
 ber, the price of wheat at Dantzic had doubled the amount at 
 which it had been in January ; and during the three following 
 years, when you had a regular importation of corn — during all 
 that time, by the averages laid upon the table of this House, 
 wheat at Dantzic averaged forty shillings. Wheat at Dantzic 
 was at that price during the three years 1839, 1840, and 1841. 
 Now, I mention this just to show the fact to honorable gentle- 
 men, and to entreat them that they will not go and alarm their 
 tenantry by this outcry of the danger of foreign competition. 
 You ought to be pursuing a directly opposite course — you 
 ought to be trying to stimulate them in every possible way, by 
 showing that they can compete with foreigners ; that what 
 others can do in Poland, they can do in England. 
 
 I have an illustration of this subject in the case of a society 
 of which the honorable member for Suffolk is chairman. We 
 have lately seen a new light spreading amongst agricultural
 
 204 COBDEN 
 
 gentlemen. We are told the salvation of this country is to arise 
 from the cultivation of flax. There is a National Flax Society, 
 of which Lord Rendlesham is the president. This Flax So- 
 ciety state in their prospectus, a copy of which I have here, 
 purporting to be the first annual report of the National Flax 
 Agricultural Improvement Association — after talking of the 
 ministers holding out no hope from legislation the report goes 
 on to state that upon these grounds the National Flax Society 
 call upon the nation for its support, on the ground that they 
 are going to remedy the distress of the country. The founder 
 of this society is Mr. Warnes, of Norfolk. I observe Mr. 
 Warnes paid a visit to Sussex, and he attended an agricultural 
 meeting at which the honorable baronet, the member for Shore- 
 ham [Sir Charles Burrell], presided. After the usual loyal 
 toasts the honorable baronet proposed the toast of the evening: 
 " Mr. Warnes and the cultivation of flax." The honorable bar- 
 onet was not aware, I dare say, that he was then furnishing a 
 most deadly weapon to the lecturers of the Anti-Corn-Law 
 League. We are told you cannot compete with foreigners un- 
 less you have a high protective duty. You have a high pro- 
 tective duty on wheat, amounting at this moment to twenty 
 shillings a quarter. A quarter of wheat at the present time is 
 just worth the same as one hundredweight of flax. On a quar- 
 ter of wheat you have a protective duty against the Pole and 
 Russian of twenty shillings ; upon the one hundredweight of flax 
 you have a protective duty of one penny. And I did not hear 
 a murmur from honorable gentlemen opposite when the Prime 
 Minister proposed to take off that protective duty of one penny, 
 totally and immediately. 
 
 But we are told that English agriculturists cannot compete 
 with foreigners, and especially with that serf labor that is to be 
 found somewhere up the Baltic. Well, but flax comes from the 
 Baltic, and there is no protective duty. Honorable gentlemen 
 say we have no objection to raw materials where there is no la- 
 bor connected with them ; but we cannot contend against for- 
 eigners in wheat because there is such an amount of labor in it. 
 Why, there is twice as much labor in flax as there is in wheat ; 
 but the member for Shoreham favors the growth of flax in order 
 to restore the country, which is sinking into this abject and 
 hopeless state for want of agricultural protection. But the
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 205 
 
 honorable baronet will forgive me — I am sure he will, he looks 
 as if he would — if I allude a little to the subject of leases. The 
 honorable gentleman on that occasion, I believe, complained 
 that it was a great pity that farmers did not grow more flax. I 
 do not know whether it was true or not that the same honorable 
 baronet's leases to his own tenants forbade them to grow that 
 article. 
 
 Now, it is quite as possible that the right honorable baronet 
 does not exactly know what covenants or clauses there are in 
 his leases. But I know that it is a very common case to pre- 
 clude the growth of flax ; and it just shows the kind of manage- 
 ment by which the landed proprietors have carried on their af- 
 fairs, that actually, I believe, the original source of the error 
 that flax was very pernicious to the ground was derived from 
 Vergil ; I believe there is a passage in the Georgics to that ef- 
 fect. From that classic authority, no doubt, some learned law- 
 yer put this clause into the lease ; and there it has remained ever 
 since. 
 
 Now, I have alluded to the condition of the laborers at the 
 present time ; but I am bound to say that while the farmers 
 at the present moment are in a worse condition than they have 
 been for the last ten years, I believe the agricultural laborers 
 have passed over the winter with less suffering and distress, al- 
 though it has been a five-months' winter, and a severer one, too, 
 than they endured in the previous year. [Hear!] I am glad 
 to find that corroborated by honorable gentlemen opposite, be- 
 cause it bears out, in a remarkable degree, the opinion that we, 
 who are in connection with the free-trade question, entertain. 
 We maintain that a low price of food is beneficial to the laboring 
 classes. We assert, and we can prove it, at least in the manu- 
 facturing districts, that whenever provisions are dear wages are 
 low, and whenever food is cheap wages invariably rise. We 
 have had a strike in almost every business in Lancashire since 
 the price of wheat has been down to something like fifty shil- 
 lings ; and I am glad to be corroborated when I state that the 
 agricultural laborers have been in a better condition during the 
 last winter than they were in the previous one. But does not 
 that show that, even in your case, though your laborers have in 
 a general way only just as much as will find them a subsistence, 
 they are benefited by a great abundance of the first necessaries
 
 206 COBDEN 
 
 of life ? Although their wages may rise and fall with the price 
 of food — although they may go up with the advance in the 
 price of corn, and fall when it is lowered — still, I maintain that 
 it does not rise in the same proportion as the price of food rises, 
 nor fall to the extent to which food falls. Therefore in all cases 
 the agricultural laborers are in a better state when food is low 
 than when it is high. I have a very curious proof that high- 
 priced food leads to pauperism in the agricultural districts, 
 which I will read to you. It is a laborer's certificate seen at 
 Stowupland, in Suffolk, in July, 1844, which was placed upon 
 the mantelpiece of a peasant's cottage there : 
 
 ' West Suffolk Agricultural Association, established in 1833 
 for the advancement of agriculture and the encouragement of 
 industry and skill and good conduct among laborers and ser- 
 vants in husbandry, President — the Duke of Grafton, Lord- 
 Lieutenant of the county : This is to certify that a prize of ten 
 pounds was awarded to William Burch, aged eighty-two, la- 
 borer of the parish of Stowupland, in West Suffolk, September 
 25, 1840, for having brought up nine children without relief, 
 except when flour was very dear; and for having worked on 
 the same farm twenty-eight years. (Signed) Rt. Rushbrooke, 
 Chairman." 
 
 Now I need not press that point. It is admitted by honorable 
 gentlemen opposite — and I am glad it is so — that after a very 
 severe winter, in the midst of great distress among farmers, 
 when there have been a great many able-bodied men wanting 
 employment, still there have been fewer in the streets and work- 
 houses than there had been in the previous year ; and I hope 
 we shall not again be told by honorable gentlemen opposite that 
 cheap bread is injurious to the laborers. 
 
 But the condition of the agricultural laborer is a bad case 
 at the very best. You can look before you, and you have to 
 foresee the means of giving employment to those men. I need 
 not tell you that the late census shows that you cannot employ 
 your own increasing population in the agricultural districts. 
 But you say the farmer should employ them. Now, I am 
 bound to say that, whatever may be the condition of the agri- 
 cultural laborer, I hold that the farmer is not responsible for 
 that condition while he is placed in the situation in which he is 
 now by the present system. I have seen during the last autumn
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 207 
 
 and winter a great many exhortations made to the farmers that 
 they should employ more laborers. I think that is very unfair 
 towards the farmer; I believe he is the man who is suffering 
 most ; he stands between you and your impoverished, suffering- 
 peasantry ; and it is rather too bad to point to the farmer 
 as the man who should relieve them. I have an extract from 
 Lord Hardwick's address to the laborers of Haddenham. He 
 says: 
 
 " Conciliate your employers, and if they do not perform their 
 duty to you and themselves, address yourselves to the land- 
 lords, and I assure you that you will find us ready to urge our 
 own tenants to the proper cultivation of their farms, and, conse- 
 quently, to the just employment of the laborer." 
 
 Now, I hold that this duty begins nearer home, and that the 
 landed proprietors are the parties who are responsible if the la- 
 borers have not employment. You have absolute power ; there 
 is no doubt about that. You can, if you please, legislate for the 
 laborers, or yourselves. Whatever you may have done besides, 
 your legislation has been averse to the laborer, and you have 
 no right to call upon the farmers to remedy the evils which you 
 have caused. Will not this evil — if evil you call it — press on 
 you more and more every year? What can you do to remedy 
 the mischief? I only appear here now because you have pro- 
 posed nothing. We all know your system of allotments, and 
 we are all aware of its failure. What other remedy have you? 
 for, mark you, that is worse than a plaything, if you were al- 
 lowed to carry out your own views. [Hear!] Aye, it is well 
 enough for some of you that there are wiser heads than your 
 own to lead you, or you would be conducting yourselves into 
 precisely the same condition in which they are in Ireland, but 
 with this difference — this increased difficulty — that there they 
 do manage to maintain the rights of property by the aid of the 
 English Exchequer and 20,000 bayonets ; but divide your own 
 country into small allotments, and where would be the rights 
 of property? What do you propose to do now? That is the 
 question. Nothing has been brought forward this year which 
 I have heard, having for its object to benefit the great mass of 
 the English population ; nothing I have heard suggested which 
 has at all tended to alleviate their condition. 
 
 You admit that the farmer's capital is sinking from under
 
 208 COBDEN 
 
 him, and that he is in a worse state than ever. Have you dis- 
 tinctly provided some plan to give confidence to the farmer, to 
 cause an influx of capital to be expended upon his land, and so 
 bring increased employment to the laborer? How is this to 
 be met ? I cannot believe you are going to make this a political 
 game. You must set up some specific object to benefit the 
 agricultural interest. It is well said that the last election was 
 an agricultural triumph. There are two hundred county mem- 
 bers sitting behind the Prime Minister who prove that it was so. 
 What, then, is your plan for this distressing state of things? 
 That is what I want to ask you. Do not, as you have done 
 before, quarrel with me because I have imperfectly stated my 
 case ; I have done my best ; and I again ask you what you have 
 to propose? I tell you that this "protection," as it has been 
 called, is a failure. It was so when you had the prohibition 
 up to eighty shillings. You know the state of your farming 
 tenantry in 182 1. It was a failure when you had a protection 
 price of sixty shillings ; for you know what was the condition 
 of your farm tenantry in 1835. It is a failure now with your 
 last amendment, for you have admitted and proclaimed it to 
 us ; and what is the condition of your agricultural population at 
 this time? I ask, what is your plan? I hope it is not a 
 pretence ; a mere political game that has been played through- 
 out the last election, and that you have not all come up here as 
 mere politicians. There are politicians in the House ; men who 
 look with an ambition — probably a justifiable one — to the hon- 
 ors of office. There may be men who — with thirty years of con- 
 tinuous service, having been pressed into a groove from which 
 they can neither escape nor retreat — may be holding office, high 
 office, maintained there, probably at the expense of their present 
 convictions which do not harmonize very well with their early 
 opinions. I make allowances for them ; but the great body of 
 the honorable gentlemen opposite came up to this House, not 
 as politicians, but as the farmers' friends, and protectors of the 
 agricultural interests. Well, what do you propose to do ? You 
 have heard the Prime Minister declare that, if he could restore 
 all the protection which you have had, that protection 
 would not benefit agriculturists. Is that your belief? If so, 
 why not proclaim it? and if it is not your conviction you will 
 have falsified your mission in this House, by following the right
 
 ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION 209 
 
 honorable baronet out into the lobby, and opposing inquiry into 
 the condition of the very men who sent you here. 
 
 With mere politicians I have no right to expect to succeed 
 in this motion. But I have no hesitation in telling you that, 
 if you give me a committee of this House I will explode the 
 delusion of agricultural protection ! I will bring forward such 
 a mass of evidence, and give you such a preponderance of talent 
 and of authority that when the Blue-Book is published and sent 
 forth to the world, as we can now send it, by our vehicles of in- 
 formation, your system of protection shall not live in public 
 opinion for two years afterwards. Politicians do not want that. 
 This cry of protection has been a very convenient handle for 
 politicians. The cry of protection carried the counties at the 
 last election, and politicians gained honors, emoluments, and 
 place by it. But is that old tattered flag of protection, tar- 
 nished and torn as it is already, to be kept hoisted still in the 
 counties for the benefit of politicians ; or will you come forward 
 honestly and fairly to inquire into this question ? I cannot 
 believe that the gentry of England will be made mere drum- 
 heads to be sounded upon by a Prime Minister to give forth 
 unmeaning and empty sounds, and to have no articulate voice 
 of their own. No ! You are the gentry of England who repre- 
 sent the counties. You are the aristocracy of England. Your 
 fathers led our fathers ; you may lead us if you will go the right 
 way. But, although you have retained your influence with this 
 country longer than any other aristocracy, it has not been by 
 opposing popular opinion, or by setting yourselves against the 
 spirit of the age. 
 
 In other days, when the battle and the hunting-fields were 
 the tests of manly vigor, your fathers were first and foremost 
 there. The aristocracy of England were not like the noblesse 
 of France, the mere minions of a court ; nor were they like the 
 hidalgos of Madrid, who dwindled into pygmies. You have 
 been Englishmen. You have not shown a want of courage and 
 firmness when any call has been made upon you. This is a new 
 era. It is the age of improvement, it is the age of social ad- 
 vancement, not the age for war or for feudal sports. You live 
 in a mercantile age, when the whole wealth of the world is 
 poured into your lap. You cannot have the advantages of 
 commercial rents and feudal privileges ; but you may be what 
 Vol. II.— 14
 
 2i j COBDEN 
 
 you always have been if you will identify yourselves with the 
 spirit of the age. The English people look to the gentry and 
 aristocracy of their country as their leaders. I, who am not 
 one of you, have no hesitation in telling you that there is a deep- 
 rooted, an hereditary prejudice, if I may so call it, in your favor 
 in this country. But you never got it, and you will not keep it, 
 by obstructing the spirit of the age. If you are indifferent to 
 enlightened means of finding employment to your own peas- 
 antry ; if you are found obstructing that advance which is cal- 
 culated to knit nations more together in the bonds of peace by 
 means of commercial intercourse ; if you are found fighting 
 against the discoveries which have almost given breath and life 
 to material nature, and setting up yourselves as obstructives of 
 that which destiny has decreed shall go on — why, then, you will 
 be the gentry of England no longer, and others will be found to 
 take your place. 
 
 And I have no hesitation in saying that you stand just now in 
 a very critical position. There is a widespread suspicion that 
 you have been tampering with the best feelings and with the 
 honest confidence of your constituents in this cause. Every- 
 where you are doubted and suspected. Read your own or- 
 gans, and you will see that this is the case. Well, then, this 
 is the time to show that you are not the mere party politicians 
 which you are said to be. I have said that we shall be opposed 
 in this measure by politicians ; they do not want inquiry. But 
 I ask you to go into this committee with me. I will give you a 
 majority of county members. You shall have a majority of 
 the Central Society in that committee. I ask you only to go 
 into a fair inquiry as to the causes of the distress of your own 
 population. I only ask that this matter may be fairly exam- 
 ined. Whether you establish my principle or yours, good will 
 come out of the inquiry ; and I do, therefore, beg and entreat 
 the honorable independent country gentlemen of this House 
 that they will not refuse, on this occasion, to go into a fair, a 
 full, and an impartial inquiry.
 
 ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION 
 
 BY 
 
 BENJAMIN DISRAELI 
 
 (Lord Beaconsficld)
 
 BENJAMIN DISRAELI, LORD BEACONSFIELD 
 
 1804— 1 88 1 
 
 For sheer original genius, which lifts a man from the ranks, and in 
 the teeth of disheartening odds lands him at last in the highest place in a 
 great kingdom, Benjamin Disraeli may perhaps be conceded to hold the 
 first place in modern English political history. The problem, how to 
 rise, is in England a far more difficult one than it is in America ; and 
 at the period of Disraeli's entrance into public life, it was vastly more 
 difficult than it is to-day. But for him, in addition to the ordinary 
 obstructions, there was the apparently insurmountable one of his Jewish 
 parentage. There is nowhere any prouder, more self-satisfied body of 
 people than the English aristocracy ; none more exclusive, more diffi- 
 cult to subdue ; and to none would they be less apt to bow than to a 
 friendless and moneyless Jew. But Disraeli conquered the English 
 aristocracy, and did it without allowing them to know or understand 
 him. The situation is new in history ; and of course can be explained 
 only by the secret force of genius, working through all disguises, as a 
 mighty magnet works beneath the wrappings which swathe it from sight. 
 Not only did he become master of the House ; not only did he hold the 
 reins of government again and again ; but according to his prophecy, he 
 in due course took his seat in the House of Lords as a peer of England. 
 
 Disraeli was born five years before his great rival, Gladstone, on De- 
 cember 21, 1804; and he died eighteen years before him, April 19, 1881. 
 After a career in society, where he figured with success as a wit, and a 
 season of travel on the Continent, he returned to London and obtained 
 a seat in the Commons in 1837. Disraeli took his seat, and made his 
 maiden speech, the reception of which was enough to quench the stoutest 
 ambition, and destroy the most ingrained self-conceit. But it had only 
 the effect of steeling him in his resolution ; " the time shall come when 
 you will hear me!" he said; and he made it his business thencefor- 
 ward to keep that promise. By degrees he schooled himself to the 
 style of speech which the House of Commons favors; that is, he cut 
 off some of the Oriental adornments which he had at first affected. But 
 in substance, the principle which guided him in rhetoric and argument 
 was unaltered; it was the Commons that altered, and listened to him, 
 at first respectfully, then with submissive admiration. In time he became 
 one of the leaders of the Protectionist Tory party. He was Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer three times, and in 1867 he carried his Reform Bill. 
 He was Prime Minister in 1868, and again for six years, from 1874 to 
 1880. In 1876 he was created a peer of England with the title of Earl 
 of Beaconsfield. In 1878 he was England's representative at the Con- 
 gress of Berlin. 
 
 Throughout their careers Gladstone and Disraeli were pitted against 
 each other; and there can be no doubt that each of them benefitted 
 greatly by their antagonism. Again and again, in their personal en- 
 counters in the House, did the Jew's wit and readiness give him at least 
 the semblance of victory over his great antagonist; his sardonic tongue 
 was a terrible weapon, and Gladstone often blenched under it. Dis- 
 raeli's speeches well repay study. His speech " On the Political Situa- 
 tion " sums up, in a general way, his policy on many important political 
 questions. They are clever, persuasive, cynical at times, but in general 
 proposing measures, of foreign policy especially, that capture the imag- 
 ination by their boldness or ingenuity. He aimed to make England the 
 greatest nation in the world — an empire surpassing all empires of his- 
 tory; and his policy always held this end in view. 
 
 Disraeli also holds a prominent place in the list of English authors. 
 He was a novelist of real genius. Among his most widely read works 
 are " Vivian Grey," " Lothair," and " Endymion." 
 
 212
 
 ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION 
 
 Delivered before the Glasgow Conservative Association No- 
 vember 22, l8?3 
 
 GENTLEMEN : I believe I may describe the position of 
 this country as one of very great prosperity. There is 
 no doubt that during the last three years prosperity has 
 been generally acknowledged. There are some who suppose 
 that it may have received a check at the time when I paid my 
 visit to Glasgow. If it has received a check it will increase, I 
 hope, our circumspection, but I must express my own opinion 
 that no substantial diminution in the sources of the prosperity 
 so apparent during the last three years has occurred. I think 
 we may fairly say the state of this country is one of great pros- 
 perity, and although I believe and know that it is a prosperity 
 for which we are not indebted either to Whigs or Tories, al- 
 though I know that it has been occasioned in a considerable de- 
 gree, under Providence, by fortuitous though felicitous circum- 
 stances, I am perfectly ready, speaking to-day, as I hope to 
 speak, in the fairest terms on public affairs, which I believe to be 
 quite consistent with the position of the leader of a party — I am 
 ready to give to Her Majesty's Government credit for the pros- 
 perity we feel and acknowledge. With regard to Her Majesty's 
 ministers themselves, I will be equally candid, equally fair — I 
 will take them at their own estimate. They have lost few op- 
 portunities of informing the country that they are men dis- 
 tinguished for commanding talent, admirable eloquence, and 
 transcendent administrative abilities. I dispute none of these 
 propositions any more than I do the prosperity of the country. 
 They also tell us that the country being so prosperous, and they 
 having all these personal advantages, they have taken the op- 
 portunity during the last few years of passing measures of im- 
 mense magnitude, only equalled by the benefit they have con- 
 
 213
 
 214 
 
 DISRAELI 
 
 ferred upon the people. Now, gentlemen, I will not question 
 their own estimate of their ability, or even for a moment their 
 own description of their achievements ; but I ask this question, 
 What is the reason, when the country is so prosperous, when 
 its affairs are administered by so gifted a government, and when 
 they have succeeded during five years in passing measures 
 of such a vast character and beneficence — what is the reason 
 that her Majesty's ministers are going about regretting that 
 they are so unpopular ? Now, gentlemen, I beg you to observe 
 that I did not say Her Majesty's ministers are unpopular. I 
 stated their own case and their own position ; I say that under 
 the circumstances I have put fairly before you, it is a remarkable 
 circumstance, and the question must be inquired into — why 
 persons in the position of Her Majesty's Government should on 
 every occasion deplore the unpopularity they have incurred. 
 Now, my opinion, gentlemen, is that that is not a question of 
 mere curiosity — it is one that, as I think I shall show you, con- 
 cerns the honor and the interests of the country. If the coun- 
 try is so prosperous — if Her Majesty's ministers are so gifted — 
 if they have had such an ample opportunity of showing the 
 talents which they possess — if they have done all this good — if 
 they have availed themselves of this signal opportunity to ef- 
 fect such great results, then the only inference we can draw 
 from the unpopularity which they themselves deplore is that 
 the people of this country is a fickle and ungrateful people. 
 Therefore, it is not a question of mere curiosity. It is a ques- 
 tion that ought to be answered. If there be those who sup- 
 pose that the people of this country, as I hold, are not a 
 fickle or ungrateful people — that they are a people who may 
 be mistaken — that they may be misled ; but that they are a 
 people who on the whole are steadfast in their convictions and 
 especially in their political convictions, I cannot myself for 
 a moment doubt. I say, then, that this question, if left unan- 
 swered, would show that Her Majesty's ministers have placed 
 a slur on the character of the people of this kingdom, it ought 
 to be answered ; and a short time since, some two months 
 ago, I answered it. It appeared to me, at that moment espe- 
 cially, when all those circumstances to which I have referred 
 were clearly before the country, and when Her Majesty's Gov- 
 ernment, by their ablest and most powerful representatives,
 
 ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION 215 
 
 were deploring their unpopularity, and asking the reason why, 
 or rather intimating by inference that it was the fault of the 
 people, not of the Government, that someone should give an 
 answer to that question. I gave it, and in a very brief form 
 — in the most condensed and the most severely accurate form. 
 There is not an expression in that description of the conduct 
 of the Government which was not well weighed ; there was 
 not a word for which I had not warranty, for which I could 
 not adduce testimony ample and abounding. There was only 
 one characteristic of that description which was not noticed at 
 the time, and which I will now confess — it was not original, for 
 six months before in the House of Commons I had used the 
 same expressions and made the same statement — not in a hole 
 or corner, but on the most memorable night of the session, 
 when there were six hundred members of the House of Com- 
 mons present, when on the debate that took place avowedly the 
 fate of the ministry depended. It was at midnight that I rose 
 to speak, and made the statement almost similar in expression, 
 though perhaps stronger and more lengthened than the one 
 which has become the cause of recent controversy. The Prime 
 Minister followed me in that debate. The House of Commons 
 knew what was depending upon the verdict about to be taken, 
 and with all that knowledge they came to a division, and by a 
 majority terminated the existence of the Government. Gentle- 
 men, it surprises me, then, that, having made that statement 
 six months after, with the advantage of six months' more ex- 
 perience and observation, it should have so much offended Her 
 Majesty's Government. The ministers sighed, and their news- 
 papers screamed. The question I have to ask, and in this your 
 interests are vitally concerned — the question is, was the state- 
 ment I made a true and accurate one? You cannot answer 
 statements of this kind by saying, " Oh, fie ! how very rude." 
 You must at least adduce arguments in order to prove that the 
 statement which you do not sanction is one that ought not to 
 have been made. And therefore I ask you to-day, in the first 
 place, is it or is it not true that the Irish Church has been 
 despoiled ? Is it or is it not true that the gentlemen of Ireland 
 have been severely amerced ? Is it or is it not true that a royal 
 commission has been issued which has dealt with the ancient en- 
 dowments of this country in so ruthless a manner that Parlia-
 
 2r 6 DISRAELI 
 
 ment has frequently been called upon to interfere, and has ad- 
 dressed the Crown to arrest their propositions ? Are these facts 
 or are they not ? Well, I did then venture to say that they had 
 " harassed trades and worried professions," as reasons why men 
 naturally become unpopular. Was that true or was it not? 
 Because, after all, everything depends on the facts of the state- 
 ment. I won't enter into a long catalogue of trades, com- 1 
 mencing with the important trade of which we have heard so 
 much, and which has made itself felt at so many elections, down 
 to the humblest trade — the lucifer-match makers — who fell 
 upon their knees in Palace Yard. I suppose there are some 
 Scotch farmers present, or, at least, those who are intimately 
 connected with them. I want to know whether trade was har- 
 assed when a proposition was brought before the House of Com- 
 mons to take their carts and horses, and all the machinery of 
 their cultivation ? I know how the proposition was received in 
 England, and I doubt not the Scotch farmers, like the English, 
 felt extremely harassed by it. I want to know what is the rea- 
 son why there is this crusade throughout the country against 
 schedule D of the Income Tax. The Income Tax has beea 
 borne for thirty years with great self-sacrifice and with great 
 loyalty by the people of this country. It is at this moment at 
 the lowest pitch it has ever reached ; how is it, then, that it is at 
 this moment more unpopular than it was at any time during the 
 long period we endured it at a much higher figure? It is on 
 account of the assessment of the trades of England under that 
 schedule. It is the vexatious and severe assessment that has 
 harassed tradesmen, who, like all those who come under that 
 act, are not particularly pleased, when they are paying five quar- 
 ters of income tax in the year, to learn also that they are in ar- 
 rears. Then, have the professions been worried? Ask the 
 military profession. Is it not true that at this moment a 
 royal commission is examining in London into the grievances 
 of six thousand officers? Ask the naval profession whether 
 they have not been worried. During the course of the present 
 Government the whole administrative system of the Admiralty, 
 the council that had always great influence in the management 
 of the navy, and the peculiar office of the secretary, were all 
 swept away ; and in spite I may say of the nightly warnings of 
 a right honorable friend who is now lost to us all and his coun-
 
 ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION 217 
 
 try, the ablest minister of the Admiralty during the present 
 reign — notwithstanding his nightly warnings that they were so 
 conducting the administration of the navy that they would 
 probably fall into some disaster, his remonstrances were in vain, 
 till soon the most costly vessel of the State was lost, and the per- 
 ilous voyage of the " Megsera " had been made, when the coun- 
 try would stand it no longer. They rescinded the whole of this 
 worrying arrangement, and appointed a new First Lord to re- 
 establish the old system. Is that worrying a profession, or is it 
 not? Well, gentlemen, I can speak of another profession — 
 a profession the most important in the State — the civil service 
 profession. Has it been worried ? Is it now in a process of 
 worrying, or is it not ? There are many even in this room well 
 acquainted with the position of the civil service in all its depart- 
 ments. I might say the same of the legal profession, for I have 
 heard lawyers on both sides of the House in the debates of 
 last session agree in imploring the Government not to continue 
 propositions which would infallibly weaken the administration 
 of justice in this country. It is not only these professions and 
 trades who are directly attacked, but it is every one that is har- 
 assed, because no one knows whose turn will come next. Well, 
 I did say to the House of Commons — and I afterwards ex- 
 pressed it in another form — I said they had attacked every class 
 and institution from the highest to the lowest in the country. 
 Is that true or is it not? Is it not a fact that Her Majesty's 
 Government on every occasion of which they could avail them- 
 selves during the last three years attacked the authority of the 
 House of Lords, scoffed at the existence of its high functions, 
 and even defied its decisions, until the result proved that the 
 House of Lords was extremely popular in the country, and Her 
 Majesty's Government were obliged to confess that they them- 
 selves were exceeding unpopular? But you must remember 
 this, that the same body who attacked the House of Lords also 
 brought in a bill which would have attacked the poor inheritance 
 of the widow and the orphan. Now, I think I have shown from 
 the highest to the lowest the same system prevailed. What oc- 
 curred in the interval ? The Churches of England and Scotland 
 have been threatened. It has been publicly said by the highest 
 authority in the House of Commons that he did not believe that 
 the House of Commons would sanction the views of those who
 
 2 i8 DISRAELI 
 
 wished to pull down the venerable establishments, but he 
 recommended them to agitate out of doors and endeavor to ex- 
 cite public opinion against them. Then, again, I said jobs were 
 perpetrated that outraged public opinion. Is that true or is it 
 not ? Is it not a fact that two years ago the whole country was 
 outraged by persons being appointed to important offices in 
 Church and State in direct violation of the language of Acts of 
 Parliament? — that the ministry in that respect exercised that 
 dispensing power which forfeited the crown of James II ? Was 
 not public indigation roused to the highest degree upon the 
 Collier appointment and a similar one ? Were these acts perpe- 
 trated, and did they outrage public opinion ? Everyone knows 
 from his own individual experience that public opinion was 
 outraged. I have said, also, that they stumbled into errors 
 which were always discreditable and sometimes ruinous. That 
 was called violent language. Gentlemen, I never use violent 
 language ; violent language is generally weak language ; but I 
 hope my language is sometimes strong. Now, let us look at 
 this statement. I said that they stumbled into errors which 
 were always discreditable and sometimes ruinous. Was the 
 Zanzibar contract not an " error," and was it not " discredita- 
 ble " ? Was the conduct of the Treasury in allowing a subordi- 
 nate officer to misappropriate nearly a million of the public 
 money not an " error," and was it not " discreditable " ? When 
 the Government had referred the Alabama claims to the arbitra- 
 ment of a third State, was not the change of the law of na- 
 tions by the three rules an " error " ? Was that not " discredit- 
 able," and in its consequences was it not " ruinous " ? 
 
 I have now given an answer to the question why the Gov- 
 ernment, with transcendent abilities, as they tell us, with mag- 
 nificent exploits which they are always extolling, and with a 
 country whose prosperity is so palpable — they ask us why they 
 are unpopular, and I tell them why. They have harassed 
 and worried the country, and there was no necessity for any of 
 the acts they have committed. I have put it in condensed and, 
 I am sure, accurate language. There was an illustrious writer, 
 one of the greatest masters of our language, who wrote the his- 
 tory of the last four years of the reign of Queen Anne, which 
 was the duration of an illustrious ministry. I have written the 
 history of a ministry that has lasted five years, and I have im-
 
 ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION 219 
 
 mortalized the spirit of their policy in five lines. And now, gen- 
 tlemen, I will tell you what is the unfortunate cause of this polit- 
 ical embarrassment ; why, with such favorable circumstances as 
 the present Government have encountered ; why, with the great 
 ability which no man is more conscious than myself that they 
 possess ; why, with the most anxious and earnest desire, for 
 which I give them entire credit, to do their duty to their sov- 
 ereign and their fellow-countrymen, the result has been so mor- 
 tifying. I told it two years ago to the assembled county of 
 Lancaster, when I met not only the greatest proprietors of the 
 soil, but deputations and delegations of the choicest citizens 
 from every town and city of that great county. I told them, 
 speaking with the sense of the deepest responsibility, which, I 
 trust, also animates me now — I told them that the cause was 
 that this Government, unfortunately, in its beginning, had been 
 founded on a principle of violence, and that fatal principle had 
 necessarily vitiated their whole course. And what have we 
 gained by that principle of violence? Let us consider it, here 
 even, with impartiality and perfect candor. I am now referring 
 to the Irish policy of the ministry. I say it is quite possible for 
 public men, with the view of obtaining some great object ad- 
 vantageous to the country, to devise and pass measures which 
 may utterly fail in accomplishing their purpose, and yet, how- 
 ever mortifying to themselves, however disappointing to the 
 country, there would be no stain upon their reputation. We 
 cannot command, but we must endeavor in public life to deserve 
 success. If, therefore, it is said that the Government proposed 
 the large measures which they did with respect to Ireland in 
 order to terminate the grievances of years and the embarrass- 
 ment to England, which the state of Ireland certainly was, al- 
 though they may have failed, their position was one which 
 still might be a position of respect. That they have failed in 
 this instance no one can doubt. A great portion of Ireland at 
 this moment is in a state of veiled rebellion. But what I charge 
 upon the Government is this, not that their measures fail — for 
 all measures may fail — not that their measures fail to prevent or 
 to suppress this veiled rebellion in Ireland, but that their meas- 
 ures, which they brought forward to appease and settle, to 
 tranquillize and consolidate Ireland, are the very cause that this 
 veiled rebellion is taking place. For, gentlemen, what was the
 
 220 DISRAELI 
 
 principle upon which the whole of their policy with respect to 
 Ireland was founded ? What was the principle upon which 
 they induced Parliament to confiscate and to despoil Church 
 and private property in Ireland? It was that Ireland must be 
 governed on Irish principles — the administration of Ireland 
 must be carried on with reference to Irish feeling. If that is 
 a sound principle and a sound sentiment in politics, it is a perfect 
 vindication of what is occurring in the city of Dublin at this 
 moment — viz., an assembly of men whose great and avowed 
 object is to dissever the connection between the two countries. 
 If we are not to legislate for Ireland with reference to imperial 
 feelings and general and national interests — if we are only to 
 legislate with reference to Irish feelings, it is perfectly evident 
 that if there is a majority of the Irish people who may take any 
 idea in the world into their heads, however ruinous to them- 
 selves and however fatal to the empire, that policy must be rec- 
 ognized by this country. It is, therefore, to that principle, 
 avowedly and ostentatiously brought forward by the ministry as 
 the basis of their Irish policy, that I trace the dangerous condi- 
 tion in which Ireland is now placed. Well, then, I say this pol- 
 icy of violence for which such sacrifices were made, for which 
 institutions and interests which were, at least, faithful to Britain 
 were sacrificed — this policy of violence has led only to a state of 
 affairs, unfortunately, more unsatisfactory than that which pre- 
 vailed before. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I observe in the paper that the day is fixed 
 for the reassembling of Parliament. The time is not yet very 
 near, but when you find Her Majesty has appointed the day for 
 our reassembling, it is an intimation that we must begin to con- 
 sider the public business a little, and, therefore, it is not alto- 
 gether inconvenient that we should be talking upon these mat- 
 ters to-day. Now, when we meet Parliament, I apprehend the 
 first business that will be brought before us will be the Ashantee 
 war. Upon that subject my mouth is closed. I will not even 
 make an observation upon the railway which I believe has been 
 returned to England. Whenever this country is externally in- 
 volved in a difficulty, whatever I may think of its cause or 
 origin, those with whom I act, and myself, have no other duty 
 to fulfil but to support the existing Government in extricating 
 the country from its difficulties and vindicating the honor and
 
 ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION 221 
 
 interests of Great Britain. The time will come, gentlemen, no 
 doubt, when we shall know something of the secret history of 
 that mysterious mess of the Ashantee war, but we have now 
 but one duty to fulfil, which is to give every assistance to the 
 Government in order that they may take those steps which the 
 interests of the country require. I should indeed, myself, from 
 my own individual experience, be most careful not to follow 
 the example which one of the most distinguished members of 
 the present administration pursued with respect to us when we 
 had to encounter the Abyssinian difficulty. Mr. Lowe thought 
 proper to rise in Parliament when I introduced the necessity of 
 interference in order to escape from difficulties which we had 
 inherited and not created. Mr. Lowe rose in Parliament and 
 violently attacked the Government of the day for the absurdity, 
 the folly, the extreme imprudence of attempting any interfer- 
 ence in the affairs of Abyssinia. He laughed at the honor of 
 the country, he laughed at the interests of a few enslaved sub- 
 jects of the Queen of England being compared, as he said, with 
 the certain destruction and disaster which must attend any in- 
 terference on our part. He described the horrors of the coun- 
 try and the terrors of the climate. He said there was no possi- 
 bility by which any success could be obtained, and the people 
 of England must prepare themselves for the most horrible catas- 
 trophe. He described not only the fatal influences of the cli- 
 mate, but I remember he described one pink fly alone, which he 
 said would eat up the whole British army. He was as vitupera- 
 tive of the insects of Abyssinia as if they had been British work- 
 men. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, there is a most interesting and important 
 subject which concerns us all, and which it is not impossible 
 may be submitted to the consideration of Parliament by Her 
 Majesty's ministers, because I observe a letter published in a 
 newspaper by the authority of the Prime Minister which is 
 certainly calculated to arrest public attention. That is a letter 
 respecting the subject of parliamentary reform. I think it 
 is not undesirable that at a moment when letters of this kind 
 are circulated, and when there is a good deal of loose talking 
 prevalent in the country on the subject, I should take this op- 
 portunity of calling your attention to some considerations on 
 this subject which may occupy you after my visit to Glasgow
 
 222 DISRAELI 
 
 has terminated, and may not be, I think, unprofitable. Her 
 Majesty's Government are not pledged, but after the letter of 
 the Prime Minister announcing his own opinion, and the indica- 
 tion of the probability of the Government considering the ques- 
 tion of further parliamentary reform, there are two points which 
 the Government ought to consider when they come to that 
 question. The first is the expediency of having any further 
 parliamentary reform. They will have to remember that very 
 wise statesmen have been of opinion that there is no more dan- 
 gerous and feeble characteristic of a state than perpetually to 
 be dwelling on what is called organic change. The habit, it 
 has been said in politics, of perpetually considering your politi- 
 cal constitution can only be compared to that of the individual 
 who is always considering the state of his health and his physi- 
 cal constitution. You know what occurs in such circum- 
 stances — he becomes infirm and valetudinarian. In fact, there 
 is a school of politics which looks at the English constitution 
 as valetudinarian. They are always looking at its tongue and 
 feeling its pulse, and devising means by which they may give 
 it a tonic. The Government will have to consider that very 
 important point, first of all whether it is expedient. I am not 
 giving any opinion upon it — being only a private member of 
 Parliament, that is quite unnecessary — but I am indicating the 
 consideration that would occur to a responsible statesman. 
 They will also have to consider this important point, that what- 
 ever minister embarks in a campaign of parliamentary reform 
 must make up his mind that he will necessarily arrest the prog- 
 ress of all other public business in the country. I will show 
 you to what extent that consideration should prevail. Parlia- 
 mentary reform, as a new question, was introduced in the 
 House of Commons in 1852 by Lord John Russell, and from 
 1852 to 1866, or the end of 1865, it was introduced annually; 
 four prime ministers had pledged themselves to the expediency 
 of parliamentary reform ; the subject made no progress in Par- 
 liament, but took tip a great deal of time ; a great portion of 
 the parliamentary sessions for these twelve or thirteen years 
 was taken up by discussions on parliamentary reform ; and the 
 country got very ill-tempered, finding that no reform was ever 
 advanced, and other and more important subjects were neg- 
 lected. At last it was taken up by men determined to carry it
 
 ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION 223 
 
 — first by Lord Russell, who did not carry it, and afterwards by 
 others ; but, observe, the whole of 1866, 1867, and 1868 was en- 
 tirely absorbed by the subject of parliamentary reform. There- 
 fore, you will observe that when important subjects in legisla- 
 tion are neglected you must be prepared to discourage any 
 further demand for parliamentary reform unless you feel an 
 insuperable necessity for it, because if you want parliamentary 
 reform you cannot have any of those great measures with regard 
 to local taxation or Other subjects in which you are all so much 
 interested. That is the first consideration for the Government 
 of the present day to determine, whether they shall embark in 
 the question of parliamentary reform. Is it necessary ? Is the 
 necessity of such a character that it outweighs the immense 
 inconvenience of sacrificing all other public and progressive 
 measures for the advancement of this particular measure? 
 Then there comes another subject of consideration. I dwell 
 upon these subjects because I apprehend that one of the reasons 
 for our meeting this evening is that upon questions which are 
 likely to engage the public attention so far as those whom you 
 honor with your confidence can give you any guidance, it is as 
 well that I should indicate to you briefly my general views of 
 the situation. The next point, therefore, that Government will 
 have to consider if they make up their minds to bring forward 
 a measure of parliamentary reform, is the character of the meas- 
 ure, and that will be a most anxious question for them to decide. 
 I think I may say without conceit that the subject of parliamen- 
 tary reform is one that I am entitled to speak upon at least with 
 some degree of authority. I have given to it the consideration 
 of some forty years, and am responsible for the most important 
 measure on the subject that has been carried. I would say this, 
 that it is impossible to go further in the direction of parlia- 
 mentary reform than the bill of 1867-68 without entirely sub- 
 verting the whole of the borough representation of this coun- 
 try. I do not mean to say that if there was a place disfranchised 
 to-morrow for corruption, it would not be possible to enfran- 
 chise a very good place in its stead ; but, speaking generally, 
 you cannot go beyond the Act of 1867 without making up your 
 mind entirely to break up the borough representation of this 
 country. The people of Great Britain ought to be aware that 
 that is the necessary consequence. So far as I am concerned
 
 224 DISRAELI 
 
 I never could view the matter in a party light. If I were to 
 accustom myself to view it in a party light I might look with 
 unconcern on this difficulty, for the smaller boroughs of the 
 country are not, on the whole, favorable to our views. I am 
 proud to think our party is supported by the great counties, 
 and now to a great extent by great towns and cities ; but I do 
 not consider the smaller boroughs favorable to Conservative 
 views. It is the national sympathies and wide sentiments of 
 those who live in our great cities that are much more calculated 
 to rally round the cause in which we are deeply concerned — 
 the greatness and glory of our country. This ought to be 
 known, that if those who intend to have a further measure of 
 parliamentary reform, and have digested that large meal which 
 they had a few years ago, they should remember that there is 
 no borough in England with under 40,000 inhabitants that 
 would have any claim to be represented even by one member. 
 Now that is a very important consideration if, as we are told, the 
 small boroughs of between ten and fifteen thousand inhabitants 
 are the backbone of the Liberal party. They may be, and I 
 think they are, but I should be very sorry to see them disfran- 
 chised, for they are centres of public spirit and intelligence in 
 the country, influencing very much the districts in which they 
 are situated, and affording a various representation of the mind 
 and life of the country. But it is inevitable that that would oc- 
 cur, and I think, therefore, it ought to be well understood by 
 the country when you hear persons without the slightest 
 consideration saying they are prepared to vote for this, or in 
 favor of that, whereas they have not really mastered the ques- 
 tion in any degree whatever. So far as I am concerned, any 
 proposition to change the representation of the people brought 
 forward by Her Majesty's Government will receive my respect- 
 ful and candid consideration. But I say at once that I will vote 
 for no measure of that kind, or of that class which is brought 
 forward by some irresponsible individual, who, on the eve of a 
 general election, wants to make a claptrap career. I think it 
 is perfectly disgusting for individuals to jump up in the House 
 of Commons without the slightest responsibility, official or 
 moral, and make propositions which demand the gravest con- 
 sideration of prolonged and protracted cabinets, with all the 
 responsibility attaching to experienced statesmen. Now, gen-
 
 ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION 
 
 225 
 
 tlemen, although I have rather exceeded the time I had intend- 
 ed, there are one or two more remarks I should like to make 
 on subjects which interest us all. And first, as the only feature 
 in our domestic life that gives me uneasiness, are the relations 
 at present between capital and labor, and between the employ- 
 ers and employed. I must say one word upon that subject. If 
 there are any relations in the world which should be those of 
 sympathy and perfect confidence, they always appear to be the 
 relations which should subsist between employers and em- 
 ployed, and especially in manufacturing life. They are, in fact, 
 much more intimate and more necessary relations than those 
 which subsist between landlords and tenants. It is an ex- 
 tremely painful thing that of late years we so frequently hear of 
 misunderstandings between the employers and the employed — 
 that they look upon each other with suspicion — with mutual 
 suspicion — as if each were rapaciously inclined either to ob- 
 tain or retain the greater share of the profits of their trade ; and 
 those incidents with which you are all acquainted, of a very 
 painful nature, have been the consequence. I am not talking 
 of demands for an increase of wages when men are carrying 
 on what is called a roaring trade — I believe that is the classical 
 epithet taken from the Manchester school. When a roaring 
 trade is going on, I am not at all surprised that workingmen 
 should ask for an increase of wages. But a trade some- 
 times ceases to roar, when wages naturally, on the same prin- 
 ciple, assume a form more adapted to the circumstances. No 
 doubt, during the last twenty years there appears to have been, 
 not a passing and temporary cause of disturbance like the 
 incidents of trade being very active or reduced, but some per- 
 manent cause disturbing prices, which alike confuses the em- 
 ployer in his calculations as to profits and embarrasses the 
 employer from the greater expenditure which they find it neces- 
 sary to make. Now, I cannot but feel myself — having given to 
 the subject as much consideration as I could — I cannot help 
 feeling that the large and continuous increase of the precious 
 metals, especially during the last twenty years, has certainly 
 produced no inconsiderable effect — not only in trade, but no in- 
 considerable effect in prices. I will not, on an occasion like 
 this, enter into anything like an abstruse discussion. I confine 
 myself to giving my opinion and the results which I draw from 
 Vol. II. -15
 
 226 DISRAELI 
 
 it ; and this moral, which I think is worthy of consideration. If 
 it can be shown accurately and scientifically that there is a 
 cause affecting a prominent class, reducing the average remu- 
 neration of the employed, and confusing and confounding the 
 employer in his calculations as to profits — if that can be shown, 
 and if it is proved to be the result of inexorable laws, far beyond 
 the reach of legislation, and of circumstances over which hu- 
 man beings have no control — I think if that could be shown, 
 and employers and employed had sufficient acuteness ard 
 knowledge — and I am sure that in Scotland both will have *o 
 acknowledge that result — it would very much change tho"<e 
 mutual feelings of suspicion and sentiments of a not pleasant 
 character which occasionally prevail when they find that they 
 are both of them the victims, as it were, of some inexorable law 
 of political economy which cannot be resisted. I think, in- 
 stead of supposing that each wanted to take advantage of the 
 other, they would feel inclined to put their shoulders to the 
 wheel, accurately ascertain whether this be true, and come to 
 some understanding which would very much mitigate the rela- 
 tions which subsist between them, and I have little doubt the 
 effect would be to increase the average rate of wages, with my 
 views as to the effect of the continuous increase of the precious 
 metals. But, at the same time, I have not the slightest doubt 
 the employer w r ould, in the nature of things, find adequate com- 
 pensation for the new position in which he would find himself. 
 There is one point before I sit down to which I wish to call your 
 attention, because if I am correct in saying that the question of 
 the relations between the employer and employed is the only 
 one that gives me anxiety at home, there is a subject abroad to 
 which, I think, I ought, on an occasion like this, to draw your 
 notice ; and this is the contest that, is commencing in Europe 
 between the spiritual and temporal powers. Gentlemen, I look 
 upon it as very grave, as pregnant with circumstances which 
 may greatly embarrass Europe. The religious sentiment is 
 often and generally taken advantage of by political classes, who 
 use it as a pretext ; and there is much going on in Europe at 
 the present moment which, it appears to me, may occasion us 
 soon much anxiety in this communitv. I should myself look 
 upon it as the greatest danger to civilization if, in the struggle 
 that is going on between faith and free thought, the respective
 
 ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION 
 
 227 
 
 sides should only be represented by the papacy and the red re- 
 public ; and here I must say that if we have before us the pros- 
 pect of struggles — perhaps of wars and anarchy, ultimately — 
 caused by the great question that is now rising in Europe, it will 
 not easily be in the power of England entirely to withhold her- 
 self from such circumstances. Our connection with Ireland 
 will then be brought painfully to our consciousness, and I 
 should not be at all surprised if the visor of Home Rule should 
 fall off some day, and you beheld a very different countenance. 
 Now, gentlemen, I think we ought to be prepared for those cir- 
 cumstances. The position of England is one which is indica- 
 tive of dangers arising from holding a middle course upon those 
 matters. It may be open to England again to take a stand 
 upon the Reformation which three hundred years ago was the 
 source of her greatness and her glory, and it may be her proud 
 destiny to guard civilization alike from the withering blast of 
 atheism and from the simoom of sacerdotal usurpation. These 
 things may be far off, but we live in a rapid age, and my appre- 
 hension is that they are nearer than some suppose. If that 
 struggle comes we must look to Scotland to aid us. It was 
 once, and I hope is still, a land of liberty, of patriotism, and of 
 religion. I think the time has come when it really should leave 
 off mumbling the dry bones of political economy and munching 
 the remainder biscuit of an effete Liberalism. We all know 
 that a general election is at hand. I do not ask you to consider 
 on such an occasion the fate of parties or of ministers. But I 
 ask you to consider this, that it is very probable that the future 
 of Europe depends greatly on the character of the next Parlia- 
 ment of England. I ask you, when the occasion comes, to act 
 as becomes an ancient and famous nation, and give all your en- 
 ergies for the cause of faith and freedom.
 
 ON PROGRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY EDWARD, CARDINAL MANNING
 
 HENRY EDWARD, CARDINAL MANNING 
 1808—1892 
 
 Henry Edward Manning was born at Totteridge, Hertfordshire, in 
 1808. He began his education at Harrow, and in 1827 went to Oxford, 
 where he was graduated, first in classics, in 1830, and two years after 
 was elected Fellow of Merton College. This was just at the beginning 
 of the Tractarian movement, in which Manning took no active part at 
 Oxford, for he left the university in 1833 for the rectorship of Woollav- 
 ington and Graffham, Sussex. He was, however, a decided High 
 Churchman. His abilities were early recognized by his appointment as 
 archdeacon of Chichester in 1840, the year before the celebrated Tract 
 " 90 " was published. Manning must be called an ambitious man, if 
 ambition means a consciousness of great powers coupled with a desire 
 to exercise them in a wide field. He had made himself famous as a 
 striking preacher, and since his wife had died in 1837 there was nothing 
 to prevent his ordination to the Roman Catholic priesthood when the 
 " Gorham Judgment " moved him to join" the Church of Rome in 185'. 
 Gorham was an Anglican clergyman, whose teachings on baptism, which 
 Manning considered at variance with the English Prayer-book, were 
 declared by the Privy Council to be the teachings of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 In 1865 Manning crowned a ministry of incessant activity and devo- 
 tion by succeeding Cardinal Wiseman as Archbishop of Westminster, 
 and five years later rose up in the Vatican Council of 1870 as one of the 
 most ardent and uncompromising supporters of Papal infallibility. He 
 was made a Cardinal in 1875 and became a most powerful advocate of 
 Roman Catholicism. He was, however, very much more than a mere 
 ecclesiastic, and by his Christian charity and noble life he conciliated 
 all religious parties and won their support in his humanitarian work. 
 Manning belonged, as a great Englishman, rather to the whole nation, 
 than to any denomination in England, being a broad-minded philan- 
 thropist and reformer, whose zeal and abilities the Government recog- 
 nized by making him, in 1885, a member of the Royal Commission. 
 During his later years he was to be found sitting side by side with 
 laymen and ministers of all sorts of denominations on any platform 
 where he could advocate the rights of labor and the cause of temperance. 
 He died in 1802, leaving many writings, including sermons and addresses 
 of commanding eloquence, as well as several polemical and controversial 
 pamphlets. His address " On Progress " gives an excellent idea of his 
 eloquence and erudition. He was an eloquent and impressive preacher, 
 a dogmatic theologian, untainted by rationalism, indifferent to, and pre- 
 sumably not well acquainted with, the school of modern criticism. 
 
 230
 
 *' 
 
 ON PROGRESS 
 
 Delivered before a meeting of the Young Men's Catholic 
 Association, October jo, 1871 
 
 WHEN a boy, I remember reading a book which had a 
 great name nearly a century ago, in which one of the 
 chapters was headed : " Our hero talks of what he 
 does not understand." I have no doubt that I will hear that I 
 am talking of what I do not understand ; but in my defence I 
 think I may say, I am about to talk of what I do not understand 
 for this reason : I cannot get those who talk about it to tell me 
 what they mean. I know what I mean by it, but I am not at all 
 sure that I know what they mean by it ; and those who use the 
 same words in different senses are like men that run up and 
 down the two sides of a hedge, and so can never meet. That 
 perhaps will happen to me in talking about progress. I have 
 tried all I can to find out some definition or description to give 
 me an idea of what is meant by progress. The perpetual repe- 
 tition of the word stuns and deafens us day by day. At the feet 
 of newspaper editors and article-writers, the great teachers of 
 the day — philosophers and sophists are gone — at the feet of 
 these we sit, and hear constantly a great deal about progress, of 
 which, if I could understand it to be something true and good, 
 I should become one of the preachers ; but these apostles of the 
 nineteenth century will not tell us their meaning. They leave 
 us in a state of blank amazement. I have tried to find some au- 
 thorities to depend upon, and have found two — one the present 
 Prime Minister of England, who, in a speech in Liverpool four 
 years ago, says that progress is what the police say to the 
 people on the pavement, " Move on ! " My other authority is 
 the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition who, in one of his books 
 introduces his hero talking with a stranger from the other side 
 of the Atlantic, who held very cheap our great commercial 
 towns with their machinery and manufactures, saying that they 
 
 231
 
 232 
 
 CARDINAL MANNING 
 
 were nothing at all compared with the States. At parting he 
 presents his card to his companion, on which was written, " Mr. 
 G. O. A. Head." These are the only two authoritative meanings 
 I can gather from our two political parties as to what progress 
 means. It is talked of by most people as if it were a Holy Grail 
 of which people are in quest. Some of them spend their lives in 
 great energy to promote progress ; but unfortunately they ap- 
 pear to me to verify what St. Augustin said about men who 
 make great speed after truth without finding the right way to it. 
 He said : " You are making great strides, but are out of the 
 road." And when I see people making for progress in different 
 directions, we are quite sure they cannot all be right. Some 
 people tell us progress means liberalism. It is difficult again 
 to know what that is — and when you do get their definition of 
 it, it seems to be the emancipation of the human will from every 
 kind of law. I do not think that is progress, or that it leads to a 
 good result. Then, again, plebiscites, or universal suffrage, are 
 taken to be one of the tokens of progress, and the results of 
 plebiscites do not seem to me to be the ultimate good of society — 
 at least they are so frequently given in different directions, and 
 one is so speedily necessary to correct another, and build up 
 what another throws down, that neither does this seem to me 
 progress, unless progress means perpetual motion, swaying to 
 and fro. Again, we are told that material improvements, such 
 as gas, railroads, and the abolition of intramural burials the 
 other day, came among the evidences of progress ; trades which 
 are what we call roaring trades ; steamboats, races between 
 them, with the steam shut in, and excited passengers stamping 
 upon the paddle-boxes — this is taken by some people as evi- 
 dence of progress. One thing, however, I see. In every coun- 
 try of Europe there is what is called a " party of progress," 
 but, unfortunately, this party of progress has a trail behind 
 it like certain reptiles, and that trail is revolution. We have 
 not, therefore, as yet arrived at a very clear notion of progress 
 from the popular teachers of the day ; I will therefore venture 
 to give my own humble conception of what progress is. 
 
 I will say, then, that progress with us simple people means 
 the growth and ripening of anything from its first principles 
 to its perfection. We distinguish between progress which is 
 growth, and progress which is decay ; because decay is the re-
 
 ON PROGRESS 233 
 
 verse of growth, and it is a departure from first principles. It 
 is the dissolution of perfection ; and therefore we distinguish 
 between growth and decay as between ripeness and rottenness 
 — and growth we call progress, but decay we call ruin. Now I 
 want to show what may be classified under progress of growth, 
 and what under decay or ruin — that is my subject. 
 
 The growth of an oak is a very intelligible thing. The acorn 
 planted in the clay strikes its tap-root, then rises into a stem, 
 and spreads into branches ; and in the whole tree completes its 
 symmetry, stature, and perfection — this is an example of prog- 
 ress from a germ in nature. But when that oak has attained 
 its maturity, and has run through its period of time, it begins to 
 decay, which reverses this progress. The sap sinks to the root, 
 the leaves begin to fall, the sprays wither, the branches decay 
 and fall from the trunk, the rot in the substance of the tree 
 gradually spreads, the trunk becomes hollow, and the tree dis- 
 appears in dust : this is, then, the reverse of progress. The same 
 is true of every fruit we hold in our hands ; so Shakespeare tells 
 us of man : 
 
 " And so from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe ; 
 And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; 
 And thereby hangs a tale." 
 
 Let us apply this to human things, and first to an individual 
 man. The idea of physical progress in man is first of all the 
 growth from childhood to manhood, the complete expansion 
 and development of the whole man in stature, symmetry, 
 strength, and countenance ; the whole human being filling up 
 as it were the outline and type which belongs not only to man 
 in general, but to that particular individual — that is what we 
 call progress. Then there is the moral progress in every man ; 
 that is, the progress of his character, which begins in the self- 
 control of the will and in obedience ; then in the rectitude of 
 conduct ; and then again in prudence and the whole range of 
 duty, and, finally, in excellence — that is, in surpassing others 
 according to the capacity of that which is in him by nature. 
 For men are not all equal, they are variously endowed and some 
 have capacities and qualities and energies far beyond others ; 
 and each individual has a progress of his own, which means, as 
 I said before, the filling up of that which is not only due to the
 
 2 34 CARDINAL MANNING 
 
 type of race to which he belongs, but also to his own individual 
 gifts and capacities. In like manner of intellectual progress : 
 there is a passive intellect in us all, which first receives the in- 
 struction of teachers, and then becomes an active intellect, 
 whereby we educate and form ourselves ; and then that active 
 intellect becomes reflective, and has a power of research and dis- 
 covery. The whole intellect of the man is thus matured and 
 ripened according to his capacities and circumstances, and that 
 from very small beginnings. 
 
 For instance, it is said in the life of St. Gregory VII, the great- 
 est ruler the world ever saw, the loftiest of all legislators, the just- 
 est of all judges, and the most intrepid of all pontiffs, who ruled 
 over the whole Christian world with a sway which for wisdom 
 and fortitude has never been excelled — it is said that in his 
 childhood he was kneeling at the feet of a carpenter who was 
 hewing wood ; and the chips, so traditions say, formed them- 
 selves into the words from the Book of Psalms, " He shall 
 reign from sea to sea." This was taken as an indication of his 
 future, which he fulfilled to the letter. The movement which 
 connected this small beginning with his mighty end was a 
 progress of the whole man, moral and intellectual. Take also 
 the example of Fergusson, the astronomer, who, when a shep- 
 herd's boy, would lie on his back, and with a string of beads 
 over his eye measure the distance or intervals of the stars, and 
 then mark them down with his pencil — this was the beginning 
 of his progress in astronomy. So again take another instance 
 in the familiar anecdote of Nelson, who was perhaps one of the 
 most intrepid and fearless of men. When a boy in Norfolk, he 
 left his father's house, and was lost for the whole day, not com- 
 ing home until after dark. His father said he wondered fear did 
 not drive him home, upon which the boy asked : " Who is 
 fear? I do not know him." I suppose that was the index of his 
 genius, which progressed into the heroic fearless character 
 which is written in history. That is my notion of progress in 
 the individual man — a consistent growth of the same principles 
 from first to last. The next example shall be the progress of a 
 people. 
 
 I do not know whether any of you have read Carlyle's 
 " Chartism " ; if so, you will find me a plagiarist, but I shall only 
 take his outline, not his words. He says of the British Empire,
 
 ON PROGRESS 
 
 235 
 
 there was a time when we were Druids ; and I recollect that 
 somebody in the House of Commons attacked Mr. Pitt for 
 speaking in favor of the abolition of slavery, on the ground that 
 it was useless to emancipate the negro, for he was of a lower and 
 baser race than the white man ; in proof of which it was said 
 that they sold their children into slavery, sacrificed human be- 
 ings to idols, covered themselves with paint, and I know not 
 what. Mr. Pitt answered that such was precisely the state of 
 our British ancestors — they painted themselves with woad, sold 
 their children into slavery, and offered human sacrifices under 
 their oaks. There is no doubt there was a time when we were in 
 that unprogressive state. After that came Hengist and Horsa, 
 in their leathern boats, upon the mud of Thanet, and springing 
 from them came the seven kingdoms of the Heptarchy, which 
 are described by Milton as " the flocking and the fighting of 
 crows and kites " — and that was pretty nearly the history of the 
 internecine wars of the seven Saxon kingdoms. After that 
 came an agency which was not of this world — St. Augustin 
 breathed Christianity into the Saxon race. Dioceses, churches, 
 and parishes were formed before the tithings, hundreds, and 
 shires had any existence. Christianity began to shape the com- 
 munity, which, under Alfred, gathered together in one the 
 whole Saxon people ; and from Alfred to St. Edward the Con- 
 fessor England attained a state of high Christian civilization. 
 It is a history full of luminous beauty. In those days it is said 
 that along the high-roads there were drinking-fountains. We 
 of the nineteenth century imagine our drinking-fountains to be 
 the last perfection of humane and civilized invention, but our 
 ancestors had them along their roads ; and it is said that so 
 strong was the reign of law in that time that a poor mother car- 
 rying her child might walk in safety from the Humber to the 
 southern sea. Well, then, progress had been made since the 
 Druids. After that came the Normans introducing the feudal 
 system of the continental kingdoms, consolidating and 
 strengthening the simpler, more primitive, and, I may say, 
 pastoral government of the Saxon kings. England became one 
 of the mightiest monarchies of Europe. The three kingdoms 
 were at least united together by the Norman conquest of Ire- 
 land and Scotland. This was the first outline of the British Em- 
 pire. Thus unity has endured and confirmed itself from that day
 
 236 CARDINAL MANNING 
 
 to this. The civilization of the Normans was far higher than 
 that of the Saxons. They introduced a refinement and literature 
 and a higher grade of culture. This is to be traced in our lan- 
 guage, in which, for the most part, the simple terms describing 
 individual things are Saxon, but the more abstract terms which 
 describe kind and species are from the Norman-French. At 
 least this rule may be so extensively verified in English as to 
 show that a wave of a higher civilization passed over a lower 
 civilization and elevated it. After this, from age to age, came 
 the introduction of manufactures. Then commercial towns be- 
 gan to grow : London, which once was surrounded by a single 
 wall with its one tower, has never ceased to grow till it has 
 reached its three millions of men ; Liverpool has exceeded in its 
 magnificence the docks of London, which were thought to be 
 the wonder of the world ; Glasgow sprang up suddenly into 
 an enormous manufacturing world, with half a million of 
 human beings ; and Manchester, which in the memory of living 
 men was a single parish with its parish church, has half a million 
 likewise. I cannot omit to say, in passing, that only the other 
 day a good old venerable Catholic went to her rest in Man- 
 chester, who remembered the time when she and her family 
 came to Manchester and found there a humble priest and eight 
 Catholics. The immigration of her family raised the Catholics 
 of Manchester to seventeen. One poor church, one priest, and 
 a flock of seventeen, was the slender beginning which she lived 
 to see expanded to a diocese. It has now a bishop, twelve or 
 fourteen magnificent churches, many priests, and one hundred 
 thousand Catholics. Well this is an example of progress which 
 I can understand. 
 
 In the seventeenth century Great Britain acquired its West 
 Indian colonies, and in the eighteenth century it acquired the 
 East Indies and Canada — it already possessed the plantations 
 of America. It became therefore a colonial empire. The Ameri- 
 can plantations in the year 1775, by a happy law of progress, 
 began to work out their own independence, and became a vast 
 confederation. The North American Union, the greatest cre- 
 ation of civilized life, perhaps, in the world, sprang from Great 
 Britain. The English tongue has gone with it throughout the 
 whole breadth. The English tongue is more widely spread 
 than anv language, and the Anglo-Celtic race covers a wider
 
 ON PROGRESS 237 
 
 surface of the earth than any other tongue or people. It may be 
 very well said, then, that those leathern boats, which lay upon 
 the mud of Thanet, brought over with them a very notable bur- 
 den. When we look at the colonial empire of Great Britain, 
 with England as its heart and centre, at the United States as its 
 offspring and sister, it is true to say that here has been an ex- 
 ample of true progress, and progress so grand, that perhaps in 
 the history of the world it cannot be exceeded. 
 
 Well, now let me take another example, that is, the progress 
 of Christianity. I will not dwell upon this, because it is so 
 obvious ; I need only give its outline. You remember the 
 prophecy of Daniel, of a stone which became a great mountain 
 and filled the earth ; and the parable of our Lord, of the mus- 
 tard-seed which took root and became a great tree. Christianity 
 has fulfilled those two prophecies. If you consider for a moment 
 what the faith was when it was received only by the Jews who 
 believed, what it became when it was spread to the synagogue — 
 the Jews who spoke the Greek language, and were dispersed 
 abroad — when from them it passes to the pure heathen of the 
 Roman Empire ; how the very word " pagan " signifies " the 
 peasantry " who lived out in the country, as distinguished from 
 the cities which first became Christian ; how Christianity spread 
 itself over the whole mass, like the prophet Eliseus, who com- 
 municated his warmth to the body of the dead child, and so 
 communicated the warmth of life to the populations of the world, 
 that they lived with a new and vital spirit ; then how over the 
 whole population the universal episcopate began to extend its 
 sway, and to organize it into the distinct divisions and flocks 
 which constitute the dioceses and pastoral cure of the Catholic 
 Church ; then how the faith and morality of Christianity began 
 to work in domestic life, and how from the homes and families 
 of men spread into the public life of cities, and how gradually 
 it took possession of Rome, until the world accepted it, and was 
 penetrated through and through with the light of Christianity ; 
 how, after that, the literature and laws, customs, and even the 
 very warfare of the Christian world, was guided and mitigated 
 by the effects of Christianity ; how thenceforward the universal 
 church spread itself, the line of its Pontiffs continuing unbroken 
 as its supreme rulers, the line of its councils legislating continu- 
 ously, from age to age, for the necessities of the world ; how, in
 
 238 CARDINAL MANNING 
 
 its office of teacher of faith and judge of morals, the church has 
 continually governed the Christian nations of the world, and is 
 there still, standing imperishable, immutable, and ever pro- 
 gressive, always extending, always maturing and perfecting the 
 work which it has in hand — there is the most perfect example 
 of progress the world has ever seen, or ever will see. 
 
 Now let us take an example or two from the progress of 
 science. There was a time when science hardly existed. It be- 
 gan by observation and reflection. A very learned and good 
 man unhappily was lost to us some years ago by a fall from his 
 horse, and a more lamented death among scholars these later 
 days I have hardly known. I mean Whewell, the head of Trin- 
 ity College, Cambridge. He was a man of powerful, original, 
 mature, and just and scientific mind. He wrote two books 
 which I dare say many who hear me know. The one on the 
 " History of the Inductive Sciences," that is to say, the pure 
 and applied sciences, in the true scientific sense of the term ; 
 not the chatter we hear about social and historical sciences, 
 which can have no existence. That book, in three volumes, I 
 believe, under correction, to be one of the most solid and pre- 
 cious books of these days. He wrote also two volumes on the 
 : ' Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," being an analysis of 
 the intellectual processes of those sciences. Those two works 
 trace out the progress of science from its beginning along the 
 line of its advance. For example, he traces in astronomy the 
 earliest observation of the Orientals ; and then, how, by grad- 
 ual discovery, the whole science has been developed ; how its 
 periods of observation were followed by periods of demonstra- 
 tion, and these again by periods of deduction, so that the 
 science was always growing in conformity to its first principles, 
 as the acorn into the oak-tree. The intellectual germ was al- 
 ways extending itself. There was a time when this earth was 
 believed to be the fixed centre of all things, the sun revolving 
 round it ; and the solar system, as we know it, was supposed to 
 be the whole universe. We know now that the sun, which is the 
 centre of our system, together with all its planets, and they, with 
 all their satellites and comets, are going at a speed which takes 
 our breath away to hear, in the direction of the star X in the con- 
 stellation of Hercules. This is true and legitimate progress in 
 science. Take another example. WheweU tells us of the tradi-
 
 ON PROGRESS 
 
 2 39 
 
 tion that the first idea of the octave in music sprang up in the 
 mind of a Greek by hearing the constant ring and alternation 
 of hammers beating on an anvil. From this the idea of number, 
 rhythm, and sound, with the distinction of tones, grew in his 
 mind, and the basis of scientific music was laid. In the history 
 of music we read that in proportion as instruments have been 
 perfected in compass, in that proportion has music been per- 
 fected. The organ on which Handel played had I know not 
 how much less in compass than the organs of the present day. 
 His music therefore was limited. And the sphere and range of 
 music has been perpetually increasing as instruments have been 
 perfected and their sphere enlarged. This again is an example 
 of scientific and true progress. I might take another example 
 in spectrum analysis, or in electricity, with its application to 
 telegraphy, and many other uses, as an instance of true prog- 
 ress. 
 
 We will now take an example of progress in political govern- 
 ment. The first law of political government in the beginning 
 was club-law ; and the way in which people made peace was by 
 beating one another till one party had enough of it. Jurists tell 
 us the first fiction of civil law was government by majority ; 
 that is to say, they no longer counted the number of clubs or 
 bruises, but the number of votes ; and the vote by majority and 
 minority was taken as sufficient to settle any political contro- 
 versy, which is at least a more comfortable way of settling a 
 contest. When this mode of government sprang up, immedi- 
 ately there was found something which had the power of tying 
 the hands of tyrants, of limiting the absolutism of despotic gov- 
 ernment. There was a time when the first principle of law was, 
 " Quod principi placnit legis habct vigor em; " that is, what the 
 prince wills has the force of law ; so that the will of the prince 
 was the law of the subject. Well, the introduction of this new 
 theory of putting votes for clubs had a beneficial effect in Eng- 
 land, and the dicta and axioms of our lawyers, going back to 
 Bracton and Fleta, were recast. Our ancestors said, " Lex facit 
 regemy not " Rex facit legcm.^ The law makes the king, not 
 the king makes the law. There came in another idea of govern- 
 ment, and that was monarchy limited by law ; both by the un- 
 written customs of the people and the written law made legiti- 
 mately by the king and his councillors. Well, from this has
 
 2 4 o CARDINAL MANNING 
 
 come gradually what we call self-government ; but the govern- 
 ment which is municipal and local depends ultimately upon the 
 government of each individual man over himself ; and no peo- 
 ple are worthy to obtain, or can obtain, self-government, or if 
 they had obtained could keep it, who do not train and discipline 
 themselves, so that they begin by governing themselves before 
 they govern their neighbors. There has been undoubtedly 
 great progress in those things also. One more example I will 
 give, and with that will end this dreary part of the subject ; and 
 that shall be progress in civilization. 
 
 I cannot deny that we are very much better off than when 
 our ancestors smeared themselves with woad ; that our manu- 
 factures, cheapening good articles of clothing, are a great bless- 
 ing to everybody, rich and poor. I also think it is much better to 
 live on good wheaten bread than on acorns ; and if we cannot 
 grow enough wheat at home, it is a good thing that we are able 
 to import it. Also I think it is better to live in brick houses than 
 in huts of mud and wicker-work; and it is better we should have 
 machinery which will do ten thousand operations with great 
 fineness and power rather than flint knives and burnt sticks. 
 It seems, therefore, that progress in civilization as regards food, 
 clothing, dwellings, and machinery, in the mechanical power of 
 production, transit by railway, and the dynamic powers of ma- 
 chinery — that is, the mechanical powers applied to lift weights, 
 build houses, and transport of goods which no human strength 
 could lift — that all this is a vast progress in the material order. 
 I may say also that the extension of the benefits of all these 
 things, from the rich, or from the classes that might appro- 
 priate them to their own enjoyment, to the whole mass of 
 the people, bringing them within the reach of the poor and 
 those standing in greatest need of them — that this is a very 
 just and legitimate idea of progress. Next I will say that what 
 is called credit in commerce is a notable progress. Trading 
 in kind would be very inconvenient nowadays, if, every time you 
 had to buy a hat, you had to pay for it with a table, or if every 
 time you had to purchase, it was necessary to put down the cash 
 on the spot, you would have to carry a fortune with you ; and if 
 brass money were the chief currency, that would be still more 
 difficult ; so that the substitution of a gold and silver currency 
 is a progress in civilization. But it seems to me that the intro-
 
 ON PROGRESS 241 
 
 duction of the bank-note is much better ; and bank-notes never 
 could have existed, if there had not been confidence created 
 between man and man, and recognized by public and social 
 law, which gives value and reality to a piece of paper. Now 
 that would appear to be the result of modern civilization, be- 
 cause I do not read of it either in Athens or Rome. This ex- 
 ample, entirely the creation of a civilized state, I will not put 
 high, but I think it an improvement, as it facilitates the transac- 
 tion of business. Then, international law, that is, the law 
 which runs from nation to nation, an extension of that domestic 
 law which governs a people singly, by contract and mutual rec- 
 ognition, at last federates together and binds a number of na- 
 tions in one family ; and there arises what is called by lawyers 
 a comity of nations, which means a certain mutually fair and 
 benevolent dealing with one another. Just as charity binds in- 
 dividuals, so nations are bound by justice ; and this is a distinc- 
 tion of civilization which grew and advanced so long as Chris- 
 tian civilization endured. 
 
 I hope that I have given a sufficient number of examples of 
 progress in our own country, in Christianity, in science, in 
 political government, and in civilization, to have cleared our- 
 selves at least from the imputation of being opposed to prog- 
 ress. 
 
 Let me sum up what I have said in the first part of my subject 
 in this way : It is a philosophical axiom, a certain truth of the 
 reason, that everything is preserved by the same principles by 
 which it is produced. The oak which springs from the acorn 
 is preserved by the sap and fibre and wood and bark which be- 
 long to its kind ; you cannot change that nature without de- 
 stroying its perfection. This is true physically, it is true in 
 science, it is true in moral character, as I will go on to show. 
 Whenever anything grows from its root by the same principles 
 of development to its perfection, it retains its own identity. 
 The oak is always the oak, and Christian society is always Chris- 
 tian society. Another axiom is, that destruction is the change 
 or perversion of the principles by which anything was pro- 
 duced ; if you can change or pervert the principles from which 
 anything springs, you destroy it. For instance, one single for- 
 eign element introduced into the blood produces death ; one 
 false assumption admitted into science destroys its certainty; 
 Vol. II.— 16
 
 242 CARDINAL MANNING 
 
 one false principle admitted into morals is fatal. As, for exam- 
 ple, a portion of the Church separated from the unity of the 
 Church, therefore separated from the principles by which it 
 was first created and preserved, becomes a schism. A state 
 which rejects its own vital laws, which were founded upon 
 reason, justice, and Christianity, becomes an anomaly. A body 
 which has reached maturity, and loses the principle of its ani- 
 mation, becomes dust. The first of these axioms is what I may 
 call the law of progress, the second is the law of decay. We will 
 now consider the latter. 
 
 The last part of my subject is that which is opposed to prog- 
 ress. Let me take as an example the formation of character. 
 I dare say all of you have seen many a youth beginning life with 
 great promise, with piety, faith, conscientiousness, and so 
 growing to manhood ; yet there has been about him something 
 which a keen observer has detected, yet feared even to think of, 
 lest he should do wrong. Just as some magnificent tree sud- 
 denly snaps in the night, its strength of stem overmastered by 
 a high wind, because at the heart there was a secret rottenness, 
 unseen without, yet it was there within, and when the pressure 
 came upon the branches the tree went asunder — so it is with 
 many a character. There is some false principle or passion, 
 something within, which, when it is tried, fails. The piety of 
 boyhood and of youth becomes careless, because there is a germ 
 of sloth, and ends in impiety. Faith has near its root, some se- 
 cret germ of doubt, which begins to grow secretly, and at last 
 shows itself in the form of captious objection, and ends in un- 
 belief. Conscientiousness begins to manifest a certain laxity, 
 and ends in acts of dishonor. Here we see what may be called 
 a falling off from the first principles by which the character was 
 formed in the beginning. Apply this, then, to the case of na- 
 tions. 
 
 Take the republic of Athens, which was cultivated, intellec- 
 tually, morally, scientifically, and politically, to a very high de- 
 gree, which established a colonial empire, and I may say a 
 dominion over the Greek race. It rose to a very high point of 
 civilization. It then became a luxurious and licentious democ- 
 racy, and began at once to decay. Rome in like manner had 
 what its people called the prisca virtus, that old austerity of vir- 
 tue, which carried the sway of its republic over the whole earth.
 
 ON PROGRESS 243 
 
 When it began to be luxurious and corrupt, an imperial tyranny 
 was established over it. Thenceforward it went to pieces age 
 after age, with the greatest havoc ever made on earth. Spain 
 was a noble, Christian, and austere people, until by successful 
 commerce, and the mines of the New World, it was inundated 
 with gold. Among the causes of Spain's decline, the enormous 
 influx of gold has a chief place. It brought on a relaxation of 
 industry, a carelessness and luxuriousness of life, a disposition 
 to live on acquired wealth, which paralyzed the energy of the 
 people. Here, again, we find the principles of the nation's 
 greatness discarded, and its greatness lost. Take the example 
 of the Christian world as distinct from the Church. Always re- 
 member, when we speak of the Christian world, that the Chris- 
 tian world and the Christian Church are two different things. 
 The Christian Church existed before the Christian world, and 
 created it. The Christian world may go to pieces, and it seems 
 at this moment to be on the breakers ; but the Church will re- 
 main in all its vigor and plenitude of light and power until its 
 Divine Head comes again. The Christian world is everywhere 
 divided ; and because divided, it is in perplexity and conflict 
 everywhere. We hear Christian men complaining and con- 
 tending about " the religious difficulty." They cannot act to- 
 gether or educate their children together, because of the re- 
 ligious difficulty. Do you know what the religious difficulty is ? 
 It is not the Catechism, it is not the Thirty-nine Articles — it is 
 God, the truth of God, and the will of God. Because some men 
 have determined to interpret the truth of God in their own 
 fashion, and to reject everything else, and because others reject 
 God altogether, therefore they can find no common basis upon 
 which to educate or to legislate, without shutting out God, 
 His truth and will, from the four corners of an act of Parliament. 
 Here we have an example of the abandonment of those princi- 
 ples upon which the progress of the Christian civilization of the 
 world was made. 
 
 Modern civilization, then, is civilization without Christianity. 
 It is perfect when the religious difficulty is eliminated and ex- 
 cluded from the progress of man, intellectual, moral, and politi- 
 cal. Take for example France, which has been for eighty years 
 leading the way in modern civilization. A more refined people, 
 a people more exquisite in the cultivation of the arts and
 
 244 CARDINAL MANNING 
 
 sciences of the natural order, is not to be found ; but a people 
 more incoherent in political life, more wanting in the power of 
 permanent combination, more stricken as it were with the im- 
 possibility of adhering together in any one constant form of 
 civil government, can hardly be found in history. That noble 
 people, full of intelligence and of genius, because it has aban- 
 doned the first principles which formed the great French mon- 
 archy of a thousand years, and has substituted in their place the 
 shallow theories that are called the principles of '89, that majes- 
 tic people has reduced itself for a time to an instability so great, 
 that within the memory of living men it has had two empires, 
 three republics, three kings dethroned, seventeen constitutions, 
 and six or seven revolutions. The present state of that noble 
 country is such, that we may justly take it as an example of the 
 dissolution which follows upon the loss of those first principles 
 from which Christian society springs, and by which alone 
 Christian society can be preserved. 
 
 Let us now take England. England in the last three hundred 
 years has been departing from those principles by which its 
 progress was originally impelled, and by which that progress 
 has been preserved. I will only touch upon three points. Three 
 hundred years ago a legal Church was set up, which covered 
 the whole country, and, excepting only the faithful Catholics 
 who refused it, and a handful of dissenters, contained the whole 
 population of England. At this moment the population of Eng- 
 land has outgrown that legal religion by one-half its number. 
 Next there was a political constitution of Church and State set 
 up at that day which spread itself over the whole Anglican 
 population. The population has outgrown the constitution ; 
 and, therefore, some twenty or thirty years ago we were per- 
 petually hearing about Chartism, and now in these days we are 
 hearing of trades-unions, political unions, strikes among trades 
 — the masses of the people uniting together to accomplish, by 
 combination against capital, that which the law of the land 
 ought to do for them. Lastly, the effect of these and other 
 causes is that one-half of the people of England have outgrown 
 Christianity, they have passed beyond the moral restraints of 
 Christianity, they have become materialized. They are not 
 atheists, not infidels. It is not by the act of their own will ; it is 
 the pressure, and I may say the tyranny, of events or the logic
 
 ON PROGRESS 
 
 245 
 
 of facts, of which we hear so much, that has robbed them of 
 their inheritances of faith and culture. And this because the first 
 principles of Christian civilization, which created the mature 
 commonwealth of England, were violated three hundred years 
 ago. 
 
 I was going to take next the example of the United States, 
 but I will not venture upon any judgment of its state. In talk- 
 ing of England I am always willing to give hard knocks. 
 Englishmen like it. They give us the privileges of sons and 
 brothers ; and we may say what we like about England, if we 
 say it filially — I trust I never do otherwise. But of the 
 New World I do not venture so freely to speak. I trust that in 
 the United States good care will be taken of the faith, I mean of 
 Christianity, of Christian education, of morals, of domestic life, 
 and of strong-minded women — a race now rising among our- 
 selves, and, with all good-will towards them, I hope they will 
 be benignly kept in order. I hope that in the United States 
 there will be great care taken to exclude political ambition and 
 faction. About fifteen years ago I read what I believe to be an 
 authentic statement — that a number of leading politicians and 
 statesmen of America, of highest name and note, met together 
 to consider the condition of the United States. It was before 
 the war, when there were already many causes of anxiety. It 
 was said that there was a universal and growing license of the 
 individual will, and that law and government were powerless 
 to restrain it ; that if the will of the multitude became licentious, 
 it would seriously threaten the public welfare and liberty of the 
 country. The conclusion they came to was, that unless there 
 could be found some power which could restrain the individual 
 will, this danger would at last seriously menace the United 
 States. Now I think we are all ready to say what that power is. 
 It is the power which created the Christian society of the world. 
 Whensoever it is weakened or lost, immediately all political 
 society decays. I hope it may be restored and long retained in 
 the American Union. I hope too that the prophecy of Bishop 
 Berkeley may be abundantly fulfilled in America : 
 
 " Westward the course of empire takes its way, 
 The first four acts already past; 
 A fifth shall close the drama with the day: 
 Time's noblest offspring is the last."
 
 246 CARDINAL MANNING 
 
 I hope there is a future for America which will verify this 
 prophecy ; but I am confident it cannot be, unless those first 
 principles of Christian civilization which have created and 
 maintained the progress of the Christian world shall be restored 
 and preserved. 
 
 Now I shall be asked what those principles are ; and I will 
 enunciate them as quickly as I can. First, they are the laws of 
 God in nature and revelation. They are the laws of God in 
 nature ; that is, the reason rightly cultivated, the conscience 
 rightly directed ; the four cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, 
 fortitude, and temperance ; the law, that is, recognition of a 
 rule and duty of obedience to the law. The idea of law is the 
 foundation of all civil society, and the rule of the conscience 
 and conduct of men. Second, the principles of God's law in 
 Revelation, the Ten Commandments, a very old code, and very 
 much forgotten ; the twelve articles of the Creed, very much 
 disliked by those who talk of the religious difficulty ; the unity 
 of the Christian Church, and its authority. Thirdly, the law of 
 man made by rulers and legislatures when conformable to those 
 of God. And so long as legislatures and governments con- 
 form themselves and their laws to the law of God, then there 
 is progress. I utterly deny there is progress when they depart 
 from it. 
 
 What, then, are the principles that convert progress to de- 
 cay? The violation of God's laws, their perversion, and their 
 privation or loss. I had put down a number of examples, but I 
 have looked at my watch, and see I must not go on. Therefore 
 I can only give one single example, which is the most fresh 
 and vivid at this moment. 
 
 We have heard a great deal of the Munich Conference ; well, 
 now, this revolt is nothing new. Another, precisely the same, 
 happened at the beginning of this century. In the year 1801, on 
 the fifteenth of August, Pope Pius VII issued an apostolic let- 
 ter, whereby, by the supreme authority of the Vicar of Jesus 
 Christ, he extinguished the whole existing episcopate in France, 
 subdivided anew all the dioceses, and thus created a new hier- 
 archy over the whole of the country. At once, a certain number 
 of men, in whom the Gallican spirit was strong — I have no 
 doubt many were conscientious and good men, but they had 
 admitted one false principle, which, as I said, like one little
 
 ON PROGRESS 247 
 
 globule of foreign matter in the blood is fatal — absolutely re- 
 fused obedience, separated themselves from the Catholic 
 Church and set up what was called the Petite Eglise. This little 
 Church consisted of a considerable number of bishops, priests 
 and laity. The last bishop of the Petite Eglise submitted himself 
 to the Catholic Church in the year 1829, and died in peace. But 
 this separation is not extinct. In the year 1865, when I was at 
 Poictiers, the bishop told me that he had some five thousand of 
 the members of this little Church in his diocese, who had no 
 priests, no sacraments, no churches ; nevertheless, that they 
 baptized their own children, and met, from time to time, to say 
 prayers and the rosary together. They are dying out. Yet they 
 began with a number of bishops ; but they had no succession, 
 and they are now ceasing to exist. 
 
 What is now happening at Munich ? The Holy Father, in the 
 Vatican Council, issued last year the constitution Pastor 
 Mternus, whereby the infallibility of the Head of the Church 
 was defined. The " Times " newspaper says all the bishops of 
 the Roman Catholic Church have accepted it, " having been 
 fairly caught and safely landed in the great Vatican net." Well, 
 this was too much for the professors of Germany. They are an 
 estate in the intellectual realm of Germany, and the conse- 
 quence has been what you may read in the newspapers. Some 
 five hundred men from all countries have met together. The 
 names of the chief leaders from foreign countries have been 
 mentioned in the papers, except only the English deputies. 
 Who deputed them? Whom did they represent? I wish the 
 names had been published, as we should know more easily how 
 to deal with them. As it is, I can only say that every man who 
 has participated in that Munich Congress is either directly, ex- 
 plicitly, or implicitly excommunicated and incapable of sacra- 
 ments. However, this Congress did a great many things. 
 It has resolved to begin a system of parishes and public 
 worship with priests, the greater part of whom have been 
 suspended, and are incapable of officiating in the Catholic 
 Church. It is a curious thing that the Petite Eglise of whom 
 I spoke at first commenced their schism upon the rejection of 
 the plenitude of the supreme authority of the Head of the 
 Church in matter of jurisdiction and discipline. These Munich 
 separatists are committing schism by rejecting the plenitude
 
 248 CARDINAL MANNING 
 
 of the doctrinal authority of the Head of the Church in matter 
 of faith. That is to say, these two schisms are made precisely 
 on the same ground: the plenitude of the primacy in jurisdic- 
 tion and doctrinal authority; with what result, time is to show. 
 In the mean while we have the authority of the " Times " news- 
 paper for saying that the great difficulty with them is, that, 
 though they have some laymen and some priests, they have no 
 bishop. 
 
 ;< Here," says the " Times," " are five hundred professors, 
 priests, and laymen, founding and constituting a Church — old, 
 say they ; new, says Rome — and, as it were at the last moment, 
 they find they must have bishops to keep it going. They will 
 beg, borrow, or steal one. Are not bishops to be found some- 
 where? We, nevertheless, are sure that not even an English 
 ' colonial,' not even a suffragan, not even a Scottish bishop, 
 without clergy, churches, or people, would hire himself out to 
 keep up the breed of old Catholics at Munich." 
 
 The broad English common-sense of the " Times " has saved 
 it. It goes on to say : " The last words in the description which 
 our correspondent, who was present, gives of the last public 
 meeting have, we suspect, a prophetic import. The assemblage 
 was vast for Catholic Munich ; the city was much stirred up by 
 the strangeness of the event ; but when all was over the im- 
 pression left on the public was ' that much more remained to be 
 done.' All Englishmen must feel that. It is a common thing to 
 find men who retain the shell, as it were, of old conviction ; who 
 live by old habits and use the words they did in their youth ; 
 but whose inner nature, indeed, whose leading principles, are 
 bursting these bonds. The programme before us we venture to 
 pronounce utterly inconsistent in spirit with the conservative 
 part of its doctrinal propositions." 
 
 Here is good sense. Further on, the " Times," with the ac- 
 curacy of a Catholic theologian, speaking of the Munich Con- 
 gress, continues : ' It retains the decrees of the Council of 
 Trent, including all former councils, but reopens — and, in- 
 deed, compels the reopening of — every controversy which that 
 council was summoned to close. ' A dogma,' it says, ' to be 
 valid, must be in accordance with Holy Writ and the old tradi- 
 tions of the Church, such as they have been conveyed to us in 
 the writings of the recognized fathers and the decrees of the
 
 ON PROGRESS 249 
 
 councils.' Then, having said this, it proceeds to point out that 
 even were a council really ecumenical, it would be powerless 
 against essential truth and history ; nay, that no unanimity 
 could confer validity on its decrees. The congress, some here 
 will think, avows an intention to look still further ahead. It sets 
 out boldly on the road of science and progressive Christian 
 culture ; it insists that the clergy shall be theologians, and also 
 admitted freely to the culture of the century. This must all 
 mean something, and most people will understand it better than 
 the dogmatic portion of the programme. Which of the two con- 
 flicting portions will survive the other on German soil is a ques- 
 tion on which our English readers will not be long in making 
 up their minds." 
 
 I must pass over much more that I had meant to say, and 
 sum up in these words : We do not oppose any true material, 
 scientific, social, or political progress. The reiterated and per- 
 sistent way in which people say we are opposed to progress is 
 cant. They who can believe it to be so are superstitious — they 
 ought to believe in hobgoblins ; and perhaps they do. Well, 
 then, my general conclusion is. that the Church is progressing 
 and always will progress, in strength, truth, unity of faith, in the 
 self-evidence by which it proves itself to the world. Secondly, 
 that nations are departing from the principles which created 
 their civilization. Thirdly, that civilization is becoming every 
 day more and more material. I shall keep you till midnight 
 if I go on. Look for proof of what I sav in any work on political 
 economy ; or in the production and use of wealth, its enjoyment ; 
 luxury, and the consequences of luxury, visible all around us. 
 Fourthly, that this material civilization, while more and more 
 material, is becoming less and less moral. Fifthly, that there- 
 fore this modern civilization is for this reason not progres- 
 sive, because the nations are not growing happier, nor purer 
 in their morals, nor more united in the charities of life. 
 Sixthly, that society is not becoming more solid, more safe, 
 more stable : that, on the contrary, the reverse of all these 
 things is undubitably true and visible before our eyes. Sev- 
 enthly, that individuals are becoming more anarchical, the in- 
 tellect more licentious, the wills of man more stubborn ; and 
 this self-will expresses itself in their actions, so that it is true to 
 say that the principles upon which the Christian world was
 
 250 
 
 CARDINAL MANNING 
 
 founded, and by which it has hitherto been preserved, have been 
 rejected and are being violated on every side. The Christian 
 world therefore is not progressing, but is going back. Finally, 
 civilization like everything else cannot stand still : non progredi 
 est regredi; not to go onward is to go backward ; and therefore 
 it is that the Holy Father, when he condemned in the syllabus 
 the proposition, "that the Roman Pontiff can and ought to 
 reconcile and adjust himself to progress, liberalism, and modern 
 civilization," condemned a great error, and proclaimed a great 
 truth. There is no hope for either man or society, but to go 
 back to the feet of the only true legislator, who said, " Come 
 unto Me : take My yoke upon you ; for My yoke is easy and 
 My burden is light."
 
 CHOICE EXAMPLES OF EARLY PRINTING AND 
 
 ENGRAVING. 
 
 Fac-similes from Rare and Curious Books. 
 
 PAGE FROM A BOOK OF HOURS. 
 
 This page is noticeable for its ornamentation, which is of consummate grace and 
 variety in design. The great mediaeval doctrine of the Sacrament is the subject of 
 the miniature ; we see a chalice ngels, under a canopy, wli 
 
 tains two angels hold apart. Th up is formed to represent the 
 
 wound in the side of Christ, from wl dripping. Round the border is one 
 
 of those hunting . mediaeval artists loved to introduce even in a re- 
 
 ligious composition. This mixture of thi 1 and profane was characterisi 
 
 the period, and when it took the foi ludicrous and the horrible 
 
 il was called the gi , a style of art originating in the i enturies between the 
 
 destruction of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. This book is one of those 
 issued by Simon Vostre at Paris about Myy.
 
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 Sirginie*
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN 
 AFFAIRS 
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN 
 
 IRELAND 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM EVVART GLADSTONE
 
 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 
 1809— 1898 
 
 William Ewart Gladstone happened to be born in Liverpool ; but he 
 was a Scot on both sides of his ancestry ; and his father came of an 
 ancient line of Gledstanes (Hawk-stones) who had figured with dignity 
 and credit in Scottish history for generations. Born in 1809, he lived 
 all but ninety years, retaining to the last the unimpaired use of his mind, 
 and to the last interested in all that pertained to the welfare and honor 
 of his country. Though he had retired from active political life four 
 or five years before his death, no one could act in the government with- 
 out explicit or implied reference to him ; and his opponents were never 
 free from the apprehension that, if a crisis demanded it, the Grand Old 
 Man would once more take the helm. Often invited to enter the peerage, 
 he steadfastly and wisely declined, and remained to the end the Great 
 Commoner — a title which he shared with the only other English states- 
 man who could stand comparison with him — Lord Chatham previous 
 to 1766. That he made many errors in the course of his long life was 
 inevitable ; though many of them were due less to his will than to the 
 tyranny of circumstance ; but the longer he lived the more firmly did 
 the mass of the people pin their faith to him ; and the worthier of their 
 trust did he prove himself. 
 
 It was in 1832, when twenty-three years of age, that he took his seat 
 for the first time in Parliament; and with the exception of eighteen 
 months, he sat there till his retirement from public life in 1894. Most 
 of this time he represented the boroughs of Greenwich and Midlothian. 
 But his first constituency was Newark, a " pocket-borough " of the Duke 
 of Newcastle, a Tory. When Sir Robert Peel came into power in 1834, 
 Gladstone was appointed a Lord of the Treasury, and then Under Sec- 
 retary of the Colonies. In 1841 he became Vice-President of the Board 
 of Trade, and made a reputation by his handling of the scheme of 
 tariff revision. Two years later he took his place in the Cabinet, but 
 resigned in 1845 for reasons of political consistency. Between this time 
 and 1852 Gladstone's views underwent a progressive change; and as 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer in the coalition ministry of Aberdeen, he 
 appeared under Liberal colors. Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell both 
 continued him in the Exchequer; and when Palmerston died, in 1865, 
 Gladstone became leader of the House of Commons. The Tories de- 
 feated his reform bill, and " dished the Whigs " by bringing in one of 
 their own ; but in 1868 he was chosen Prime Minister, and so remained 
 till 1874. Nor was he content to fill this august office only ; he com- 
 bined with it those of First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, and Lord Privy Seal. The more he labored for the public 
 weal, the more strength and ability to work did he seem to evince. The 
 disestablishment of the Irish Church was one of the earliest measures 
 which, as Prime Minister, he introduced and advocated ; and from that 
 time the condition of Ireland was one of his leading preoccupations. 
 
 Gladstone's oratory was always remarkable, even from the first; but 
 it constantly improved as he advanced in age and experience, and his 
 knowledge of men and affairs broadened and deepened. The almost 
 savage earnestness with which he dealt with questions of moment never 
 left him ; but he gradually relieved it by a sunny and sympathetic treat- 
 ment of the body of his subject, by touches or humor and wit, and by 
 the extraordinary perspicacity and ease with which he handled matters 
 which, till then, had been thought unsusceptible of any but formal and 
 tedious treatment. This was especially conspicuous in his speeches 
 on finance. " Domestic and Foreign Affairs " and " The Established 
 Church in Ireland " are typical examples of his Parliamentary speeches. 
 
 252
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 
 
 Delivered at West Colder, November 2j, 1879 
 
 MR. Chairman and Gentlemen : 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 worth- 
 ily 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 in- 
 terested in the land, and as I feel that what is termed " agricul- 
 tural 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 quar- 
 ters 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. Gentlemen, I speak of agricultural distress as a 
 matter now undoubtedly serious. Let none of us withold 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 ex- 
 plain 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 sea-board ; and I wish 
 in the first place, gentlemen, to state to you all a fact of very 
 
 253
 
 254 GLADSTONE 
 
 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. 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 hap- 
 pened, 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 12s. 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
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 255 
 
 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 12s. an acre. He mentions that this is by no means a 
 strange case, an isolated case, that it fairly represented the aver- 
 age transactions that have been going on ; and he says that in 
 that region the ordinary price of agricultural land at the pres- 
 ent 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 per- 
 haps 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 sub- 
 sistence for mankind is a great blessing vouchsafed by Provi- 
 dence 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 coun- 
 try 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
 
 256 GLADSTONE 
 
 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 sub- 
 ject, 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 develop- 
 ment 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 agri- 
 culturist 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, the great province which forms now a part of the 
 Canada Dominion. There is no doubt, I believe, that it is a cor- 
 rect 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 sup- 
 ply 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 anything 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 can- 
 not say that it is always unnecessary, and we cannot say that
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 257 
 
 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 ac- 
 tion, 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 agricul- 
 turist 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 everything 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 provi- 
 sions 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 
 Vol. II.— 17
 
 258 GLADSTONE 
 
 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 condi- 
 tion. 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; 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 r 
 the legislature is perfectly entitled to buy out the landed pro- 
 prietors. 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 divid- 
 ing 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 im- 
 pose the same limitations upon the action and industry of man, 
 and upon the well-being of the community, as does the posses- 
 sion 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.
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 259 
 
 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 anything — 
 you have 5,000,000 of small proprietors, and you do not pro- 
 duce 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 prop- 
 erties 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 prop- 
 erties 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 tax- 
 able 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 dif- 
 ference 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
 
 2 6o GLADSTONE 
 
 French official authority of the agricultural income of France, 
 as well as the income of other real property, viz., houses. In 
 185 1 the agricultural income of France was £76,000,000. It 
 was greater in 185 1 than the whole income from land and houses 
 together had been in 1821. This is a tolerable evidence of prog- 
 ress ; 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 in- 
 come — for the earlier year, namely, 182 1. In 185 1 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 — an- 
 nual values — was no less than forty per cent., or three per cent, 
 per annum. Now, I go to England. Wishing to be quite ac- 
 curate, 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. T 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 thir- 
 teen 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 proprie- 
 tary 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 discus- 
 sions. Let me try to to explain it. I believe myself that the 
 operation of economic laws is what in the main dictates the dis- 
 tribution of landed property in this country. I doubt if those
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 261 
 
 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 anything, are inferior in cultivation to the large prop- 
 erties of England. It has been upon those very peasant-prop- 
 erties 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 su- 
 perior articles, pursued upon a small scale — cultivation of flow- 
 ers, cultivation of trees and shrubs, cultivation of fruits of every 
 kind, and all that, in fact, which rises above the ordinary char- 
 acter 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 pro- 
 duction 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 al- 
 most 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 T 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
 
 262 GLADSTONE 
 
 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 in- 
 terests never brought into conflict ; but I desire to see both 
 flourishing and prospering, and the soil of my country pro- 
 ducing, 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, gentle- 
 men, and I say it with all respect, I hope for a good deal from 
 the small culture, the culture in use among the small proprie- 
 tors 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 re- 
 gion 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 in- 
 formed, no less a person than Her Majesty's Secretary of State 
 for Foreign Affairs has been moving about the country, and in- 
 dicating a very considerable expectation that possibly by reci- 
 procity agricultural distress will be relieved. Let me test, gen- 
 tlemen, the efficacy of this quack remedy for your, in some 
 places, agricultural pressure, and generally distress — the press- 
 ure that has been upon you, the struggle in which you are en- 
 gaged. Pray watch its operation ; pray note what is said by the 
 advocates of reciprocity. They always say, We are the sound- 
 est 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 amend- 
 ment, I beg you to cast an eye of sympathy upon the condi-
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 
 
 263 
 
 tion 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 everything that he wants 
 at prices which are fixed in Washington by the legislation of 
 America, but he has got to sell everything that he produces at 
 prices which are fixed in Liverpool — fixed by the free compe- 
 tition of the world. How would you like that, gentlemen — to 
 have protective prices to pay for everything 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 everything that constitutes 
 his farming stock, will have all his tools, and implements, and 
 manures, and everything else purchased in the free, open mar- 
 ket of the world at free-trade prices. So he will be able to pro- 
 duce 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, be- 
 cause it is a very serious matter, and it is all the more serious 
 because of 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 pro- 
 tective speech was made in the House of Commons in a debate 
 last year by Mr. Chaplin, on the part of what is called " the agri- 
 cultural interest." Mr. Chaplin did not use the word pro- 
 tection, 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.
 
 264 GLADSTONE 
 
 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 protec- 
 tion. 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 foun- 
 dation 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 of- 
 fice, 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. Gen- 
 tlemen, 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
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 
 
 265 
 
 crisis threatened to convulse the country, which occupied Par- 
 liaments, 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 distinc- 
 tions 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 i860 — in breaking down the huge 
 fabric of protection, in 1879 we are seriously to set about build- 
 ing 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 du- 
 ties 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 sys- 
 tem 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 everything that can be produced from the land. 
 Now, gentlemen, in order to see whether xvp can here find a 
 remedy for our difficulties, I prefer to speculation and mere ab-
 
 266 GLADSTONE 
 
 stract argument the method of reverting to experience. Ex- 
 perience 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 custom- 
 ers 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 busi- 
 ness, 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, gen- 
 tlemen, 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 con- 
 stituency. 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 eco- 
 nomical gain and addition to the wealth of the country. There- 
 fore, in order to see what we owe to our friend protection, I 
 won't altow that friend to take credit for what was done by rail- 
 ways 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, re- 
 member, using round numbers. I do that because, although 
 round numbers cannot be absolutely accurate, they are easy
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 267 
 
 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. 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 pro- 
 tection. The condition of the people grew, if possible, rather 
 worse than better. The wealth of the country was nearly station- 
 ary. 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 de- 
 pend ; 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 impor- 
 tant change, had been made as to protection, but when the rail- 
 way system was in operation, hardly in Scotland, but in Eng- 
 land 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, m l8 46, in 1853, and 
 again in i860, the large measures were carried which have 
 completely reformed your customs tariff, and reduced it from a
 
 268 GLADSTONE 
 
 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 in- 
 creased, 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 aver- 
 aged £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 everything that the soil produces, has been largely in- 
 creased 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
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 
 
 ,269 
 
 general, than you would ever have got under the system of 
 protection. Gentlemen, if that be true — and it cannot, I be- 
 lieve, 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 por- 
 tion of the community — namely, women ; he made a very dis- 
 respectful observation, which I am going to quote, not for the 
 purpose of concurring with it, but for the purpose of an illus- 
 tration. 
 
 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 noth- 
 ing 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 tax- 
 ation. 
 
 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 prin- 
 ciples 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
 
 270 GLADSTONE 
 
 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 espe- 
 cially, 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 en- 
 tirely spoil the beneficial effect ; and if we were to make our- 
 selves 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 Eng- 
 land or any of them. They have selfish aims, as, unfortunately, 
 we in late years have too sadly shown that we too have had self- 
 ish 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 ob- 
 jects connected with the common good of them all. That, gen- 
 tlemen, 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 consid- 
 eration 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
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 
 
 271 
 
 it less capable of performing its duties ; you render it an inheri- 
 tance 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 cer- 
 tain 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 re- 
 ligion, 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 Phari- 
 saical superiority over the whole of them, then I say you may 
 talk about your patriotism if you please, but you are a misjudg- 
 ing 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 ex- 
 perience of many generations within the shores of this happy 
 isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loy- 
 alty 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 Rus- 
 sell 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.
 
 272 GLADSTONE 
 
 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 Eng- 
 lishmen. 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 anything that respects 
 Russia. You have heard me, gentlemen, denounced sometimes, 
 I believe, as a Russian spy, sometimes as a Russian agent, some- 
 times 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 English- 
 men 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 es- 
 tranged from this country — let us not conceal the fact — the feel- 
 ings of a nation of eighty millions, for that is the number of the 
 subjects of the Russian Empire — while they have contrived com- 
 pletely to estrange the feelings of that nation, they have aggran- 
 dized the power of Russia. They have aggrandized the power 
 of Russia in two ways, which I will state with perfect distinct- 
 ness. They have augmented her territory. Before the Euro- 
 pean 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 Ber- 
 lin, he would support the restoration to the despotic power of
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 273 
 
 Russia of that country north of the Danube which at the mo- 
 ment constituted a portion of the free state of Roumania. 
 Why, gentlemen, what had been done by the Liberal govern- 
 ment, which, forsooth, attended to nothing but pounds, shil- 
 lings, 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, has ag- 
 grandized 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 gov- 
 ernment 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 what- 
 ever. 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 trans- 
 fer 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 con- 
 cealed 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 
 Vol. II.— 18
 
 274 
 
 GLADSTONE 
 
 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 an- 
 other character that is not in the slightest degree excluded by 
 the treaty, and making it as much as he pleases a port of mili- 
 tary 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 misrepre- 
 sented 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 opin- 
 ion 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, gentle- 
 men, 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 Rus- 
 sia bound herself to exercise no influence or interference what- 
 ever 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 posi- 
 tion in respect to Turkey ; and here it is that I have com- 
 plained of the Government for aggrandizing the power of Rus- 
 sia ; it is on this point that I most complain. 
 
 The policy of Her Majesty's Government was a policy of re-
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 
 
 2 75 
 
 pelling 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 dispo- 
 sition 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 pow- 
 ers of Europe, under our unfortunate guidance, declined to be- 
 come 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 Eng- 
 land through its government, or to the hearts of other powers, 
 and that Russia alone was disposed to fight for them, why nat- 
 urally 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 Rus- 
 sia 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. That power is Rus- 
 sia, and how can you blame these people if, in such circum- 
 stances, 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
 
 276 GLADSTONE 
 
 country. Gentlemen, this is the most dangerous form of ag- 
 grandizing Russia. If Russia is aggressive anywhere, if Rus- 
 sia 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 pos- 
 sibly 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 unrea- 
 sonable 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 pol- 
 icy. It is that, looking to that question in the long run, look- 
 ing 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 ag- 
 gressive tendencies towards 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 mo- 
 ment 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 Mediterra- 
 nean ; 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 ag- 
 gressive 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
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 277 
 
 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 rec- 
 ognizing 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 ma- 
 terial force. Consequently the principle of equality among na- 
 tions lies, in my opinion, at the very basis and root of a Chris- 
 tian 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. 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, whic 1 
 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 
 p:oing 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 con- 
 cerns 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
 
 278 GLADSTONE 
 
 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 Con- 
 gress 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 num- 
 ber 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 i6,ooo,ooo in needless and mischievous arma- 
 ments. That which we would not allow Russia to do with Tur- 
 key, 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
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 2?9 
 
 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 Conven- 
 tion. 
 
 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 un- 
 less 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 juris- 
 diction were coolly transferred to English jurisdiction ; and 
 the whole matter was sealed with the worthless bribe of the pos- 
 session and administration of the island of Cyprus ! 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 ac- 
 tion. 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 Cy- 
 prus, 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 Eu-
 
 280 GLADSTONE 
 
 ropean authority of the Treaty of Paris, and taking the mat- 
 ters 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 anything which is 
 not known, but the Prime Minister has said that there is one 
 day in the year — namely, the ninth 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, gentle- 
 men, in that panegyric upon the ninth 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 Brit- 
 ish 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 allu- 
 sions ever made by a minister of this country. He quoted cer- 
 tain 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 Eng- 
 land. 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, gentle- 
 men, was Rome? Rome was indeed an imperial state, you 
 may tell me — I know not, I cannot read the counsels of Provi- 
 dence — a State having a mission to subdue the world, but a 
 State whose very basis it was to deny the equal rights, to pro- 
 scribe the independent existence of other nations. That, gen- 
 tlemen, was the Roman idea. It has been partially and not 
 ill described in three lines of a translation from Vergil by our 
 great poet Dryden, which run 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."
 
 ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS 281 
 
 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 our- 
 selves, 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 our- 
 selves. 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 per- 
 form 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, gentle- 
 men, freely to spend their blood and treasure in a cause not im- 
 mediately 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 Napo- 
 leon, that under his dominion France was not content even with 
 her extended limits, but Germany, and Italy, and Spain, appar- 
 ently 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 na- 
 tional 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
 
 
 282 GLADSTONE 
 
 debt that nearly crushed their energies, and poured forth their 
 Lest 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 compro- 
 mised 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 de- 
 fends 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 disparage- 
 ment, 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 funda- 
 mental interests of Christian society.
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 
 
 Delivered in the House of Commons, March I, 1869 
 
 THE motion, sir, which, in concluding, I shall propose to 
 the committee is, that the chairman be directed to move 
 the House that leave be given to bring in a bill to put an 
 end to the Established Church in Ireland, and to make pro- 
 vision in respect of the temporalities thereof, and in respect 
 of the Royal College of Maynooth. I do not know, sir, whether 
 I should be accurate in describing the subject of this resolu- 
 tion as the most grave and arduous work of legislation that 
 ever has been laid before the House of Commons ; but I am 
 quite sure I should speak the truth if I confined myself to 
 asserting that there has probably been no occasion when the 
 disproportion was so great between the demands of the sub- 
 ject that is to be brought before you, and the powers of the 
 person whose duty it is to submit it. I will not, however, 
 waste time in apologies that may be considered futile, and the 
 more so because I am conscious that the field I have to traverse 
 is a very wide one, and that nothing but the patient favor and 
 kindness of the committee can enable me in any degree to 
 attain the end I have in view — namely, that of submitting 
 with fulness and with clearness both the principles and the 
 details of a measure which, as far as regards its principles, is 
 singularly arduous, and, as far as regards its details, must 
 necessarily embrace matter of a character highly complex and 
 diverse. 
 
 Now, I cannot but be aware that, under ordinary circum- 
 stances, one who undertakes to introduce to the House of 
 Commons a subject of grave constitutional change ought to 
 commence by laying his ground strongly and broadly in his- 
 torical and political reasons. On this occasion I shall feel 
 myself in the main dispensed from entering upon them. Un- 
 
 283
 
 284 GLADSTONE 
 
 der ordinary circumstances, in discussing the subject of the 
 Church of Ireland — I mean had nothing already occurred in 
 this House or elsewhere in relation to it on which I might 
 take my stand — I should endeavor to pass in review the nu- 
 merous, I might say the numberless and powerful arguments 
 which, in my opinion, may be adduced to prove that this 
 Establishment cannot continue to exist with advantage to it- 
 self or without mischief to the country. I should be prepared 
 to show how many benefices there are in Ireland where, al- 
 though there is a church population, it can hardly be said to 
 be more than an official church population, for the members 
 of these benefices are too often restricted to those whom we 
 may reasonably suppose to be supplied by the families of the 
 clergyman, the clerk, and the sexton. I should show, sir, how 
 buttresses have been devised for the maintenance of this ex- 
 traordinary system in the shape of those grants from the 
 consolidated fund in this country, on the one hand to the 
 Presbyterians under the form of the Regium Donum, and on 
 the other hand to the Roman Catholics under the form of the 
 Maynooth grant, without which it was felt that the main- 
 tenance of such an Establishment in Ireland would be intol- 
 erable and impossible. I should endeavor to show how Par- 
 liament has been so conscious of the difficulties attending the 
 position which it has held that it has actually been reduced 
 upon more than one occasion to waste away, by positive pro- 
 visions of legislation, the property of the Church, in order 
 that its magnitude compared with the duties might not too 
 much shock the public mind. I should endeavor to show how 
 in past times, and through all the evil years of the penal 
 legislation that has affected Ireland, the authorities of this 
 Established Church have unfortunately stood in the foremost 
 rank with respect to the enactment of those laws on which 
 we cannot look back without shame and sorrow. 
 
 Sir, of the Established Church in Ireland I will only say 
 that, although I believe its spirit to have undergone an im- 
 mense change since those evil times, yet, unfortunately, it still 
 remains, if not the home and the refuge, yet the token and the 
 symbol of ascendancy, and, so long as that Establishment lives, 
 painful and bitter memories of ascendancy can never die. But, 
 sir, instead of lengthened discussion upon this and kindred
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 285 
 
 topics, I hope I shall be sufficiently justified in passing at once 
 to the measure of the Government by a reference to recent 
 occurrences. In form, without doubt, this is the first, the very 
 first stage of a great political measure, liable and open at 
 every point to controversy ; but in substance we cannot dis- 
 miss from our view that we are virtually taking up and are 
 bound to prosecute the unfinished labors of last year. 
 
 I refer to those debates which formed the main, almost the 
 only, subject of party difference in the discussions of this House 
 during the session of 1868. I refer to the large majority 
 which in a House of Commons undoubtedly Conservative in 
 its general spirit affirmed, notwithstanding, the necessity of 
 bringing the system of religious establishment in Ireland to 
 a close. I refer to the autumn spent in incessant discussions 
 of this subject before every constituency in the country. I 
 refer to the elections in which the issue so clearly put was not 
 less decisively answered. And lastly, but not least, I refer to 
 that resignation of the late administration on which I have 
 not to pronounce one word of censure, but about which I am 
 sure I am justified in stating that it was an unusual course. 
 I have not one word of censure to utter, but assuredly I am 
 justified in saying that it forms the most emphatic testimony 
 to the character of that judgment which has already been pro- 
 nounced by the representatives and by the people of the three 
 kingdoms. Nor shall I dwell in any detail upon the counter- 
 arguments which have been ably, sincerely, and persistently 
 used in defence of the Established Church. If I name them, 
 it is to do little more than to say that we are responsible for 
 this measure, and we who on this side are pledged to its general 
 principles shall be ready upon every due occasion, with all re- 
 spect to those who oppose us, to meet those counter-arguments. 
 
 It is said that the measure we are about to introduce will 
 be adverse to religion. I believe it to be favorable, to be essen- 
 tial to the maintenance of those principles of right on which 
 every religion must rest. We shall be told, more especially, 
 that it is adverse to the interests of Protestantism ; but we 
 shall point to the condition of Ireland, and shall argue from 
 the facts of that condition that the interests of Protestantism 
 have not been promoted, but on the contrary have been injured 
 by our perseverance in a system which reason does not justify.
 
 286 GLADSTONE 
 
 We shall be told, perhaps, that we are invading the rights of 
 property. No possible confidence can be greater than that 
 with which we shall meet that argument. On former occa- 
 sions, indeed, things have been done by Parliament, under the 
 extreme pressure of the case, which it may be difficult to 
 reconcile with the extreme assertion of the rights of property. 
 There are clauses, and important clauses, of the Church Tem- 
 poralities Act of 1833 which greatly strain the abstract theory 
 of property, and which I for one am totally unable to reconcile 
 with its general rules. But, so far as I know, there is no im- 
 putation that can fairly be made against the measure we pro- 
 pose with respect to the rights of property by any other per- 
 sons than those who hold what appears to me the untenable 
 — I may even say the extravagant — doctrine that although 
 Parliament has a perfect right to direct the course of the 
 descent of property in the case of natural descent, lineage by 
 blood, yet it has no right, when once the artificial existence of 
 what we call a corporation has been created, to control the 
 existence of that corporation or to extinguish it even under 
 the gravest public exigency. Well, we shall be told also of 
 the Act of Union ; and I cannot, nor shall I attempt to dis- 
 semble that on a point which has been described as essential 
 we propose to alter that act. The Act of Union has been 
 altered on other occasions, though never for so grave a cause 
 as this; but we shall confidently contend that while we are 
 altering this particular provision of the Act of Union, we are 
 confirming its general purport and substance, and laboring 
 to the best of our humble ability to give it those roots which 
 unfortunately it has never yet adequately struck in the heart 
 and affections of the people. 
 
 And lastly, sir, this claim I, for one, confidently, boldly, 
 make on behalf of the measure that we are introducing — I 
 say we are giving effect to the spirit of a former policy. The 
 great minister who proposed the Act of Union neither said 
 nor believed that it would be possible under a legislative union 
 to maintain the system of religious inequality which he found 
 subsisting in Ireland. On the contrary, he has left upon record 
 his strong conviction that the countenance and support af- 
 forded from national sources to the Established Church must 
 be extended to other religions of the country. I admit that
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 287 
 
 we pursue religious equality by means different from those 
 proposed by Mr. Pitt, but by means, as I believe, better suited 
 to the purpose we have in view, and certainly more consonant 
 to the spirit, to the opportunities, and to the possibilities of 
 the times in which we live. Be that, however, as it may, and 
 with all that allowance for difference of means, the end we 
 have in view is the same, and for that end we are entitled to 
 quote his great authority, and the authority of many of those 
 who have followed him in their public career. 
 
 Sir, having referred to what I venture to call — although not 
 in any technical or formal sense — the previous stages of this 
 measure, I will briefly remind the committee of the character 
 of the general declarations by which the late House of Com- 
 mons was moved to action, and of those pledges — for I do not 
 hesitate to recognize them in that capacity — which we are now 
 called upon to do our best to redeem. I think, sir, it was well 
 understood to be the view of those who supported the resolu- 
 tions of last year that the system of Church Establishment in 
 Ireland must be brought thoroughly and completely to a close 
 — that although the word " disendowment " was never em- 
 bodied in any resolution of this House, nor, so far as I recol- 
 lect, was ever accepted without qualification in the speeches 
 of those who most prominently supported it, yet, as a general 
 rule and for every substantial purpose and effect, an end must 
 likewise be put to the system of the public endowment of re- 
 ligion in Ireland. While the principles of the measure were 
 laid thus broad and deep, it was likewise professed, and I think 
 to a great degree accepted by the House, that in all the details, 
 in all the modes of application, the rules not only of justice 
 but of equity, and not only of equity, but, within every reason- 
 able limit, even of indulgence, should be followed. 
 
 And while the measure was thus to be thorough and thus to 
 be liberal, there were two other great characteristics which, 
 in order fully to realize the desire we entertain, it ought to 
 possess. The first of these, sir, is, in my judgment, that the 
 measure ought to be prompt in its operation ; for it is not for 
 the interest of those with whom we deal any more than it is 
 for the interest of the country that — I will not say the Irish 
 Church, but — the Irish Establishment should be subjected to 
 the pain of a lingering death. That promptitude of operation
 
 288 GLADSTONE 
 
 cannot be absolute; it must necessarily be checked by con- 
 siderations arising out of the vested interests with which we 
 have to deal. But yet, subject to those rules of right and of 
 prudence, it is an object which we ought to have in view in the 
 prosecution of our work. And lastly, sir, there is another char- 
 acteristic which perhaps has hardly yet been mentioned in 
 debate, but which appears to me second to none in its im- 
 portance as determining the value of the provisions of a meas- 
 ure such as this. It is that the legislation which we now 
 propose, so far as the Irish Church is concerned, so far as the 
 subjects of religious controversy growing out of legislative 
 establishment in the sister island are concerned, shall be final 
 legislation — that it shall put away, out of sight, out of hearing, 
 out of mind if it may be, this long-continued controversy — 
 a controversy almost of generations ; and that even should it 
 necessarily happen, as commonly happens in the train of great 
 statutes, that in this or that point of detail it may require to 
 be either developed or amended, yet the bill which we propose 
 shall leave no question of principle unsolved, and shall permit 
 every man who takes part in its discussion to hope that when 
 it finally departs from within the walls of Parliament we shall 
 have heard the very last and latest of the controversy on the 
 Irish Church. 
 
 Subject, then, to those great principles, it is our duty — and 
 I am sure it will be recognized to be our duty — to seek every 
 means of softening the transition that is about to be effected. 
 We must not disguise from ourselves that we are calling upon 
 persons, upon large classes, upon individuals entitled to great 
 respect, to undergo a great change in their position under the 
 direct action of law. And every motive that can appeal to the 
 feelings of men of honor and of gentlemen must lead us, I 
 think, to feel it a duty so to proceed that this measure shall 
 carry with it no unnecessary penalty or pain. Sir, I am bound 
 to say that I think many of those who may be expected and 
 considered to take a special interest in this measure have given 
 us in this respect much encouragement. There are many emi- 
 nent persons in Ireland connected with the Church who have 
 shown a great disposition to meet us in the fair field of dis- 
 cussion, to recognize the judgment which has been pronounced 
 at the tribunal of the nation, and to endeavor to arrive at a
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 289 
 
 just and equitable settlement. Nay more, even upon that 
 Episcopal bench of England, from which oftentimes no sounds 
 but those of persistent resistance have proceeded, there have 
 been signs upon very recent occasions of a sense that it is 
 their duty to look to the future interests of the Church as well 
 as of the Establishment — of the religion as well as of the 
 property with which it is endowed. And those counsels of 
 moderation, which impose on us corresponding obligations, are 
 likely to prevail, as we may hope, in those quarters during the 
 coming discussions. In Ireland it has, indeed, been left only to 
 one single prelate — the Bishop of Down — among the Episcopal 
 order boldly to take his stand on behalf of the principle of 
 settlement and accommodation ; but yet I cannot but hope and 
 believe that there are many, even among his Episcopal breth- 
 ren, who are by no means disposed to prolong this hopeless 
 struggle or to make demands upon Parliament, as terms of 
 surrender, which it would be impossible for Parliament to 
 grant. 
 
 And now, sir, I think I may say that I will not trouble the 
 committee further upon general considerations connected with 
 this measure, but will at once proceed to use the best efforts 
 in my power to convey its character and all its leading pro- 
 visions to the minds of the committee as nearly as I can in the 
 same light and in the same form as they present themselves 
 to the minds of the Government. And I think, sir, searching 
 for a key by which I may suggest to the gentlemen who hear 
 me the best and most likely method of clearly apprehending 
 the nature of the provisions of the bill which I now hold in 
 my hand, I will venture to direct their attention to the points 
 of time — not, indeed, to all the points of time, because some 
 points of time have of necessity been chosen for secondary 
 and minor purposes — but to the three which I may call essen- 
 tial points of time, with reference to which I will endeavor to 
 state the provisions and operation of the bill so that the com- 
 mittee may have, as far as depends upon me, a clear under- 
 standing of the manner in which we shall endeavor to give 
 effect to the judgment of Parliament and of the country. 
 
 The first of these points of time, sir, is the passing of the 
 act, and I will first describe such of the effects of the act as 
 are to ensue either immediately upon its passing, or in the 
 Vol. II.— 19
 
 290 
 
 GLADSTONE 
 
 provisional and preparatory period which will immediately 
 follow its passing. The second of these points of time is a 
 day named in the act. At present it stands January 1, 1871, 
 affording an interval between the passing of the act — should 
 it, as I trust it will, become law during the present session — 
 of about eighteen months or something less for the prepara- 
 tory arrangements ; but with regard to that day 1 will presume 
 to say that while we believe it is distinctly for the interest of 
 the Church itself that this intermediate period should not be 
 too long, and while it is the absolute limit of time which we 
 have thought the best, yet it does not constitute a point of the 
 measure to which, in case the limit is found to be too narrow, 
 we should think ourselves irrevocably pledged. January I, 
 187 1, therefore, constitutes the second point of time. 
 
 The third point of time is one which we cannot define as 
 a particular date, but I can describe it by stating the events 
 which will bring it about. It is the point of time at which it 
 shall be decided by the proper authorities that all the sub- 
 sidiary arrangements connected with the winding up of the 
 establishment of the Irish Church have been completed, and 
 that thenceforth nothing remains to be done except to apply 
 the property of the Irish Church, which will then have dis- 
 charged every prior claim upon it, and will remain free for 
 the purposes which Parliament may think fit to indicate. 
 
 Begging the committee to bear in mind these three points 
 of time, I will now proceed to describe that portion of the 
 effects of the measure which will follow immediately upon the 
 passing of the bill. It is provided in almost the earliest clauses 
 that the present Ecclesiastical Commission, which was ap- 
 pointed for the purpose of administering the Church Estab- 
 lishment, and not for the purpose of bringing it to an end, 
 shall be wound up. In lieu of it new commissioners will be 
 appointed, whose names we shall at a proper time propose and 
 insert in the bill. We think very highly of the responsibility 
 of their functions, and are very desirous that the men who 
 may be proposed to discharge those functions should be men 
 to whom Parliament shall have already, for the purposes of 
 the measure, given its general approval. We shall propose that 
 this commission shall endure for ten years, estimating, as far 
 as present circumstances permit us to do, that this will be a
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 291 
 
 term ample and sufficient for all the numerous and diversified 
 purposes they will have to prosecute. In this commission, 
 upon the passing of the bill, the entire property of the Church 
 in Ireland will vest, subject to life interests. The committee 
 will at once see the importance of that enactment. As far as 
 legal and technical disendowment is concerned, it will have 
 occurred on the day when the measure has received the royal 
 assent, because there will no longer remain in the Church of 
 Ireland any title whatever to its property other than that of 
 the commissioners, and other than those temporary titles which 
 we propose that Parliament should recognize. And all the 
 subsequent arrangements which may be found necessary con- 
 nected with fabrics or with any other points of the question, 
 will be technically in the nature of a reendowment, and will 
 be brought by me separately under your consideration. 
 
 Then, sir, next to the vesting of the property, I have to 
 mention the provision we propose to make for the government 
 and management of the Church during this intermediate period. 
 Last year we proposed and passed through this House a bill 
 which suspended every appointment in Ireland from the day 
 of its falling vacant, and we trusted entirely to collateral and 
 subsidiary provisions of the law to make a supply for the time 
 being of such assistance as might be necessary for the actual 
 discharge of duties until Parliament should give its further 
 judgment. Now, sir, it appears to be plain on the one hand 
 that those provisions, which I think were very well adapted to 
 the object we had in view last year of reserving the whole 
 matter for the further judgment of Parliament, are not so well 
 adapted to the purpose we now have in view — that is, to apply 
 definite legislation to the determination of the whole question. 
 On the other hand, it appears to us to be equally indisputable 
 that there is one thing which we could not consistently or 
 properly allow to be done during this intermediate period. We 
 could not properly allow after the passing of the act the crea- 
 tion of new vested interests for life. We have therefore en- 
 deavored to steer as fairly as we can between these difficulties ; 
 on the one side proposing not to be parties to the creation of 
 new vested interests, which I think everyone will see would 
 from our point of view be highly inconsistent, and on the other 
 side being equally anxious that the Irish Church, at a period
 
 292 
 
 GLADSTONE 
 
 when all its ministers and members will be called upon to ex- 
 ert themselves to the utmost in preparing for the future, should 
 not be subjected to the disadvantage of a crippled ecclesiastical 
 organization. 
 
 What we therefore propose is, that appointments may be 
 made, generally speaking, to the spiritual offices without in- 
 vesting the person invested with a freehold ; that he may 
 receive during the interval the income as nearly as it can be 
 calculated which he would have received if he had taken the 
 freehold in the ordinary course, but that his title to it shall 
 terminate when the provisional period is at an end, and when 
 the links which connect the Establishment with the Church 
 are finally broken. With respect, in particular, to Episcopal 
 appointments, the provision we propose is as follows : We think 
 it is very desirable after once the statute shall have passed for 
 disestablishing the Church, to separate the Crown from the ex- 
 ercise of its old prerogative within the Church. We, there- 
 fore, propose that Episcopal appointments may be made by 
 the Crown, but only on the prayer of the bishops themselves 
 of the provinces of Ireland to consecrate a particular person 
 to a vacancy. Such appointment, if made, will carry with it 
 no vested interest, nor will it carry with it any right of peerage. 
 The Irish Church being engaged in perfecting its organization 
 for the future will probably not run the risk of having its sees 
 and rectories vacant, but will have, so to speak, a staff fully 
 adequate to deal with the coming contingency. 
 
 With respect to the exercise of Crown patronage as to liv- 
 ings, our view is this — while we take it for granted that at 
 any rate as a general rule these livings would be filled up in 
 the interval, they would be filled up on the same footing as 
 bishoprics. In regard to the temporalities the disposition of 
 the present advisers of the Crown, in making appointments 
 wherever they have by law a right of patronage, would be to 
 be guided within the limits of reason by the advice and recom- 
 mendation of the ecclesiastical authorities. I think that is all 
 I need say as regards the intermediate system that we shall 
 now propose in lieu of the suspensory clauses of the bill of 
 last year, except that in one point they would correspond more 
 strictly with the provisions of the bill — namely, in this, that 
 the commissioners would be inhibited from laying out money
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 293 
 
 for permanent purposes, such as the building of new churches, 
 during the interval, and would only be authorized to expend 
 money for the purpose of substantial repairs, for the fulfil- 
 ment of engagements actually entered into, and for the neces- 
 sary charges for the performance of divine worship in the same 
 manner as heretofore. So much for the scheme in relation to 
 suspensory clauses. 
 
 The next important enactment which will take effect im- 
 mediately on the passing of the bill is this. It is well known 
 to the committee that certain disabilities affect the collective 
 action of the clergy, and although the Convocations of Eng- 
 land sit and have just been sitting, yet it is not in their power 
 to proceed either to pass, or even to discuss with a view of 
 passing, any canon, or regulation in the nature of a canon, with- 
 out the assent of the Crown. In Ireland the case is different, 
 and more adverse to the action of the Church, for there the Con- 
 vocation has in point of fact never acted at all, excepting upon 
 some very few occasions which may be specially pointed out, 
 and the latest of those occasions, if I remember right, was a 
 century and a half, if not fully two centuries ago. But besides 
 the total disuse of that ecclesiastical machinery, and the difficulty 
 in which the Crown is placed when it is called upon to revive or 
 be a party to the revival of that which has never worked at all 
 for two hundred years, and with respect to the working rules 
 of which there are, even among lawyers, very grave doubts, 
 there are in Ireland special provisions of the law called the Con- 
 vention Act, which, though passed for purely political purposes, 
 have the effect of preventing the clergy and laity of the Church 
 from meeting in any general assembly. It is understood, I be- 
 lieve, that the clergy and laity of a parish may meet, but that the 
 Church at large is incapacitated from meeting. 
 
 Now, it will, I presume, be deemed on both sides of the 
 House to be obviously just and necessary that all disabilities 
 whatsoever which in any manner fetter the action of the Church 
 with reference to legislation for the future — and when I speak 
 of legislation, I mean private legislation with respect to mak- 
 ing voluntary contracts and regulations — ought, in passing a 
 Disestablishment Act, to be at once and entirely swept away. 
 When I say that, let it not be supposed I intend to insinuate 
 any opinion to the effect that such a measure either is likely
 
 294 GLADSTONE 
 
 to cause or ought to be desired to cause a religious or spiritual 
 separation between the Church of Ireland and the Church of 
 England. The words of this measure have been carefully con- 
 sidered in reference to the Act of Union, so as to limit, as far 
 as lies in our power, their repealing force to the establishment 
 of those Churches, and we have been very desirous to do noth- 
 ing which could possibly be held to interfere with their ecclesi- 
 astical relationship. At a later period I shall have to state to 
 the committee what we have thought it our duty to propose, 
 in order to prevent any kind of shock to their internal condi- 
 tion. But of this I am persuaded, that the best friends of 
 religious union between the disestablished Church in Ireland 
 and the Established Church in England will be those who most 
 completely assert the liberty of the former to take its own 
 course. Were we to attempt to apply to them constraint even 
 in the faintest and feeblest form, for the purpose of seeking 
 to secure their union, we should, I believe, engender reaction, 
 even if such a proceeding were not open to the more palpable 
 and obvious objection that, considering the general scope of 
 our bill, it would be totally and radically unjust. 
 
 These, I think, are the positive and most important pro- 
 visions which we propose as provisions which must take effect 
 simultaneously with the passing of the bill. There is, however, 
 another provision, for the operation of which we cannot pre- 
 cisely fix a time, because it does not depend altogether on us, 
 but which this appears to me to be the proper place to men- 
 tion. Inasmuch as there must necessarily grow out of the 
 present position of the Church in Ireland, its property, and 
 arrangements, a number of measures that in winding up this 
 great system will have to be considered and discussed between 
 some authority on the part of the State and some authority 
 on the part of the Church, the course which we propose to 
 Parliament to take is this: We presume that during the in- 
 terval which the bill will create after the disabilities are re- 
 moved, the bishops, clergy, and laity of the Church of Ireland 
 will proceed to constitute for themselves, in the same manner 
 as other religious communities have done, something in the 
 nature of a governing body. We therefore take by this meas- 
 ure power to Her Majesty in Council — not to create such a 
 body, but to recognize it when created, and we seek to avoid
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 295 
 
 making Her Majesty the judge, either directly or by implica- 
 tion, whether this body is or is not for all purposes created 
 wisely and well. But in the enacting words of the bill we 
 should direct the attention of the Crown solely to one point 
 — that it must be a representative body, representative alike of 
 the bishops, clergy, and laity. In point of fact, Her Majesty's 
 advisers would have to act simply as a jury, and to satisfy 
 themselves that this body so constituted, according to the will 
 and judgment of the Church, fulfilled in good faith the char- 
 acter of a representative body. Her Majesty would then recog- 
 nize that body as such, and it would become incorporated under 
 the provisions of the act for the purposes which I shall have 
 presently to describe. 
 
 Now, the committee will see how far we have got. We have 
 passed our provisions through the intermediate period, and 
 we are coming to the day fixed in the act for the principal and 
 final provisions of the bill to take effect. We have got in 
 operation a commission which is to be the organ of the State 
 in giving effect to the whole of our arrangements, and we 
 have given time and every facility which properly belongs to 
 us, not for bringing into operation, but for permitting to come 
 into operation, that organ which we presume the members of 
 the Church of Ireland will appoint in order to transact their 
 share of the complicated business which will remain to be 
 transacted. I now come to the second and most important 
 period of time which stands at present fixed in the bill as 
 January 1, 1871. On that day, according to the provisions of 
 the bill, the union created by act of Parliament between the 
 Churches of England and Ireland would be dissolved, and 
 " the said Church of Ireland hereafter referred to as ' the said 
 Church ' " — I am now quoting the bill — would cease to be es- 
 tablished by law. There would be at the same time a saving 
 clause in the bill to prevent its having any effect on the Act of 
 Union other than that which is thus strictly limited and de- 
 fined. On that day the ecclesiastical courts in Ireland would 
 be abolished, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Ireland would 
 cease, the ecclesiastical laws in Ireland would no longer bind 
 by any authority as law, the rights of peerage would lapse on 
 the part of the bishops, and all ecclesiastical corporations in 
 that country would be dissolved.
 
 296 
 
 GLADSTONE 
 
 The committee is well aware that the Church itself is not a 
 corporation, but an aggregate of corporations. I am, I be- 
 lieve, strictly accurate in saying that with these provisions in 
 operation on January 1, 1871, the work of the disestablishment 
 of the Irish Church would be legally completed. There is, at 
 the same time, a point of great importance, which I think this 
 is the place for me to mention. Though we feel it to be a 
 necessary — and it will, I think, be admitted by the House 
 generally to be necessary — part of such a plan as this that it 
 should at once put an end to the force and authority of ec- 
 clesiastical laws, as such, in Ireland, yet we also feel that it 
 is our duty not unnecessarily to subject that religious com- 
 munion now called the Irish Established Church to shocks 
 and inconveniences with respect to the management of its in- 
 ternal affairs not required by the scope of our measure. It 
 is not our desire that this transition — this great political transi- 
 tion — should be attended with the maximum, but rather with 
 the minimum, of ecclesiastical change. Whatever ecclesiastical 
 change is made, ought, in our opinion, to be the result of the 
 free deliberate will of the members of the Established Church, 
 and not of the shock inconsiderately imparted by crude legis- 
 lation to its machinery. 
 
 We, therefore, propose that although the ecclesiastical laws 
 shall lose their force as laws, in which respect they have a 
 certain relation to the whole community, yet they shall be 
 understood to subsist as a form of voluntary contract, which 
 shall continue to bind together the bishops, clergy, and laity 
 now constituting the Established Church until and unless they 
 shall be altered by the voluntary agency of the governing body 
 which the members of that communion may appoint. In this 
 way it appears to us that this great launch — and a great launch 
 it undoubtedly is, so far as all the ecclesiastical arrangements, 
 properly so called, are concerned — will be effected smoothly, 
 and I am, indeed, very conscious that it is desirable, on every 
 ground that it should be so, for there will be quite enough to 
 tax the energy, the prudence, and the courage of the members 
 of the Church of Ireland in making provision for the great 
 change which we are going to bring about in its internal affairs. 
 The committee, having followed me thus far, will have per- 
 ceived that we have complete technical disendowment on the
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 2g7 
 
 passing of the act, and complete and actual disestablishment on 
 the day to be named in the act, and now standing for January 
 I, 1871. 
 
 Next comes a matter on which I fear it will be my duty to 
 detain the committee for some time — the task of carrying out 
 all those special arrangements, by means of which the interests 
 of the parties affected by this great change will have to be 
 settled and adjusted in detail. I am afraid I should, perhaps, 
 alarm the committee were I to state how numerous those 
 arrangements are, but they embrace the vested interests of 
 incumbents — and by the word " incumbent " I wish to be un- 
 derstood as meaning a bishop or a dignitary of the Church, 
 as well as a clergyman having parochial charge — the vested 
 interests of curates, the case of lay and minor offices, the com- 
 pensation for advowsons; the provisions to be adopted with 
 respect to private endowments, the provisions with respect to 
 churches, with respect to glebe houses, graveyards, all of those, 
 of course, being subject to the life interests recognized by the 
 bill. There are the arrangements connected with the winding- 
 up of the Rcgium Donum, the arrangements connected with 
 the winding-up of Maynooth, the arrangements for dispos- 
 ing of the tithe commutation rent-charge, the arrangements 
 with respect to the large class of property affected by the 
 property-purchase clauses, and the arrangements connected 
 with the sale of the Church lands by the commissioners. 
 
 Let me say a word first with respect to that which is the 
 largest of all these subjects — namely, the case of the vested 
 interest of incumbents. Now, the vested interest of the in- 
 cumbent is quite distinct, on the one hand, from his expectation 
 of promotion. In all cases of the abolition of establishments, 
 be they civil or ecclesiastical, I am afraid that expectation is 
 a matter into which, however legitimate it may be, it is im- 
 possible for us to enter. The vested interest of the incumbent, 
 then, is this — it is a title to receive a certain net income from 
 the property of the Church, I say from the property of the 
 Church, because I set apart receipts from pew-rents, receipts 
 from fees, receipts from other casual sources with which it is 
 no business of ours to deal. The vested interest with which 
 we have to deal is the right of the incumbent to be secured in 
 the receipt of a certain annual income from the property of
 
 298 GLADSTONE 
 
 the Church in consideration of the discharge of certain duties 
 to which he is bound as the equivalent he gives for that in- 
 come, and subject to the laws by which he is bound and the 
 religious body to which he belongs. Therefore the committee 
 will see in what sense it is true that, although the Church at 
 large, and the congregations at large, have no vested interests, 
 and it would be impossible to recognize anything of the 
 kind, yet both the Church and the congregations are very 
 largely concerned in the vested interest of the incumbent, be- 
 cause his title is not a simple, unconditional title to a certain 
 payment of money, but it is a title to a payment of money in 
 consideration of duty. In the performance of that duty the 
 congregations and the Church are deeply concerned ; and I 
 think it will be the opinion of the committee that it would be 
 unjust to them to expose them to unnecessary disparagement 
 by worsening the conditions under which they now stand in 
 reference to the clergy. 
 
 Such is the vested interest of the clergy; and I may here 
 say that although, as a rule, it is for parents to set examples 
 to children, yet, in the vicissitudes of human affairs, it some- 
 times happens that children may set a good example to parents. 
 It has happened so in this instance, for the legislature of Can- 
 ada, having to deal with a case undoubtedly far more simple, 
 far less difficult and complicated than ours, yet, notwithstand- 
 ing, in this one central and vital subject — the manner of deal- 
 ing with the vested interests of the clergy upon whose incomes 
 it was legislating, and the permanent source of whose incomes 
 it was entirely cutting off — has undoubtedly proceeded upon 
 principles which appear to balance, or rather to maintain very 
 fairly the balance established between, the separate interests 
 of the clergy and the general interests of the Church to which 
 they belong, and the congregations to which they minister. 
 Substantially, and after allowing for necessary differences of 
 expression, we think the basis afforded by the Canadian meas- 
 ure supplies us with no unsuitable pattern after which to shape 
 our own proceedings. 
 
 Such being the case, I will briefly describe to the committee 
 how we propose to deal with the vested interest of the incum- 
 bent. The plan will be this : The amount of income to which 
 each incumbent is entitled will be ascertained. It will be made
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 299 
 
 subject to deduction for the curates he may have employed. 
 That I will further explain when I come to the curate. It will 
 be made payable, in the case of each, so long as he discharges 
 the duty. And then there will be a provision that the annuity 
 itself may be commuted upon the basis of capitalizing it as 
 an annuity for life. Therefore, the commutation, taking the 
 rate of interest at three and one-half per cent., will represent 
 his whole interest in the income he receives, presuming it to 
 last for life. This commutation can only be made upon the 
 application of the incumbent. He must be the prime mover 
 in bringing it about. Upon his application the sum of money 
 will be paid to that which I shall call, for shortness, the Church 
 body, but it will be paid to the Church body subject to the legal 
 trust of discharging the obligation or covenant which we had 
 ourselves to discharge to the incumbent — namely, to give him 
 the annuity in full so long as he discharged the duties. The 
 effect of that plan of commutation will be that, by means of 
 the Church body, and of the inducements that will be given 
 to arrangements between the Church body and the incumbents, 
 we, the State, should escape, as we hope and believe, at a very 
 early period from that which it is undoubtedly not desirable 
 to maintain longer than is absolutely necessary — namely, a 
 direct relation of administrator and recipient between the or- 
 gans of the State and the individual clergy of the Church. That 
 is the nature of the interest which the State possesses in com- 
 mutation ; and although, undoubtedly, commutation would be 
 an arrangement so far favorable to the Church collectively — 
 and the very same thing will apply totidem verbis to the Pres- 
 byterians of Ireland — as enabling the Church body and the in- 
 dividual to adjust their relations and to make a more economical 
 application of their resources than would be possible by the 
 maintenance of the original annuities, yet the interest of the 
 State in bringing these transactions to a close will be felt amply 
 to justify and strongly to recommend some arrangement of the 
 kind. 
 
 Well, that is the mode in which we should propose to pro- 
 ceed with respect to the great subject of life interests. These 
 life interests are in truth by far the greatest — and, indeed, 
 much greater than all the rest put together — of the demands 
 upon the fund of the Church before it becomes free and avail-
 
 3 oo GLADSTONE 
 
 able for other purposes. I wish, however, to explain what I 
 have not yet stated — that the recognition of life interests, which 
 would be conditional as regards the performance of the duties 
 that are now the equivalent for the income, would be uncon- 
 ditional in other respects. We should not attempt to interfere, 
 in the main, with the position of the clergyman either as pro- 
 prietor or occupier of land. In many cases, indeed, as we know, 
 the clergy of Ireland do farm their own glebes. In many cases 
 they let land from year to year. In many cases the land is let 
 upon short leases; and although it would be desirable if we 
 could to bring the clergy to give up the position of landlord as 
 soon as possible, we do not propose to effect this result by any 
 compulsory enactment. Commutation, we think, will offer in- 
 ducements which will be sufficient for the purpose ; but, speak- 
 ing generally, we do not propose, by any compulsory provision 
 in the bill to interfere with the position of the clergyman in 
 relation to any part of his freehold. 
 
 There is, however, one exception which I must mention, be- 
 cause it is an exception which, perhaps, has a name and a bulk, 
 though insignificant in every other respect. It is the tithe com- 
 mutation rent-charge. We propose that the tithe commutation 
 rent-charge shall at once and absolutely, and without any inter- 
 vening life interest, vest in the commission under the act, and 
 the reason is that the tithe commutation rent-charge, with the 
 single exception of a certain amount of fluctuation, which, of 
 course, is rather in the nature of an inconvenience than a con- 
 venience to the clergyman, is in every other respect a fixed in- 
 terest ; and inasmuch as it is very desirable immediately to put 
 in action certain arrangements respecting it, we propose to take 
 it at once into the hands of the commissioners, the faith of 
 Parliament, of course, being pledged to the payment of the 
 whole proceeds which the clergyman could derive from it. Be- 
 sides that, there is nother very small exception which we have 
 thought fit to make. I will speak by and by of the case of 
 churches which are in use, but there are in Ireland cases of 
 churches wholly ruinous, many in graveyards, but many apart 
 from graveyards. In some cases the freehold may be in the 
 incumbent of the parish. We propose at once to dispossess 
 him of that freehold. It may be desirable that these sites should 
 be disposed of either by throwing them into the burial-grounds
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 301 
 
 or in some other manner, but there can be no advantage in keep- 
 ing up that barren freehold, which is totally unproductive of 
 practical results to the clergyman, and is purely incidental to 
 his position as clergyman of a Church established by law. 
 
 There is another change which would be made immediately 
 upon the disestablishment of the Church, and which it is my 
 duty to bring specially to the notice of the committee, although 
 probably the view of the committee will be not only in favor of 
 the change, but is likely to be that under the circumstances of 
 the case it is inevitable. The committee is aware of the pecu- 
 liar nature of the title of an Irish bishop to sit in the House of 
 Lords. He has a title to sit there for life, and yet it is an inter- 
 mittent title. He is not a permanent member of that assembly, 
 but he is placed in a certain legal rotation which brings him 
 there for a session and then dismisses him, in the case of the 
 archbishop for one, and in the case of the bishops for two or 
 three sessions. We have had to ask ourselves whether it is de- 
 sirable that a right of peerage so singular in its character and 
 operation should continue after the disestablishment of the 
 Church. I own that it is not without some regret and pain 
 that I propose a provision which should seem in the slightest 
 degree to convey a slight or disparagement in point of dignity 
 to individuals who, as such, I believe to be fully and amply 
 worthy of the honors they enjoy in the House of Lords. But 
 the anomaly is so great, and then, again, it is so obvious that 
 the Irish bishops are maintained in the House of Lords for the 
 very purpose of representing a national and an Established 
 Church, that — although not without regret as far as the indi- 
 viduals are concerned — I think we cannot hesitate to propose 
 to the committee that these peerages should lapse with the dis- 
 establishment of the Church. It is because this proposal forms 
 a qualification to the broad principle I have laid down as to re- 
 specting life interests in their integrity that I have been so 
 particular in calling attention to it. 
 
 Well, now, sir, I come to the case of the curates, and I hope 
 the committee will not be shocked at my endeavoring to state 
 clearly the nature of the provisions we propose with regard to 
 this most meritorious class of men, because, wearisome as it 
 must necessarily be to you to pass through such a wilderness of 
 details, yet there are many hundreds of persons for whom this
 
 3 o2 GLADSTONE 
 
 question may be, or at least is believed by them to be, a matter 
 of life or death, and who wait with the keenest anxiety to know 
 the view that has been taken of their case. In speaking of the 
 case of curates, I do not speak simply of those clergymen who 
 have entered into transitory and fluctuating engagements for 
 a week, month, or other short period. I speak of those who 
 are regularly enlisted in the service of the Church as curates, 
 and, in point of fact, are bound to that office by a long life- 
 tenure, unless, as they hope may at some time happen, they 
 should be presented to benefices. I speak of those who in a 
 popular sense I may venture to call the permanent curates of 
 the Irish Church. There is a great deal of difficulty in dealing 
 with this class of persons, but the committee will observe that 
 I am not now asking them to invade the public or the national 
 fund for the purpose of compensation. In the main I am only 
 studying to secure the due application to the benefit of the 
 curate of those deductions which we have already made from 
 the income of the incumbent, when proceeding to calculate his 
 annuity for the purpose of ascertaining his vested interest. We 
 propose to deal with the curates as follows : The commissioners 
 are to determine who are curates permanently employed. In 
 some cases the form of the instrument under which they are 
 employed will adequately determine this point, but in others 
 it would not. We propose to leave the matter to the commis- 
 sioners, giving also to the incumbent the power of objecting 
 that A. B., his curate, was not permanently employed. It is 
 required, also, in order to enable the curate to take advantage 
 of the provision on this point, that he should have been em- 
 ployed on January i, 1869, and that he continue to be employed 
 on January 1, 1871, or that, if he has ceased to be employed, the 
 discontinuance of his employment shall be due to some cause 
 other than his own free choice or misconduct. That will be 
 the test. Being so eligible, he would, prima facie, be entitled 
 to have the interest in his curacy calculated for life, he would 
 have a vested interest in it in the same way as the incumbent 
 has in the income of his living or bishopric, and he would be 
 entitled to have it commuted upon the same terms. He would 
 also be subjected to the corresponding obligation to that which 
 would be imposed on the incumbent — that is to say, he would 
 be bound to continue the duties he now performs until he ef-
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 303 
 
 fects an arrangement for commutation ; he would be bound to 
 render the same services to the incumbent that he formerly did, 
 or if he cease to render them, in order to maintain his quali- 
 fication, that cessation must be due to some other cause than 
 his own misconduct or free choice. 
 
 With regard to the curates of a more transitory class, we 
 have a provision in the bill which appears to us a fair analogy 
 to a similar provision in the Civil Service Superannuation Acts, 
 according to which gratuities may be awarded in consequence 
 of disadvantages they may have sustained. But that is a matter 
 of minor importance and minute detail upon which I will not at 
 present detain the committee. 
 
 I come now to the arrangements I shall have to make with 
 regard to private endowments — and here it would be as well to 
 refer to a misunderstanding that sprung up in the course of 
 last session in consequence of an expression used by me. I said 
 in the course of discussion on the Irish Church that not less 
 than three-fifths, as far as I could reckon, of the whole money 
 value of the property of the Church would be given back to 
 the Church itself or to its members in any form of disestab- 
 lishment that Parliament would probably agree to. It was not 
 generally observed how important a part of that statement were 
 the words " or its members," which I pronounced with some 
 emphasis. What the Church will receive under the plan of the 
 Government I will endeavor to separate from what its mem- 
 bers will receive. No doubt its members will receive compensa- 
 tion, and the congregations of the Church have a very real 
 interest, if not a vested interest, in those compensations. But 
 with regard to the Church itself, the proposal of the Govern- 
 ment would be to convey to it nothing in the shape of what 
 I may call marketable property — I will by and by explain what 
 I mean by that phrase — with the exception of private endow- 
 ments which it may have received. 
 
 I beg the committee not to come prematurely to a conclusion 
 as to the meaning of those words, but I think I shall be able to 
 make them good, and to explain them in the course of what I 
 am now going to say. With respect to these private endow- 
 ments we do not propose that the enactments relating to them 
 should embrace churches or glebe houses, because these are 
 dealt with on grounds of their own, which take them out of
 
 3°4 
 
 GLADSTONE 
 
 this category. But there are private endowments in the Irish 
 Church, and although they do not appear to be very large in 
 amount they are various in form — such as endowments in glebe 
 lands, in tithes, and in money. And the definition of private 
 endowments we think it fair to take is this : In the first place, 
 it must be money which has been contributed from private 
 sources. It may have been given in a public character, as for 
 example in the case of Primate Boulter and Primate Robinson ; 
 but though given by persons holding a public position, its hav- 
 ing been given in a private capacity evidently constitutes it a 
 private endowment. But we limit it by date, and the date we 
 have chosen to propose to Parliament for limitation is the year 
 1660 — the year of the Restoration. 
 
 The reason that has recommended the date to us is the fact 
 that the Restoration was really the period at which the Church 
 of Ireland — the Reformed or Protestant Church of Ireland — as- 
 sumed its present legislative shape and character. Before the 
 wars of Charles I, in all the three Churches of the three king- 
 doms there were more or less the different elements that finally 
 developed themselves into different forms of Protestantism, and 
 these were in conflict together within the bosom of the Na- 
 tional Church. In England we had Puritanism and Anglicanism 
 struggling for ascendancy within the pale of the Church, as we 
 are told in Scripture that Jacob and Esau struggled together 
 within the womb of their mother. In Scotland there was the 
 same struggle, with the exception that there Presbyterian was 
 really in the ascendancy. In Ireland Presbyterianism and Epis- 
 copacy were struggling powerfully together during the reigns 
 of James I and Charles I. It may not be known to all who hear 
 me — though it ought to be known, and it tends strongly to jus- 
 tify us in not going beyond the Restoration — that the very 
 confession, the doctrinal confession of the Irish Church in the 
 reigns of James I and Charles I was not the same as that in Eng- 
 land. It was modelled by Archbishop Usher upon the highest 
 Calvinistic frame, and it included nine articles which composed 
 a document well known in England under the name of the Lam- 
 beth Articles, drawn up in the latter end of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. I hope I shall not wound the feelings of any man when 
 I say that it was one of the most formidable collections of the- 
 ology which ever proceeded from the pen of a divine in the
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 3o5 
 
 whole history of Christendom. It was different in spirit to the 
 Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, and the consti- 
 tution of the Irish Church was practically different. Presby- 
 terianism was not formally or legally recognized, but it had 
 a real or practical recognition in Ulster, which was occupied 
 by Scotch rather than English colonists, who were for the most 
 part Presbyterians. I find no proof that when a Presbyterian 
 minister went over from Scotland to Ireland he was obliged to 
 submit to reordination, and if a bishop had to go into a place 
 where ordination was going on, he was never allowed, as far as 
 I can learn, in the case of a man of strong Presbyterian opinions, 
 to assert his Episcopal character and his exclusive power of 
 ordination, but had to beg for admission into the room where 
 the ordination was going on. Even if we could trace the private 
 endowments back to so remote a period, the first effect would 
 be to raise a strong controversy between the friends of Pres- 
 bytery and Episcopacy. 
 
 When we come to the time of Charles II, at which period 
 the ecclesiastical condition both of England and Ireland be- 
 came distinct, we ask you, then, to distinguish private and pub- 
 lic endowments, because we know historically that a man, at any 
 rate, knew what he was doing, and the fair presumption arises 
 that if he gave his money to the Church, it was for the support 
 of that form of religion to which it is now applied. That will 
 be the definition we propose to take with respect to private en- 
 dowments. They are not numerous in the Church of Ireland, 
 but they are of extraordinary interest. Take the case of the 
 parish of Laracor, the parish of which Swift was vicar before 
 he was transferred to the deanery of St. Patrick's. When he 
 went into it, Laracor had a glebe house and one acre. He left 
 it with a glebe house and twenty acres. He improved and 
 decorated it in many ways. It is sad and melancholy to learn, 
 if only we look upon this place as one of the memorials of so 
 extraordinary a man, that many of the embellishments, or what 
 our Scotch friends would call " amenities " of the glebe which 
 grew up under his fostering hand have since been effaced. He 
 endowed the vicarage with certain tithes which he had pur- 
 chased for the purpose ; and I doubt whether it is generally 
 very well known that a curious question arises on this bequest, 
 because a portion of his property — by the by, consisting, I be- 
 Voi.. II.— 20
 
 306 
 
 GLADSTONE 
 
 lieve, of those very tithes — was left by him for what he calls — 
 I never knew the term to be used elsewhere — " the Episcopal 
 religion established in Ireland." But that extraordinary man, 
 even at the time when he wrote that the Irish Catholics were 
 so down-trodden and insignificant that no possible change could 
 ever bring them into a position of importance, appears to have 
 foreseen the day when the ecclesiastical arrangements of Ire- 
 land would be called to account ; because, not satisfied with 
 leaving the property to maintain the Episcopal religion he pro- 
 ceeds to provide for the day when that Episcopal religion might 
 be disestablished, and be no longer the national religion of the 
 country. Apparently by some secret intimation he foresaw the 
 shortness of its existence as an Establishment, for he left the 
 property subject to a condition that in such case it should be 
 administered for the benefit of the poor. 
 
 The value of the private endowments, as far as we have been 
 able to ascertain, is not more than half-a-million, between land- 
 tithes and money. It is very uncertain. I may say here that I 
 think the committee will recognize the fairness of a step which 
 we propose to take. There may be a good deal of legal research 
 and legal expenditure requisite in order to obtain evidence upon 
 those titles. We propose, therefore, to authorize the commis- 
 sioners to allow the parties reasonable expenses in cases where 
 they think those expenses have been fairly undertaken in ascer- 
 taining the title and establishing the fact of private endowments. 
 I now come to the churches. This is the way in which we pro- 
 pose to deal with churches. When I say churches, I mean 
 principally — indeed, I may say exclusively — churches which 
 are in use by the present Established Church. Now, it is quite 
 evident that churches cost a great deal of money to erect, but 
 that when erected they do not properly fall within the category 
 of " marketable property." Buyers will not easily be found, 
 and in Ireland, as far as I can understand, there is no great in- 
 sufficiency of churches — in the Establishment there is a pro- 
 fusion — among the Presbyterians or the Roman Catholics. Be 
 that as it may — whether founded on feeling or the inconverti- 
 bility of churches into marketable property — we have no doubt 
 whatever that, subject always to the general though not legal 
 obligation of applying them to religious purposes, we propose 
 that the churches of Ireland should be handed over to the gov-
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 307 
 
 erning body of the disestablished Church with as little difficulty, 
 impediment, or embarrassment as possible. 
 
 What we propose, therefore, is, that within the trust those 
 churches may be taken on the simple declaration of that body 
 that it is their intention to take and maintain them for the pur- 
 poses of worship, or else to take them down, which they wish to 
 do in certain cases, where it is expedient for the purpose of 
 substituting for them new churches, which the governing body 
 may desire to build, and which may be more convenient, espe- 
 cially having reference to the altered temporal circumstances 
 of their community. Under these circumstances, I have no 
 doubt a great number of these churches will be taken over by 
 the governing body of the disestablished Church ; but, whether 
 that be so or not, it is our duty to make provision for the acci- 
 dental case of churches being refused. If churches be not taken 
 over by the governing body, we are not led to think that it would 
 be expedient for Parliament to contemplate their actual trans- 
 fer, under operation of law, to any other religious community ; 
 nor are we led to believe that would be generally desired by any 
 other partv. We, therefore, take a general power to enable the 
 commissioners to dispose of the site, or of the building itself, 
 or, more properly, its materials. 
 
 Now, there is a case on which I should say a few words, be- 
 cause I think it is one in which equity requires or recommends 
 that we should make a small allowance from the ecclesiastical 
 fund to the disestablished Church. Unhappily, in Ireland there 
 are not copiously scattered, as in England, churches which are 
 beautiful and wonderful specimens of art, and which form one 
 of the richest portions of our national treasury ; but here and 
 there in Ireland there are churches of that class. I need only 
 mention one which has been before the public in a peculiar man- 
 ner of late years — the Church of St. Patrick in Dublin. We 
 cannot but admit these two propositions : In the first place, that 
 it is desirable that such churches should be maintained, that it 
 would not be desirable for the credit or character of the coun- 
 try that they should fall into decay ; and the second proposition 
 is that the maintenance of such fabrics is more than we have a 
 right to expect by means of casual voluntary contributions. If 
 such a congregation, founded on voluntary bases, should think 
 to erect for itself such a church as St, Patrick's or Westminster
 
 3 o8 
 
 GLADSTONE 
 
 Abbey, it will be for them to be responsible for its maintenance ; 
 but, with respect to those fabrics which have been erected and 
 have been held under the expectation of permanent maintenance, 
 we propose — subject to very careful limitations, for we confine 
 the number to twelve churches — that the commissioners should 
 be authorized, where it is desirable that a church should be 
 maintained as a national monument, and where it is found that 
 the maintenance would be too heavy for a voluntary congrega- 
 tion, to allow a moderate sum for its maintenance to those to 
 whom it is given up. This is not a very large provision, but 
 it is one recommended by the distinct equity of the case. 
 
 I will say one word with regard to churches which are not 
 in use in Ireland. Some of these national monuments are of a 
 curious and interesting character ; but, at the same time, as in 
 the case of the churches at Glendalough, they are not suited or 
 adapted to public worship. Therefore, we propose that such 
 churches should be handed over to the Board of Works, with an 
 allocation of funds sufficient for their due and becoming pres- 
 ervation. In other cases where there are remains of churches 
 and sites of churches, they might form burial-grounds, or be 
 taken up and restored by one of the religious communities of 
 the country. Though their value may be insignificant, we ask 
 Parliament to give power to the commissioners to dispose of 
 them to those communities. 
 
 The next question, I am sorry to say, like that of the curates, 
 is beset with complications. It is one which was before the 
 public last year, and with respect to it my views are very much 
 qualified, or, indeed, I may say almost overturned, by the state 
 of facts that since then we have become more accurately ac- 
 quainted with. It is the case of the glebe houses ; and I wish 
 when I speak of them to include the see houses, as I included 
 the bishops when I spoke of the incumbents, because, in all es- 
 sential respects, they stand on the same footing. With respect 
 to the glebe houses, it is exceedingly difficult to analyze the 
 sources from which the means of building them have pro- 
 ceeded. Parliamentary grants have had a share of it ; and 
 private endowments have had a share of it ; but the greater 
 part of those funds has hitherto been supplied by charges de- 
 ducted from the incomes of the clergy under Acts of Parlia- 
 ment, enabling them to charge their successors as well as them-
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 309 
 
 selves. Now, a nice and knotty question arises, as to whether 
 money so obtained is to be regarded as a public or a private 
 endowment. I can imagine a whole night spent in the discus- 
 sion of that point. The greatest difficulties have arisen upon 
 this point, and I myself have inclined sometimes one way and 
 sometimes another with reference to it. As, in the case of the 
 churches, there are some men of a practical turn of mind, not 
 perhaps open much on the side of their imagination, whose 
 minds were materially influenced by the observation that 
 churches were not a marketable property, so the same feeling 
 obtains as a general rule with respect to glebe houses, the value 
 of which, while immense to the body that may possess the 
 churches, is very small indeed to any other persons. 
 
 How correct I am in making this statement the committee 
 will be enabled to judge when I inform them that we can trace 
 an expenditure upon the glebe houses, not including sites, 
 amounting to £1,200,000, and yet the whole of the present value 
 of them in Ireland, including the ground upon which they are 
 built, is estimated at only £18,600 per annum. I hear a good 
 deal of murmuring from some quarters of the House, and I am 
 not surprised at it, because when these facts first came to my 
 knowledge I was astonished myself. 
 
 [An honorable member inquired whether the sum mentioned included 
 the value of the glebes.] 
 
 No, if I wanted to confuse the matter thoroughly I should 
 merely have to discuss the subjects of the glebe houses and 
 the glebes together. I have alluded to this point because I de- 
 sire to draw a distinction between the title of the Church to 
 what may be looked upon as property, because it can be con- 
 verted into a sensible amount of money, and its title to that 
 which, however valuable to it as a body, has no marketable 
 value. 
 
 However, I by no means wish to be understood as saying 
 that the glebe houses of Ireland are worth nothing. On the 
 contrary, I will prove to the House that they are not worth 
 nothing, and I will do so by showing that we shall not get hold 
 of them without paying for them, as, unfortunately, they are 
 saddled with heavy building charges. It is a singular fact that
 
 3io GLADSTONE 
 
 upon these glebe houses, which are valued at the present mo- 
 ment at £18,600 per annum — perhaps you may be justified in 
 adding twenty per cent, to that amount in order to bring the 
 value to the rack rental — there should be in addition to the 
 enormous sums already laid out upon them a building charge 
 outstanding of about £250,000. That is the exact state of the 
 case, and I cannot put it too pointedly to the committee. 
 £1,200,000 has been already laid out upon this property, of which 
 the annual value, according to the tenements valuation, amounts 
 to £18,600, and a further sum of £250,000 is still payable upon 
 it on account of a building charge — a sum which must be paid 
 in order to enable us to come into legal possession of it. Now, 
 that is not certainly a very inviting prospect. I confess I was 
 greatly astonished when I found that property which last year 
 I proposed to treat as convertible property of very considerable 
 value turned out to have this large charge upon it and to be of 
 such comparatively small marketable value. However, such 
 as it is, we of course propose to take it. 
 
 If the statement I have made prove to be inaccurate, and 
 should it turn out that the glebe houses are of more value than 
 I am now stating them to be, what I am now about to say will 
 be subject, of course, to reconsideration. Assuming, however, 
 that my information is correct with reference to the value of 
 this property, then it appears to me that the best course we can 
 adopt under the circumstances is this : This building charge, 
 which will have to be paid by us in the first instance, is not uni- 
 formly distributed over the whole of the glebe houses. It is 
 probable that in some cases it will amount to almost their full 
 marketable value, while in others no building charge at all will 
 have to be paid. The necessity of paying the building charge 
 where it exists is binding upon us, because in such a case the 
 incumbent would have been entitled to recover it from his suc- 
 cessor, and consequently when the incumbent dies or commutes 
 under the provisions of this bill, either he or his family will be 
 entitled to recover it from us as standing in the place of his 
 successor. We are, therefore, bound by law and by justice to 
 discharge this obligation, and we are not called upon to exercise 
 any discretion in the matter. We shall come into possession of 
 the glebe houses when the existing life interests are exhausted, 
 because our interest will still be only in the nature of a rever-
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 311 
 
 sionary interest in the property, and then we shall have to pay 
 the amount of the building charge still outstanding at the time. 
 
 Having come into possession of the property upon those 
 terms, we shall assume that the glebe house, where fully 
 charged, is no property at all, but we shall still regard the land 
 upon which it stands as valuable property. We shall say to 
 the Church body : " You have taken the church, and you may 
 now negotiate with us for the land upon which the glebe house 
 is built, and also for a small glebe not exceeding ten acres in 
 extent of adjacent land, which we will sell you at a fair valua- 
 tion." But we shall add : " Where you take the land you may 
 take the house ; but you must reimburse us the whole of the 
 building charge we have paid upon it, subject to the limitation 
 that it shall not exceed ten years' valuation." After a great deal 
 of consideration, and after finding that the treasure we believed 
 we possessed in the glebe houses was merely visionary, we have 
 come to the conclusion that this is the best plan we can adopt 
 in dealing with this description of property. It has been said 
 that facilities ought to be given, although not in the way of 
 grants to the members of other communions, for the purpose of 
 enabling them to erect glebe houses for themselves. Now, that 
 is a principle which has been already adopted by Parliament in 
 the case of the Act of William IV, under which public money 
 was advanced — under somewhat onerous conditions, it is true — 
 to the Roman Catholics and the Presbyterians of Ireland for 
 the purpose of building glebe houses. Although we have not 
 inserted any clause to carry out such a proposal in the present 
 bill, we think it may be desirable that loans for this purpose 
 may be granted upon easy terms contemporaneously with the 
 winding-up arrangements to be conducted by the Ecclesiastical 
 Commission. At the same time it will be necessary to limit 
 the operation of that system within a certain period of time, 
 because I think it is open to considerable doubt whether it would 
 be desirable to keep a law of that kind permanently upon the 
 statute-book, seeing that it might possibly lead to some con- 
 troversy in Ireland. 
 
 The question relating to the burial-grounds may be disposed 
 of very shortly. I propose that the burial-grounds belonging 
 to a church shall pass along with it to the Church body holding 
 the latter, provision however being made in all cases for the
 
 312 GLADSTONE 
 
 preservation of existing interests in the burial-ground. It is 
 known to the committee that the law in Ireland, as recently ad- 
 justed with respect to burying-grounds, is very different from, 
 and is much more favorable to the public, than that in force in 
 England. We propose that all other burial-grounds shall be 
 given over to the guardians of the poor, and we propose to give 
 uniformity and simplicity to the provisions of the law which 
 is now in partial action. 
 
 I think I have now done with the winding-up arrangements 
 of the bill as far as the Established Church is concerned. There 
 still remains a portion of them which, although not very ex- 
 tensive in amount, is yet of very great importance, and one 
 which, I am bound to add, is by no means free in all its bear- 
 ing from difficulty. It was at all times part of the views of 
 those who proposed the resolutions of last year that with the 
 disestablishment of the Church must come the final cessation 
 of all relations between the State and the Presbyterian clergy 
 in Ireland and between the State and the College of Maynooth. 
 I have now to consider in what manner effect is to be given to 
 that conviction, which was strongly entertained by the House, 
 and which was, in fact, embodied in a fourth resolution passed 
 by the House during the session of 1868, which was added to 
 the other three resolutions which had been previously agreed to. 
 The sum which we have now to deal with is an annual sum of 
 about £70,000. Of that amount £26,000 a year constitutes the 
 vote for Maynooth, and between £45,000 and £50,000 is the ag- 
 gregate of the votes given for the various communities of Pres- 
 byterians. We are no longer dealing with a simple and single 
 body known to the law as the Established Church, but we are 
 dealing with classes which, in point of religious opinion, fall 
 under a threefold division. 
 
 The interest now before us is that of the Old or Scotch Pres- 
 byterians, as I may call them for distinction's sake ; the next is 
 that of the minor bodies of Presbyterians, who are separated in 
 Ireland from the main body, not only by religious communion, 
 but by grave differences in those matters which lie at the founda- 
 tions of the Christian faith. There are three or four of these 
 bodies, such as the Remonstrant Synod of Ulster, the Presbytery 
 of Antrim, and one or two more, who fall under a different 
 class of religionists ; these, or some of them, entertaining Arian 
 or what are called Unitarian opinions.
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 313 
 
 Then there are the Roman Catholics, sufficiently known to 
 us to dispense with the necessity for any description as regards 
 their religious opinions. If I refer to these distinctions of re- 
 ligious belief it is only for the purpose of stating in the broadest 
 manner that on the part of Her Majesty's Government I en- 
 tirely decline on the present occasion to enter into such matters. 
 I will not for one moment ask what are the political or the re- 
 ligious peculiarities of these bodies, professing the Christian 
 name, with whom we are to deal ; but I will endeavor to deal 
 with them strictly, impartially, and equitably on the principles of 
 civil justice, which apply to them all alike, and which render 
 it iniquitous and wrong to raise controversial questions in re- 
 gard to them or to matters of religious belief. The ground 
 they stand on is that of citizenship — the claim they urge is that 
 of general equity and good faith. We, the Government, have 
 recognized that claim. I am confident that Parliament will rec- 
 ognize that claim in the case of the Established Church. Let 
 us endeavor to proceed upon the same fair, and just, and liberal, 
 though moderate, and prudent recognition of it in the case of 
 these bodies exterior to the Established Church. Now, as re- 
 spects the larger part of this sum of £70,000 a year, there is no 
 difficulty — when you come to look at it in the light of a purely 
 civil interest. Most of it is given in the shape of a direct vote 
 of so much money passing immediately from the State to the 
 individual through the synod, but in all cases the nature of the 
 vested interest and expectancy — call it what you like — is the 
 same. All we have to do is to take precisely the same course as 
 with respect to the clergy of the Established Church. Take the 
 question of income — which here being a mere matter of money 
 can be at once ascertained — that is not given to him for nothing, 
 but on the condition of the performance of duty. Hence, with a 
 slight modification, which I need not here mention, a similar 
 claim will arise in the case of the Presbyterian minister to that 
 which I have already explained in the case of the incumbent ; 
 and the bill also will give to him a power of commutation in 
 every substantial respect corresponding with that proposed to be 
 made for the clergy of the Established Church. 
 
 So far with respect to the clergy and to life interests proper. 
 Beside the ministers who perform spiritual offices in particular 
 congregations, there is another class that appears to us to have
 
 3 i4 GLADSTONE 
 
 a claim ; they are what are called assistants and successors. Now 
 these gentlemen are in a condition, not indeed as to the abun- 
 dance of the interest at which they are ultimately to arrive, but 
 otherwise I take it legally in a condition not very far removed 
 from that of an heir of entail; they are already appointed to 
 the assistant pastorship of a particular congregation ; they de- 
 rive no benefit from the Regium Donum, but the office of as- 
 sistant which they hold entitles them to succeed after the death 
 or resignation of the incumbent, and consequently it is urged 
 that they have a just claim to the expectancy created by that 
 right of succession. This is not a very large matter; it con- 
 sists only of the difference in value between the life of the 
 incumbent and the younger life of his successor; but to that 
 extent we think it just that the claim should be provided for. 
 
 Then there is another class — the teachers of Presbyterian 
 educational institutions under the general assembly of the Pres- 
 bytery of Ulster. With regard to them, though they are not 
 ministers, but professors only, we propose to deal with them 
 precisely in the same manner as if they were pastors of churches, 
 and to assure to them their salaries, together with a like power 
 of commutation. But now comes a greater difficulty, with re- 
 spect to those educational establishments to which I wish to 
 call the attention of the committee for a few moments. When 
 we disestablish a church, and when a particular congregation 
 ceases to have a pastor found for it by public funds, it feels an 
 immediate want, and a stimulus is applied to it to satisfy that 
 want. But when you deal with an establishment for educa- 
 tional purposes, a rather different order of considerations comes 
 into play. There are several points which ought to be taken into 
 account, although I will not say precisely what amount of 
 weight is to be given to them. 
 
 In dealing with these Presbyterian places of education we 
 have information upon which to proceed, but in dealing with 
 the professors of the College of Maynooth we know nothing as 
 to the details of the arrangements made with them. We have 
 chosen to constitute a trust by the authority of an act of Parlia- 
 ment, and to that trust we have committed the disposal of the 
 grant which Parliament has thought fit to make. Well, now, 
 what is the experience of England? The experience, in par- 
 ticular, of the training colleges proves that there should be some
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 315 
 
 consideration in dealing with establishments for education. I 
 ought not, perhaps, to bring into the present discussion the 
 case of Trinity College, Dublin, for Her Majesty's Government 
 make no proposal upon that subject at the present time. But it 
 is perfectly plain that if the House and the legislature should 
 adopt the measure that we now submit to it, Trinity College, 
 Dublin, will have to be made the subject of legislation. It is 
 also, I think, quite plain that it will be impossible to maintain 
 the present exclusive application of the revenues of Trinity 
 College to the purposes of a governing body and staff wholly 
 connected with one religious persuasion. It is quite possible 
 that Parliament may apply to Trinity College the same lenient 
 method of dealing which it commonly adopts, and may think 
 fit to leave some moderate provision applicable to the rearing, 
 or to the teaching, at least, of the clergy, who will, as a. clergy, 
 become dependent entirely upon the resources of a voluntary 
 communion. But undoubtedly when we come to deal with 
 Trinity College we shall feel the force of this argument, that 
 to put a sharp termination to the career of an educational es- 
 tablishment is a more trenchant operation than to do the same 
 with the machinery for providing a parochial ministry, because 
 one is a much stronger stimulus to persons to provide them- 
 selves with clergymen than the other is to induce them to main- 
 tain schools in which these clergymen can be trained. These 
 general considerations, at the same time, are considerations 
 which I know must not be pushed beyond their proper limits. 
 
 I hope the House will think, when I come to the end of this 
 long and wearisome statement, that whatever the Government 
 have done, they have endeavored to keep strict good faith. I 
 believe that I have announced no proposal as yet to which that 
 character will not be held to apply when it is compared with our 
 former declarations ; and I trust that my announcements will 
 remain the same to the end of the chapter. I have now to con- 
 sider in the light and spirit of our general arrangements, and, 
 subject always to the full maintenance, in letter and in spirit, 
 of that which we have heretofore declared, what appears to 
 us the most equitable method of dealing with the Reginm 
 Donum, the grant to Maynooth, and all similar grants. The 
 Presbyterians are interested in this matter in respect of the 
 college which they have have in Belfast, and likewise in re-
 
 3 i6 GLADSTONE 
 
 spect of a similar institution which exists for the benefit of 
 minor Presbyterian bodies ; the Roman Catholics are interested 
 in it through the College of Maynooth ; but there are also sev- 
 eral other payments made by Parliament which, on the whole, 
 fall under very much the same class of considerations. There 
 is the payment made by Parliament to what is called the Pres- 
 byterian Widows' Fund. Now, that, of course, exists for the 
 purpose of supplying wants that are coming into operation from 
 year to year, and it would be very hard to withdraw that wid- 
 ows' fund without notice. In the same way it would be hard to 
 withdraw without notice the grants now made to Presbyterian 
 educational establishments and to the College of Maynooth. 
 There is another class of payments made by the Presbyterians 
 to their synodical officers. They hold an office regarding which 
 it is very difficult to define the degree to which it should be con- 
 sidered a vested interest. But when we look at the whole of 
 these matters, and read them in the light of the declarations and 
 proceedings of last year, we have adopted — first, the principle 
 that now permanent endowment can be given to them out of the 
 public resources properly so called ; and, secondly, the princi- 
 ple that no permanent endowment can be given to them out of 
 the National Ecclesiastical Fund of Ireland. What we propose, 
 and we think it a fair and equitable proposal, is, that, in order 
 to give time for the free consideration of the arrangements and 
 the construction of scales for the satisfaction of life interests, 
 and for avoiding violent shocks and disappointments to those 
 whose plans for life may already have been made upon the 
 supposition of the continuance of arrangements which have so 
 long existed, and which were solemnly made, there should be a 
 valuation of the interest of all these grants — a life interest at a 
 moderate scale, or at fourteen years' purchase, of the capital 
 amount now annually voted. 
 
 [Sir S. Northcote: " The annual amount?"] 
 
 Yes, the annual amount. It is a life interest, and it is to be 
 commuted as a life interest is commuted, upon the age of the 
 individual. That age varies. In the case of Presbyterian min- 
 isters, as there is a large number of years, that amount is high. 
 In the case of bishops and dignitaries it is somewhat lower. We 
 take fourteen years as, on the whole, a fair amount of these
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 317 
 
 different grants. We propose to treat them substantially as life 
 interests, and the payment is to be analogous to that made on 
 other life interests, and this to wind up and close all the relations 
 between those bodies and persons and the State. 
 
 Well, now, sir, I am coming in sight of port. There are two 
 or three points which will not take long, apart from the ques- 
 tion of religion and matters of controversy, but which are of so 
 much interest to gentlemen connected with Ireland and the 
 land of Ireland, and which likewise have so innocent and bene- 
 ficial a bearing on the land question of Ireland, that I must beg 
 for a little more of the indulgence of the committee. First of 
 all, I would proceed to explain what I fear some of my hearers 
 will think ought to be placed in the category of financial puz- 
 zles. If they do not entirely follow me, I will ask them, with- 
 out understanding me, to believe it, and I will undertake to 
 make it good upon a future occasion. It relates to the impor- 
 tant subject of the tithe rent-charge of Ireland. I have already 
 said that I attach great importance to the merging of the tithe 
 rent-charge, and for that reason the commission will step into 
 the possession of it immediately after the passing of the act. 
 Well, if there be here any gentlemen possessed of land in Ire- 
 land — and there are many — they will not be very grateful to 
 me for what I am going first to state. It is that we shall give 
 to them unconditionally the tithe rent-charge at twenty-two and 
 one-half years' purchase. That is, of course, twenty-two and 
 one-half years' purchase, not of the old gross £100, but of the 
 £75 a year. We make that offer because we think there may be 
 landlords in Ireland who will be disposed at once to wind up 
 the arrangement with us. 
 
 But if gentlemen will listen to me they will see that we have 
 another alternative for those who may not be disposed to pur- 
 chase the tithe rent-charge out and out in money down at 
 twenty-two and one-half years' purchase. It is this — We make 
 to them a compulsory sale. I have not the least idea that any- 
 one will object to that. We convey the tithe rent-charge to 
 them under the following conditions : We charge them in our 
 books with £2,250 for every net £100 a year of tithe rent-charge. 
 That is to say, we sell them a tithe rent-charge at a rate to 
 yield them four and one-half per cent. We then credit them 
 on the other side with a loan of equal amount. We provide
 
 3i8 GLADSTONE 
 
 that they shall pay off that loan by annual instalments, with 
 interest. But the rate of interest to be charged on the instal- 
 ment is three and one-half per cent. The consequence of that 
 is that a fund of one per cent, will remain as a sinking fund 
 to absorb the principal. The purchaser of the tithe rent-charge 
 in that form — except that he will get rid of the fluctuation, for 
 we must give him a fixed amount— will not be called upon to 
 make any addition whatever to his annual payment. He will 
 be liable to that annual payment for forty-five years, and at the 
 close of that term he will, under this arrangement, have the 
 rent-charge, whatever it may be, for the residue of the time for 
 nothing. That will be the financial effect of the arrangement, 
 which, I think, will not be bad for the Irish landlord. I perceive 
 by the buzz around me that this subject is not without some 
 interest to a great many honorable members. I may here say 
 that in dealing with this question I have ventured to lament the 
 necessity under which Parliament has found itself on a former 
 occasion of wasting the property of the Irish Church in order 
 to prevent its being so great in its magnitude as too much to 
 shock the public mind. We have not proceeded on that princi- 
 ple of wasting. We have not sought to work down the residue 
 that will remain to be disposed of ; but we have endeavored to 
 make the most economical arrangement for the interest of that 
 fund of which the equity of the case admits. And the com- 
 mittee will the more readily give me credit for what I have to 
 say on this subject when I add that while in this manner we 
 shall give twenty-two and one-half years' purchase for the tithe 
 rent-charge of Ireland, the average rate at which that charge 
 sells in the market is very little, if at all, more than sixteen or 
 seventeen years' purchase. On the other hand, it is not a bad 
 arrangement for the public, because it may be safely taken as a 
 general rule that the public, in arrangements reaching over a 
 long period of time, are perfectly safe in undertaking to lend 
 at three and one-half per cent. 
 
 There is another point which need not detain us more than a 
 moment. It relates to what will be in the recollection of Irish 
 gentlemen — but there are very few still here who were in the 
 House at the period of the Irish Church Temporalities Act — as 
 the Perpetuity Purchase Clauses. They were clauses of an ar- 
 rangement somewhat doubtful for the interest of the national
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 319 
 
 ecclesiastical property of Ireland. We feel that under this bill 
 equity requires that the persons who are now possessed of a 
 title to purchase under these clauses should not be suddenly de- 
 prived of that title. But we also feel it to be impossible, in a 
 measure of disestablishment and disendowment, to keep those 
 clauses permanently in existence, in consequence of the highly 
 anomalous and inconvenient confusion of interests which they 
 create. We therefore propose that the power to purchase, now 
 in the hands of the tenant, shall remain in existence for three 
 years from January 1, 1871, and if not made use of in that in- 
 terval, it shall then finally lapse and determine. 
 
 Another question of great and universal interest arises here. 
 The commissioners to be appointed under this bill, or some 
 body which may succeed them, after the difficult and onerous 
 part of the arrangement shall be disposed of, will, as I think, 
 be the holders of a considerable amount of property. The ques- 
 tion is in what investment shall that be held. The perpetuity 
 purchase rents now in existence appear to form, as far as they 
 go, a very eligible description of investment, because they have 
 the certainty of landed income without the incidents of fluctua- 
 tion, or any of those difficult administrative questions which 
 attach to the character of the landlord. The committee will, 
 however, agree with me that it is not desirable either that this 
 commission which we now propose to appoint, or any State 
 authority in its place, should continue permanently to hold the 
 Church land which will necessarily come into its possession. 
 Such a commission is not and cannot be permanently a good 
 landlord, and it is far better that it should discharge itself as 
 soon as may be of duties it cannot properly fulfil. 
 
 What we propose, then, is that in selling the proprietary 
 rights of these estates, the power of preemption should be pro- 
 vided for the tenants, and, what is more — indeed, without this 
 addition, I do not think I could claim for this provision credit 
 for anything more than good intentions — we further propose 
 that in such sales three-fourths of the purchase-money may be 
 left upon the security of the land, and that the charge so remain- 
 ing shall be liquidated by instalments, upon the principle adopt- 
 ed in the Drainage Act, by which we make the whole repayable 
 in twenty-two years. Now, the nature of this proposal the 
 committee thoroughly comprehend, and I trust it will meet with
 
 320 GLADSTONE 
 
 their approval. It does not place the land in the market in an 
 anomalous character; it does not make the State responsible 
 for duties that it cannot fulfil, and the permanent retention of 
 which is alien from its nature. And it will have the economical 
 effect of materially improving the price that we shall get for 
 the land, and by this means we shall try the experiment on a 
 limited scale of breaking up properties in a manner which I be- 
 lieve to be perfectly safe, easy, and unexceptionable. 
 
 I will now, sir, give to the committee the financial result of 
 these operations in a very few words. With respect to the in- 
 come of the Irish Church I shall say little, for I have great 
 difficulty in making out what it is. The Church Commission 
 labored assiduously between 1867 and the end of 1868, and they 
 have reported as the result of their inquiries that the income of 
 the Irish Church is £616,000 a year. I must say, with very great 
 respect for their sixteen months of toil, that I humbly dissent 
 from the conclusion at which the commission arrived. It seems 
 to me that they placed the revenue too low. I find that one of 
 the commissioners, Colonel Adair, who is known to have taken 
 an active part in their labors, has within the last fortnight pub- 
 lished a statement in which he puts the income of the Irish 
 Church as high as £839,000 a year. I do not place it quite so 
 high as Colonel Adair, nor quite so low as the Irish Church 
 Commission. I believe it to be about £700,000 a year. 
 
 So much for the income of the Irish Church. But what we 
 have more to do with is the capital. I have taken the tithe rent- 
 charge at the rate of purchase I propose, and I find that the tithe 
 rent-charge will yield £9,000,000. I have taken the land of all 
 kinds — Episcopal and chapter lands, those belonging to glebes, 
 etc., and putting on them the fairest valuation that a very compe- 
 tent person by whom we are assisted in Dublin can make, I find 
 that the whole undivided value of the lands and of the perpetuity 
 rents, if sold, would be £250,000. Besides that, there is money 
 of one kind or another in stocks and banks to the amount of 
 £750,000. I have not attempted to value the fabrics of churches, 
 nor the fabrics of the glebe houses, because after what I have 
 stated of how they stand in the tenement valuation and the 
 charge upon them, I consider it would be idle to include them 
 in this statement as an item of any considerable amount. The 
 result, without taking into account the glebe houses and
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 321 
 
 churches, is that the whole value of the Church property in 
 Ireland, reduced and cut down as it has been — first by the al- 
 most unbounded waste of life tenants, and second by the wisdom 
 or unwisdom of well-intending Parliaments — the remaining 
 value is not less than £16,000,000 — an amount more considerable 
 than I had ventured to anticipate, when, with smaller means of 
 information, I endeavored to form an estimate of it last year. 
 
 I now come to a delicate part of the case, and here the figures 
 must be considered as taken with rather a broad margin. Yet, 
 on the whole, I think they will be found very near the mark, 
 so far as the total is concerned. The life interests of incumbents 
 of all kinds in the Church — bishops, dignitaries, and parochial 
 clergy — will amount, I think, to say £4,900,000; and if that 
 appears to anyone a large sum he should recollect that when di- 
 vided by the large number of persons — two thousand — among 
 whom the whole has to be apportioned, it represents a very 
 slender acknowledgment for the labors, expectations, and costly 
 education of those gentlemen, and for the anxieties and honest 
 and good service by which their respective situations have been 
 attended. The compensation of the curates, deducted from 
 that of the incumbents, will come to £800,000. The lay com- 
 pensations are not inconsiderable. They will come to £900,000. 
 Of that something over £300,000, it is supposed, will be the 
 value of the advowsons ; but it is very difficult in Ireland to 
 obtain fixed, clear, and definite rules for estimating their value. 
 The transfer of them in Ireland is comparatively rare, and they 
 are subject to a variety of contingencies which very much im- 
 pair the means of judgment. It is not a large matter. We put 
 it at about £300,000. 
 
 The other lay compensations embrace a class of persons who 
 do not much enter into the view, looking at this subject gener- 
 ally ; but the largest part will be absorbed by the parish clerks 
 and sextons in Ireland, of whom the bulk, I believe, like the 
 incumbents, have freehold offices, and must be dealt with on 
 the very same principle as the incumbents. Then there are the 
 officers of cathedrals, of the ecclesiastical courts, and the func- 
 tionaries connected with the present Ecclesiastical Commission. 
 These will bring up the amount of the lay compensations to 
 about £900,000. The charge of private endowments on the 
 fund is about £500,000, and in that, I may say in passing, will 
 Vol. II.— 21
 
 3 2 2 GLADSTONE 
 
 not be included the result of a recent act of Parliament passed 
 by Sir Joseph Napier as to endowments of a particular class, 
 which it is not necessary to bring into this bill. The building 
 charges on the glebe houses represent £250,000. The sum nec- 
 essary to clear off our engagements upon the moderate footing 
 we propose with respect to the Presbyterians and Maynooth will 
 be £1,100,000; and of that sum I ought to say two-thirds will 
 go to the Presbyterians, and no more than one-third to May- 
 nooth. I must also supply two small claims I had omitted. 
 The Presbyterians claim, and I think it is not an unreasonable 
 claim, that as we admit an educational establishment to require 
 a little more time for maintaining it on the old system, we should 
 give them some consideration in the shape of money in respect 
 of the buildings they have raised in Belfast to meet the parlia- 
 mentary grant, which we shall be prepared to concede, subject 
 to the maximum of £15,000. The other is a claim, not made 
 by the Roman Catholics, but it is our opinion it ought to be 
 made spontaneously, and that, I think, will be the universal opin- 
 ion of the House. When the Act of 1845 was passed it was 
 known to be the intention that the buildings of Maynooth should 
 be kept in repair at the public charge. The House of Commons 
 modified its views shortly after. The college had no means of 
 meeting the necessary expense except by borrowing, and they 
 have gone in debt to the Board of Works to the extent of £20,- 
 000. I think we should feel that that debt incurred in past 
 time on account of these repairs, and in consequence of a change 
 of view on the part of Parliament, ought at once to be remitted. 
 I estimate the expense of this commission during the ten years 
 of its continuance at £200,000, and that makes my total charge 
 against the property of the Church amount to £8,500,000. So 
 that the property will be divided — for I confess I have some 
 faith in the moderation of my estimate — into two nearly equal 
 parts ; or, to be quite safe, I may call it £16,000,000 ; and as the 
 charges upon it will come to between £8,000,000 and £9,000,000, 
 the sum at the disposal of Parliament will not be less than be- 
 tween £7,000,000 and £8,000,000. 
 
 I have now, sir, done with my first and second dates, but there 
 is one financial item which, through infirmity of memory, I 
 have omitted. The committee will naturally ask how we are 
 to pay the heavy charge that may be entailed by the commuta-
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 323 
 
 tions, because if the commutations are made, and we have every 
 desire they should be made immediately or as soon as possible 
 after disestablishment, they will require, between Episcopalians 
 and Presbyterians, from £6,000,000 to £7,000,000. My answer 
 is that, fortunately, the banking resources of my right honorable 
 friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer are such, with respect 
 to the deposits of the public, as to cause no serious difficulty on 
 that part of the case ; and, as a matter of prudence, we have 
 taken power in the bill to fix the payment of commutation money 
 in eight instalments extending over four years. 
 
 And now supposing that all the arrangements which I have 
 so imperfectly detailed, and which the committee have listened 
 to with so much patience — supposing that we have reached the 
 moment when these arrangements are all completed — that is, 
 so far completed that provision is made for all they can pos- 
 sibly require — I now come to the third date to which I pointed 
 at the commencement, and I ask a question which will reawaken 
 the flagging interest of the committee — how we are to dispose 
 of the residue? I will first state the conditions which appear 
 to me necessary to be combined in a good plan for the disposal of 
 such a fund. The first two are already fixed, written, I may say, 
 in letters of iron. It is written that the money is to be applied to 
 Irish purposes ; and it is written that it is to be applied to pur- 
 poses not ecclesiastical — not for any Church, not for any clergy, 
 not or any teaching of religion, and I hope the committee will 
 see that in thus broadly stating what I conceive to be the obliga- 
 tions we have come under, I am showing a disposition not to 
 shrink from the fulfilment of those obligations. 
 
 But there are other requisites that it is most important to com- 
 bine in any plan for the application of this residue. In the first 
 place I think there are feelings much to be respected in a large 
 portion of the community — of those who say that the time has 
 come when the application of this money must be dissociated 
 from the teaching of religion, but who at the same time would 
 desire that its future application should, if possible, bear upon 
 it some of those legible marks of Christian character, which 
 would be as it were a witness to its first origin and its long- 
 continued use, being applied as nearly as circumstances admit in 
 conformity with what is usually the cypres doctrine of courts of 
 equity. Another condition of a good plan is that it must not
 
 324 GLADSTONE 
 
 drag us from one controversy into another. We must not make 
 this great controversy the mere doorway to another set of con- 
 flicts and disputes, perhaps equally embarrassing. One con- 
 dition of a good plan is that, the question being Irish and wholly 
 Irish, the plan must be equal in its application to all parties, 
 and, as far as may be, to the whole community in Ireland. One 
 condition more I will mention, to which I attach the highest 
 value : the plan must embody the final application of the money. 
 The money must be so disposed as that the day may never come 
 when any member on either side of the House should suggest, 
 seeing that there was a sum of money to dispose of, some scheme 
 for its application, which would lead us back into all the em- 
 barrassments from which we are now at length vigorously strug- 
 gling to free ourselves. 
 
 I will mention some of the modes suggested for the applica- 
 tion of the money. The division of the fund among Churches 
 only was out of the question, because such a measure would be 
 in conflict with the sentiments of the people, the opinions of 
 this House, and the pledges which we have given and which 
 must be redeemed. Its application to education would not fall 
 so directly under the same ban, but it might give rise to the 
 suspicion in Ireland that it was an endeavor to get rid of the 
 annual grant, and might launch us into the controversies con- 
 nected with the system of national education in that country. It 
 has been proposed by some that the fund should be applied to 
 public works in Ireland. 
 
 Those who have followed the history of the great attempt we 
 made at public works in Ireland in reference to the Shannon 
 drainage, will admit that the prospect opened by such a pro- 
 posal is not very inviting. In the first place, it is a project which 
 would lead to jobbery, and in the next place it would set every 
 part of Ireland at variance with every other part in the scramble 
 to obtain the largest possible portion of the money. In the third 
 place, do what you could to promote equality, the application of 
 the money must be unequal, because more would be given to 
 certain districts than to others ; and if the money were applied 
 in the way of loan, the arrangement would lead to great improvi- 
 dence, because when one public work was ended the money 
 would flow back and become again available, and it would be 
 impossible to make the fund a permanent foundation for loans
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 325 
 
 without encountering difficulties of an objectionable character. 
 In the same way reasons may be adduced against the application 
 of the fund to railways, and, besides, it is impossible for us to 
 connect the question of Irish railways with the question of the 
 Irish Church. I know the interest which exists for railways in 
 Ireland ; but I also know that it is a question of great difficulty 
 and complexity ; and it is our duty in laying before you a meas- 
 ure for which we claim the merit of finality to make some pro- 
 posal obvious and clear in character, and which does not involve 
 you in any difficult inquiries. It will be the duty of the Govern- 
 ment to give a careful consideration to all proposals in regard 
 to Irish railways, without connecting them with the present 
 matter. 
 
 It has next been proposed that the money should be applied to 
 the poor-rates. Such an application, it appears to me, would be 
 a great mistake. I am not in the least inclined to deny that the 
 land and the landlords of Ireland may derive some considerable 
 benefit in the long run from any mode in which the money 
 might be applied for the benefit of Ireland ; but when a system 
 of legal obligation has been there constituted to satisfy a primary 
 want — an obligation recognized in all quarters as incumbent on 
 the property of the country — I do not think it necessary that 
 this fund should be applied in relief of that legal obligation on 
 property. I think we should be guilty of a great breach of duty 
 in so applying it. The people of Ireland are, generally speaking, 
 Roman Catholics, and I am ashamed to think how exceedingly 
 small a portion of public money has fallen to their share as 
 Roman Catholics. The mass of the people of Ireland are, there- 
 fore, entitled to be made, as far as possible, the principal re- 
 cipients in the applications of the fund. I will venture to read 
 to the committee the preamble of the bill, which I hope will be 
 in the hands of members to-morrow night. It says : " Whereas 
 it is expedient that the union created by act of Parliament be- 
 tween the Churches of England and Ireland, as by law estab- 
 lished, should be dissolved, and that the Church of Ireland, as so 
 separated, should cease to be established by law, and that after 
 satisfying, so far as possible, upon principles of equality as be- 
 tween the several religious denominations in Ireland, all just 
 and equitable claims, the property of the said Church of Ireland, 
 or the proceeds thereof, should be held and applied for the
 
 326 GLADSTONE 
 
 advantage of the Irish people, but not for the maintenance of 
 any Church or clergy or other ministry, nor for the teaching of 
 religion ; and it is further expedient that the said property, or 
 the proceeds thereof, should be appropriated mainly to the re- 
 lief of unavoidable calamity and suffering, yet so as not to 
 cancel or impair the obligations now attached to property under 
 the act for the relief of the poor." It is the latter part of the 
 passage which defines the application of the money. There is 
 in every country a region of want and suffering lying between 
 the independent part of the community, on the one hand, and 
 the purely pauperized population on the other. For this region 
 of want and suffering it is very hard to make adequate pro- 
 vision by the poor-law, which is almost intended to be niggard 
 in its operations, because, if it were made liberal and large, 
 the risk would then be run of doing the greatest possible injury 
 to the independent laborer struggling to maintain himself. The 
 want and suffering I now speak of are partly relieved, not 
 through the medium of the poor-law, but through the medium 
 of the county cess — a heavy and increasing tax — not divided, 
 as in the case of the poor-rate, between owner and occupier, 
 but paid only by the occupier. The burden of this tax is not 
 limited, like the poor-rate, to occupations above £4 in value, 
 but descends to the most miserable tenements, the holders of 
 which are required to pay for a class of suffering which in 
 every Christian country should be relieved by a large and liberal 
 expenditure. 
 
 Take, first of all, the lunatic asylums. The care of lunatics 
 is one of the great duties of the community, and in Ireland, 
 though the provision for them has as yet by no means over- 
 taken the whole country, the cost on this head is already from 
 £120,000 to £140,000, and will ultimately rise to £200,000. This 
 expenditure is defrayed by the county cess, collected from the 
 class of occupiers I have described. The case of the deaf and 
 dumb and of the blind is the next melancholy topic I will refer 
 to. The alleviation of the condition of the deaf, the dumb, and 
 the blind, scarcely comes within the province of the poor-law, 
 because it is a very costly matter. You will keep a pauper in a 
 workhouse, and keep him decently, in Ireland, for some £7 or£8 
 a year ; but you will not keep these classes — you will not give 
 to the deaf and dumb and the blind the most precious boon you
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 327 
 
 can give them — that is, training and instruction — under, per- 
 haps, £30 or £40 per head per year. It is no common act to train 
 these people and to convey to them, through the beneficial chan- 
 nels that the Almighty has given us, the blessings of knowledge 
 and the faculty of applying their bodily powers to their own 
 support. This description of want and suffering is marked out 
 by every feature that can recommend it for the application of 
 any funds like these. There are those who say these funds 
 should not be secularized. I respect the feelings of those who 
 are against the secularization of such funds ; but I say that if 
 we go back to the history of ecclesiastical property in Europe 
 the suggested application is not to be condemned and denounced 
 as secularization. The property of the Church was divisible 
 into four parts. One of these was consecrated to the use of the 
 poor ; and, of all the poor, the afflicted cases I have named make 
 the strongest appeal to human compassion. At the same time, 
 when I know the condition of the Irish peasant, when I see that 
 the charge through the medium of the county cess is to be laid 
 mainly upon him, in the first instance, and wholly upon him 
 by the present machinery of the law, I hail the occasion this 
 gives us of at once effecting a great improvement in relieving 
 the Irish occupier, and especially the poor occupier, from an 
 important portion of his burden, and of providing a more ample, 
 a more uniform, and a better regulated source of income for 
 the relief of the very sorest of human afflictions. 
 
 The general framework of this plan will be developed when 
 the third of the days I have described is arrived at. It will be 
 the duty of the commission to report to the Queen that pro- 
 vision is made for all the purposes contemplated in the act, 
 and it will be their duty also to report what is the amount of 
 surplus revenue available for these ulterior purposes, the whole 
 of which will be enumerated in the bill. I will not trouble the 
 committee now by reading them. I will not say whether or not 
 it might be necessary to resort to further legislation ; but these 
 sums would be administered, not under any system wholly new, 
 but they would be administered upon principles and according 
 to rules which are already in partial and imperfect operation in 
 Ireland. We shall escape altogether the religious difficulty, 
 because we only purpose to stand upon ground the firmness 
 and solidity of which we have ascertained by experience, and to
 
 328 GLADSTONE 
 
 make these sums available for their destined application, proba- 
 bly in most cases through the medium, and in all cases under 
 the control — and that we provide in the bill — of the Poor-Law 
 Commissioners for Ireland. I have mentioned lunatics first be- 
 cause the provision to be made for lunatics is the largest of all. 
 Next to these in order is the making a satisfactory provision 
 for the training and instruction of the deaf and dumb and the 
 blind. I beg the committee to understand I am not now speak- 
 ing of institutions in which the deaf, the dumb, and the blind, 
 are to be mewed up for life, but simply of schools in which they 
 may receive that kind of instruction that they are capable of 
 receiving for their own benefit; then to go out again into the 
 world and play their part, so far as Providence permits, as useful 
 members of society. We believe that a good system in aid of 
 the poor-law may be provided for that class of persons at an 
 expense of about £30,000 a year, and the ultimate expense of 
 the provision for lunatics would be £185,000 a year. The pro- 
 vision for other forms of mental weakness besides that I have 
 named — that is, for idiots and others — might cost about £20,000 
 a year. 
 
 There is a provision urgently needed in Ireland, and that 
 is a supply of properly trained nurses for the use of paupers 
 and for the poor who are above the paupers. The Irish medical 
 men are known for their skill, but they are scattered over the 
 country much more thinly than in England. The unions are 
 large, and the public medical officer cannot be in two places at 
 once. I am sorry to be informed upon good authority that the 
 injuries to health, and even to life, which result from the want 
 of skilled nurses, especially for women in labor, are grievous. 
 The Poor-Law Guardians shrink from incurring the necessary 
 expense, and make the requisite provision in very few cases ; 
 but for a sum of £15,000 nurses might be provided all over Ire- 
 land. Reformatories and industrial schools languish in Ire- 
 land ; they receive parliamentary grants ; but between parlia- 
 mentary grants and private benevolence they are inadequately 
 supported. We shall propose to the committee that they also 
 be included as recipients of £10,000 of these funds. 
 
 There is another charge, and that is for county infirmaries, to 
 which I must call the particular attention of Irish members. 
 The infirmary system of Ireland is at present charged upon the
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 329 
 
 county cess, and is a burden on the poorest occupiers of the 
 land. It is very imperfect in two particulars. In the first place, 
 it often happens that the infirmary of the county, though in the 
 capital of the county, is not central ; and, although it is sup- 
 ported by taxes levied from the whole county, it is really a 
 benefit only to a very small portion of it. In the second place, 
 the government of these infirmaries is wholly antiquated and 
 unsuitable, and needs to be reformed. The sum to be claimed 
 by the county infirmaries, hospitals, etc., may be put down at 
 £51,000 a year. The general financial result is that I have 
 pointed to a fund of between seven and eight millions, and the 
 charges which will be most likely to occur under these heads, 
 and which may be assumed from time to time as we are pro- 
 vided with the means, amount to £311,000 a year. 
 
 With the provision of all these requirements I think we should 
 be able to combine very great reforms ; we shall be able to ap- 
 ply strict principles of economy and good administration to 
 all these departments ; we shall be able to redivide Ireland into 
 districts around county infirmaries, well managed and gov- 
 erned, and so disposed as greatly to increase facility of ac- 
 cess to them. Lastly, I have to mention that to which I con- 
 fess I attach very great value and importance. It should be 
 known that the state of things I have pointed out with regard 
 to the county cess has attracted the attention of Irish members, 
 and the attention of a committee of this House, which has rec- 
 ommended that the county cess be put upon the same footing 
 as the poor-rate, that the poorer occupiers be relieved, and that 
 the payment be divided between the landlord and the tenant. 
 We certainly shall be in a better condition for inviting the Irish 
 landlord to accede to that change when we are able to offer, as 
 we shall offer by this plan, a considerable diminution of the 
 burdens of the county cess. This is, in general terms, the mode 
 in which we propose to apply the residue, and I am certain I am 
 justified in inviting the serious attention of the House to the 
 plan, and in expressing my confident expectation and belief that 
 the more it is examined, the more will members find, passing 
 over the objections they may have to disestablishment and dis- 
 endowment, that it is a good and solid plan, full of public ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 I believe I have now gone through the chief of the almost
 
 33 o GLADSTONE 
 
 endless arrangements, and I have laid as well as I am able the 
 plans of the Government before the committee. I will not 
 venture to anticipate the judgment of the committee, but I 
 trust the committee will be of opinion it is a plan at any rate 
 loyal to the expectations we held out on a former occasion, and 
 loyal to the people of England who believed our promises. I 
 hope also the members of the committee may think that the best 
 pains we could give have been applied in order to develop and 
 mature the measure, and I say that with great submission to the 
 judgment of gentlemen on this and on the other side of the 
 House. It is a subject of legislation so exceedingly com- 
 plex and varied that I have no doubt there must be errors, 
 there must be omissions, and there may be many possible im- 
 provements ; and we shall welcome from every side, quite ir- 
 respective of differences of opinion on the outlines of the meas- 
 ure, suggestions which, when those outlines are decided upon, 
 may tend to secure a more beneficial application of these funds 
 to the welfare of the people of Ireland. I trust, sir, that al- 
 though its operation be stringent, and although we have not 
 thought it either politic or allowable to attempt to diminish its 
 stringency by making it incomplete, the spirit towards the 
 Church of Ireland as a religious communion, in which this 
 measure has been considered and prepared by my colleagues and 
 myself, has not been a spirit of unkindness. 
 
 Perhaps at this time it would be too much to expect to obtain 
 full credit for any declaration of that kind. We are undoubtedly 
 asking an educated, highly respected, and generally pious and 
 zealous body of clergymen to undergo a great transition ; we are 
 asking a powerful and intelligent minority of the laity in Ire- 
 land, in connection with the Established Church, to abate a 
 great part of the exceptional privileges they have enjoyed; but 
 I do not feel that in making this demand upon them we are 
 seeking to inflict an injury. I do not believe they are exclu- 
 sively or even mainly responsible for the errors of English 
 policy towards Ireland ; I am quite certain that in many vital 
 respects they have suffered by it ; I believe that the free air 
 they will breathe under a system of equality and justice, giving 
 scope for the development of their great energies, with all the 
 powers of property and intelligence they will bring to bear, will 
 make that Ireland which they love a country for them not less
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND 331 
 
 enviable and not less beloved in the future than it has been in 
 the past. As respects the Church, I admit it is a case almost 
 without exception. I do not know in what country so great 
 a change, so great a transition, has been proposed, and has been 
 embodied in a legislative provision, by which the ministers of 
 a religious communion that have enjoyed during so many ages 
 the favored position of an established church, will no longer 
 remain in that position. I can well understand that to many 
 among them such a change appears to be nothing less than ruin 
 and destruction. From the height on which they now stand 
 to the apparent abyss into which they think they will have to 
 descend there is something that recalls the words used in " King 
 Lear," when Edgar endeavors to persuade Gloucester that he 
 has fallen — from the cliffs of Dover. He says : 
 
 " Ten masts at each make not the altitude 
 Which thou hast perpendicularly fallen ; 
 Thy life's a miracle." 
 
 And yet but a little after the old man rallies from his delusion, 
 and finds that he has not fallen at all. And so I venture to 
 trust that when, stripped of the fictitious and adventitious aid 
 upon which we have too long taught the Irish Establishment 
 to lean, it shall come to place its trust in its own resources, in 
 its own secret wisdom, in all that can draw forth the energies 
 of its ministers and its members, and the high hopes and prom- 
 ises of the gospel that it teaches, it will find that it has entered 
 upon a new era of its existence, an era fraught with hope and 
 promise. At any rate, I think the day has certainly come when 
 an end has finally to be put to the union, not between the Church 
 as a religious association, but between the Establishment and 
 the State, which was commenced under circumstances little au- 
 spicious, and which has continued to bear fruits of unhappi- 
 ness to Ireland, and of discredit and scandal to England. 
 
 Sir, there is more to say. This measure is in every sense a 
 great measure — great in its principle, great in the multitude 
 not merely of its technical but of its important, weighty, and in- 
 teresting provisions. It is not a great measure only, but it is 
 a testing measure. It is a measure which will show to one and 
 all of us of what metal we are made. Upon us all it brings a 
 great responsibility — first and foremost undoubtedly upon us
 
 332 GLADSTONE 
 
 who occupy this bench. We are deeply chargeable — we are 
 deeply guilty, if we have either dishonestly, as some think, or if 
 we have even prematurely or unwisely, challenged so gigantic 
 an issue. I know well the punishments that are due to rashness 
 in public men ; and that ought to fall upon those men who with 
 hands unequal to the task attempt to guide the chariot of the 
 sun. But our responsibility, though heavy, is not exclusive. It 
 passes on from us to every man who has to take part in the dis- 
 cussion and in the decision of this question. Every man who 
 proceeds to the discussion is under the most solemn obligation 
 to raise the level of his vision, and to expand its scope in pro- 
 portion to the greatness of the object. The working of our 
 constitutional government itself is upon its trial, for I do not 
 believe there ever was a time when the whole of the legislative 
 machinery was set in motion under the conditions of peace and 
 order and constitutional regularity, to deal with a question 
 graver or more profound. And more especially is the credit 
 and fame of this great assembly involved. This assembly, which 
 has inherited from so many long ages accumulated honor from 
 numberless triumphs of peaceful but courageous legislation, is 
 now called upon to address itself to a task which would indeed 
 have demanded all the best energies of the very best of your 
 fathers and your ancestors. I believe it will prove to be worthy 
 of the task. Should it fail, even the fame of the House of Com- 
 mons will suffer no disparagement ; should it succeed, even that 
 fame, I venture to say, will receive no small nor insensible ad- 
 dition. I must not ask gentlemen opposite to concur in these 
 few sentences, grateful as I am to them for the kindness with 
 which they have heard the statement which I have made. But I 
 beg and pray them to bear with me for a moment while, for my- 
 self and my colleagues, I say that we are sanguine of the issue. 
 We believe this controversy is near its end, and, for my part, 
 I am deeply convinced that, when the day of final consummation 
 shall arise, and when the words are spoken that give the force 
 of law to the work embodied in this measure — a work of peace 
 and justice — those words will be echoed from every shore where 
 the name of Ireland and the name of Great Britain have been 
 heard ; and the answer to them will come back in the approving 
 verdict of civilized mankind.
 
 PEACE AND WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN BRIGHT
 
 JOHN BRIGHT 
 
 i8u— 1889 
 
 The friends of peace in modern civilized countries have always had 
 the regard and respect of the people ; though these sentiments are gen- 
 erally accompanied by an intimation of kindly scepticism as to the 
 practical result of their labors. The condition of the world is still so 
 far from perfect, and the abuses which exist are so firmly established 
 in most cases, that the average man of the world feels inclined to disbe- 
 lieve that any remedy except the old one of force will suffice to remove 
 them. External peace, in other words, cannot be brought about while 
 war exists internally ; or if it could, its best blessing would be lost. 
 While we are kindly disposed towards the apostles of peace, therefore, 
 we incline to regard them as impracticable enthusiasts, and to listen to 
 their exhortations with a smile. 
 
 But when a man like John Bright uplifts his voice in support of the 
 peace men, and urges his views with eloquent arguments, and a long 
 life of devotion, we cannot choose but listen, and profit by what we 
 hear. For after all, the way to universal peace is by individual unself- 
 ishness ; and the utterances of men like Bright tend to show us how 
 to be unselfish, and demonstrate the enormous benefits that would 
 accrue from a practical application in society of the principles of Chris- 
 tianity. We listen to a disciple who is himself an illustration of the 
 doctrine he preaches; why should we not become his fellow disciple, 
 and use our influence to win other supporters? Thus there is no 
 estimating how much Bright and others of his creed have done or may 
 do towards hastening the advent of the millennium. 
 
 John Bright was born in 181 1, the son of a rich manufacturer, and 
 was himself always a man of large wealth. He early formed a friend- 
 ship with Cobden, and supported him in his advocacy of free trade. He 
 entered Parliament in 1843 ; in 1868 he became President of the Board 
 of Trade; was afterwards chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster; and 
 in 1883 was elected Rector of Glasgow University. The individuality 
 of his opinions, and his strict conscientiousness, constantly compelled 
 him to oppose the policy of the existing Government, whatever party 
 was in control. He was compelled even to abandon his old friend, Glad- 
 stone, when the latter, as Prime Minister, permitted the bombardment 
 of Alexandria. That part of his career which produced the most useful 
 and tangible practical results, was during the time that he was making 
 speeches against the Corn Laws. He rivalled Cobden himself in the 
 conviction which he produced upon his hearers, and in the instruction 
 he insinuated into their minds. There was a luminousness and eleva- 
 tion about Bright's oratory which was unlike the style of any other 
 public man of his time ; and the fascination of his address is irresistible. 
 His personal appearance and manner were grave and winning, and his 
 voice was the fitting and flexible vehicle of his thoughts. He died on 
 March 27, 1889. His speech on " Peace and War " is a good example 
 of his style. 
 
 334
 
 PEACE AND WAR 
 
 Delivered at Llandudno, November 22, 18/6, at the close of 
 a lecture on " International Arbitration," by the Rev. W. 
 Glover. 
 
 IT gave me great pleasure two or three days ago to see on the 
 walls of your town a placard announcing that Mr. Glover 
 was about to come amongst you to deliver a lecture upon 
 the momentous question of peace and war, and I received — I 
 don't know whether it was a deputation or not — but I had an 
 interview with three of your townsmen, much respected and in- 
 fluential amongst you, who did me the honor of asking me to at- 
 tend this meeting, and to add whatever I might be able to add 
 to the arguments which would be brought before you by the 
 lecturer. I could not well resist the urgent invitation which 
 was offered me. I am not, as you know, what is called a resi- 
 dent of Llandudno, but I have been here almost every year for 
 more than twenty years past, and I felt that I had something like 
 a special interest in the people amongst whom I had spent so 
 much time during many months in the year. I was laboring 
 under serious and prolonged illness during one visit which my 
 family paid to this place ; we were struck by a very heavy and 
 grievous affliction. These things dwell in memory, and they 
 strengthen and deepen the interest which they feel, and which I 
 feel, for everything connected with the interests of this town. 
 And I may say that I have watched its growth and its increasing 
 prosperity with as much interest as if I had been settled per- 
 manently amongst you. And when I look at the position of 
 our town and its beautiful bay, when I look around and see the 
 beauties of our locality, when I remember how near you are to 
 all the finest scenery of this glorious North Wales, and when 
 I observe and enjoy the beauty of our climate, which in winter, 
 I believe, is not surpassed by that of any other place in the 
 
 335
 
 336 BRIGHT 
 
 United Kingdom, and when I remember all the courtesy and 
 all the kind attention which I have met, I am free to say that I 
 have great faith in your future, and I hope and believe that your 
 growth and prosperity will be continued, and will be lasting. 
 The lecture which we have heard — and which, I am afraid, 
 the modesty of Mr. Glover has induced him, because I was to 
 follow him, to cut shorter than he would have otherwise done — 
 is one which has interested me very much, and I think it is well 
 timed. For there could scarcely be a period within our recol- 
 lection — not more than one or two, I think — when questions 
 of greater importance were stirring the minds of the people 
 from one end of the kingdom to the other. It is to me astound- 
 ing when I look back and see what has been the error and the 
 folly into which the people of this country have been led in time 
 past upon the question of war. We live in two considerable 
 islands — Great Britain and Ireland. We are separated from 
 the Continent by a sea passage, which in itself is a great de- 
 fence, and we have been for about three hundred years unas- 
 sailed, and believe, with our population, and our wealth, and our 
 means, and our freedom, we are practically more unassailable 
 than almost any other kingdom in the world. And yet, not- 
 withstanding all that, we have spent, probably, in a period that 
 does not go back beyond the lifetime of persons now living, 
 two thousand millions of money in war, all of which, I believe, 
 might with honor have been avoided, and in needless or 
 excessive armaments in preparing for war. Mr. Glover 
 has referred to the fifty millions which we are spending 
 every year — one half of it paying the interest of money bor- 
 rowed to carry on wars in past time, and the other half spent an- 
 nually on the army and navy for the purposes of supposed 
 events, or for purposes of war in which we may be hereafter in- 
 volved. Mr. Glover quoted an expression of Lord Russell's, 
 that he doubted whether there had been any war during the last 
 hundred years that might not have been avoided without any 
 sacrifice of the interests or honor of this country, by those rea- 
 sonable concessions which we are constantly making amongst 
 each other as individuals, and which would be in no degree in- 
 jurious or dishonorable if made between nations. 
 
 A hundred years ago — just a hundred years ago this very 
 year — this country was engaged in a war with the colonies now
 
 PEACE AND WAR 
 
 337 
 
 forming the United States of America. What happened when 
 that war was over? A change of opinion extraordinary — no, 
 not extraordinary, for it always takes place — but a change of 
 opinion very remarkable. Whilst the war was going on people 
 in many parts of the country were in favor of it, and the King 
 and his ministers were doggedly determined to continue the 
 war. But a few years after it was over everybody condemned 
 it, and now, probably, there is no single man in this country, of 
 any political party, however benighted, however ignorant, how- 
 ever positive, however unteachable, who would not condemn 
 the folly and wickedness of that war with the American colon- 
 ies. Well, but that war was supposed to have cost this country 
 close upon one hundred millions of money, and it left between 
 the inahibtants of these colonies — grown now to be a great na- 
 tion, even greater in numbers than this, so far as the population 
 of Great Britain and Ireland may be counted — it left feelings of 
 anger and bitterness which are now only slowly passing away 
 from amongst us. But after the American War was over only 
 a few years we engaged in another and still greater and more 
 prolonged struggle with the republic of France ; and the reason 
 we went into war with France was because France was a repub- 
 lic, and held opinions supposed to be dangerous to the mon- 
 archy and aristocracy of this country ; and that war was con- 
 tinued afterwards for the overthrow of the Emperor Napoleon, 
 and concluded, after about twenty-two years' existence. The 
 cost to this country, I dare say, all told, was a thousand millions 
 sterling; and yet now everybody — nobody more than Lord 
 Russell — everybody, or almost everybody, condemns that war ; 
 and I believe that by greater moderation and greater wisdom on 
 the part of the government and the press and the people of this 
 country it might have been avoided. It left us with five hun- 
 dred millions of debt, accumulated, in addition to the previous 
 debts, during the continuance of that one single but prolonged 
 struggle. We condemned, as I said, the American War a few 
 years after it was over ; I mean that your forefathers did. 
 Our fathers condemned the French war not long after it was 
 over; and since then we have had another war of great 
 magnitude, but not of very long continuance, to which Mr. 
 Glover has referred, which generally goes by the name of the 
 Crimean War — war with Russia — the main portion of the strug- 
 
 VOL. II.— 22
 
 338 BRIGHT 
 
 gle taking place in the Crimea. But now, as far as I can judge, 
 everybody — perhaps I ought not to say " everybody," because, 
 perhaps, Her Majesty's ministers would not agree with me, but 
 nearly everybody condemns that war ; and I think every single 
 man who knows anything about it would admit that we gained 
 absolutely nothing but discredit and loss — loss of life and in- 
 creased debt — from the struggle which this country carried on 
 with Russia twenty-two years ago. In the placard to which I 
 have referred calling this meeting there is a statement of how 
 much is spent every year in armaments and matters connected 
 with wars past or to come — how much a month, how much a 
 week, how much a day, how much an hour, and I don't know 
 whether it is not my duty to say how much per minute. But 
 now take another illustration. You can form some idea of an 
 estate of two thousand acres of the best land in your Welsh 
 counties, and you will perhaps be surprised when I tell you that 
 our expenditure of fifty millions per year for past wars and 
 for present military expenses is equal to the swallowing up every 
 day for the six working days of every week during the year of an 
 estate of that magnitude. Now, can it be possible that any- 
 thing like this is necessary? It seems to me that the whole 
 world is wrong; that everything is wrong in the creation and 
 arrangement of the conditions under which men live on this 
 earth, if man himself is not very wrong, having brought matters 
 to this dreadful condition. 
 
 Take the last great case that I have referred to — the case of 
 the Russian or Crimean War. At the time when it was being 
 waged there was not one man in twenty who really knew any- 
 thing about it. At this moment I don't believe you could find 
 one man in a hundred throughout England who could give you 
 any clear account of the war — the progress of negotiations, the 
 difficulties which were met with, and which were not overcome, 
 and, finally, of the state of things which precipitated the catas- 
 trophe and brought on that lamentable and most inglorious 
 struggle. But now look back to the passions which were ex- 
 hibited at that time. You see what a change has come. Like as 
 it was with the American War, that was condemned ; as it was 
 after the French War, that was condemned ; so it is now after 
 the Russian War, that is all but universally condemned, so that 
 we have come — I believe the nation has come mainly and by a
 
 PEACE AND WAR 339 
 
 vast majority — to the conclusion that the object was unworthy 
 of our efforts, and that the result was absolute and entire failure. 
 But leaving for a moment the question of expense, I will ask 
 you to consider the question of the loss of life. Mr. Glover 
 has told you not one-twentieth of the loss of life in that war. A 
 most minute and careful history of the war has been written by 
 a gentleman with whom I am acquainted, who was in Parlia- 
 ment for several years, very near where I sat — Mr. Kinglake — 
 who has paid most scrupulous attention to every fact with re- 
 gard to the war, and I see it quoted from his book that he be- 
 lieves, first and last, that not less than one million of men lost 
 their lives in connection with that struggle. Remember who 
 were concerned. The chief were Russia, Turkey, England, 
 France, and the kingdom of Sardinia, which is now the king- 
 dom of Italy. The French lost more men, I believe, than we 
 did, the Turks possibly more than either of them ; the loss of 
 Russia is not to be counted ; and we stand now in this lamenta- 
 ble and terrible condition, that we were the country that went 
 rashly and violently and passionately into the war. We have 
 not a single thing of the slightest value to show for it, but on the 
 other side we have that vast loss of treasure, and sacrifice and 
 slaughter of a million of human beings. 
 
 Some people think that the loss of life in war is a very com- 
 mon thing, and that it is not worth talking about. They think a 
 soldier takes his wages and stands his chance. I recollect being 
 disgusted during the time of the war by the observation of a 
 gentleman at the dinner of a person of high rank in this country, 
 and of the party by whom the war was originated. He said: 
 " As for the men that are killed, I think nothing of that. A 
 man can only die once, and it does not matter very much where 
 he dies or how he dies." Now I think it matters a good deal. 
 It matters a good deal to widows and orphans, and sisters and 
 friends. It matters a good deal to thousands, scores of thou- 
 sands, and hundreds of thousands of men who are cut off in the 
 very flower of their youth, that they should be thrust with the 
 passionate thrust of a bayonet, or rent asunder by shot and shell 
 — killed it may be at once, or left lingering on the field or in hos- 
 pital, dying of intense and inconceivable agonies. What is it 
 that is so valuable as life ? What happens if some unfortunate 
 visitor to this place, or unfortunate and helpless boatman is
 
 34° BRIGHT 
 
 drowned in your bay? Does it not make a sensation in your 
 community? Is there not a feeling of grief that passes from 
 heart to heart until there is not one man, woman, or child 
 amongst you that did not feel that a calamity has happened 
 in your neighborhood ? And what if there be a wreck ? I was 
 in this neighborhood two or three days after the wreck of the 
 " Rothesay Castle," forty-five or forty-six years ago, and I sup- 
 pose nearly a hundred men and women were drowned on that 
 occasion. I was down at the scene of the wreck of the " Royal 
 Charter " only a few years ago, when nearly four hundred per- 
 sons were drowned. Did it matter nothing? I saw a poor, 
 gray-headed man there wandering along the beach, as he wan- 
 dered day after day in hope, not that he might find his son alive, 
 but that he might find even the dead body of his son, that he 
 might be comforted by giving it a fitting burial. These things 
 gave a shock to the whole district, to the whole nation, and 
 rightly and inevitably so. Look, again, to the accidents on 
 railways. Take the sad accident in this county — the most ap- 
 palling that has ever happened on any railway in this kingdom 
 — I mean the accident at Abergele, when men were destroyed in 
 a moment, apparently, without a moment's warning. Take the 
 terrible accidents that happen from time to time in the collieries 
 in various parts of the country. See what woe is caused by 
 them, and remember, as you must remember, how every family 
 in the country is stirred and filled with grief at the narrative of 
 the disasters that have occurred. Well, now, take other things 
 that happen that distress us connected with the loss of 
 life. Take the private murders that are committed throughout 
 the kingdom, and hangings that take place of the criminals who 
 have been guilty of these murders. All these things fill us at 
 times with sorrow, and cover our feelings and our hearts with 
 gloom ; and now take together all the accidents from boats 
 that you have ever heard of, all the accidents from shipwrecks 
 that have ever been recorded ; take all the accidents on railways 
 since railways were first made, and all the accidents in mines 
 since the bowels of the earth were penetrated to obtain coal for 
 the use of man ; and besides these take all the lamentable pri- 
 vate murders which have been caused by passion, or cupidity, 
 or vengeance ; and take all the hangings of all the criminals — 
 and there have been far too many under the law of this country
 
 PEACE AND WAR 341 
 
 — more brutal in this matter, I believe, in past times than even 
 now, and than the laws of any other Christian country — I say 
 take all these phases of destruction of human life, add them all 
 together, and bring them into one, bring them all into one great 
 sum, and what are they in comparison with the millions of 
 human beings who have been destroyed and slaughtered in a 
 single Russian war? And the war only lasted two years, and 
 the French war lasted more than twenty years. Almost half the 
 time from the accession of William III in this country up to 
 1875 — almost if not more than half that time — this Christian 
 country was engaged in sanguinary struggles with some other 
 so-called Christian nations on the Continent of Europe. Now, 
 seeing what was paid for the Russian War, and seeing what an 
 entire failure it turned out with regard to the pretended objects 
 which it was supposed likely to secure — the people of England 
 did not go into war in their passionate moments without some 
 idea that some good is to follow — seeing how much we have lost, 
 and how great was the crime we committed, is it not astounding 
 there should be any man, much more than that man should be 
 in the lofty position of Prime Minister — ruler of this nation — 
 who should by unadvised, unwise speaking invite the nation to 
 involve itself in another war that may be no less prolonged, that 
 may cause equal loss and equal slaughter, and that undoubtedly 
 will result in a total failure, as the war twenty-two years ago 
 which we had. 
 
 And it is the old story now just as it was in those days — 
 that Russia is an aggressive power. I am afraid almost all 
 powers, as opportunity offers, have been aggressive ; but he 
 would be a most ingenious calculator who could show that 
 there was any power in the wide world that during the last 
 hundred years has been more aggressive than that power of 
 which we in this meeting form a humble and small party. It 
 is said now, as it was said then, that Russia was aggressive, and 
 that Russia intended to conquer Turkey, and capture and hold 
 Constantinople, and to dominate alike over Europe and over 
 Asia. There was not the slightest proof of it. All the proof 
 was the other way. Russia from the beginning of these dis- 
 turbances has made the most distinct and frank offers to the 
 English government as to the terms in which the Russian gov- 
 ernment and people believe that peace might be made, to the
 
 342 BRIGHT 
 
 enormous and permanent advantage of the Christian subjects 
 of the Porte. It is said — it was said then — that Turkey was 
 the only safe keeper of the straits of the Bosphorus and the Dar- 
 danelles — that is, the straits which lead from the Black Sea to 
 the Mediterranean. There was no proof that Turkey is the 
 safe keeper of those straits. The Porte held those straits for 
 three hundred years, and would not allow any mercantile ship 
 to pass through them, and it was only by the power of Russia, 
 and by a treaty with Russia, after the war with Russia, that these 
 straits were opened to the navigation of the mercantile ships of 
 the world. And no doubt the time will come, and must come, 
 when these straits will be opened, not only to mercantile ships, 
 but to the ships of the navies of all nations of the world. 
 Now and at a former time it was said, too, that Eng- 
 land's interests were at stake — interests in India and interests 
 in the Levant. There was no proof of it then ; there is no proof 
 of it now. Of all the speakers in public, of all the writers in 
 the press who have written against Russia in this matter and 
 in favor of Turkey, and in favor of war, there is not one of 
 them who has been able to lay down accurately and dis- 
 tinctly any kind of proof that the interests or honor of Eng- 
 land were concerned in the course we have taken with regard to 
 this great Eastern question. Why, if you were some poor and 
 hapless criminal brought to trial before one of your courts, and 
 before a jury, if liberty only is at stake, there is more care still. 
 You have advocates on each side, you have witnesses for the 
 prosecution and for the defence, you have an impartial jury, 
 and the judge is careful that nothing shall be said against the 
 prisoner that is not proved, and he warns the jury against be- 
 ing actuated by prejudice, and to put away what they have 
 heard before the trial comes on, and he entreats them, if there 
 be any feature in the case which can leave a doubt on the mind 
 of any one of them as to the guilt of the poor wretch at the bar, 
 that they shall give their verdict in his favor. But here you go 
 into a great transaction, a great war, you spend your millions of 
 money, you send your brothers and sons to the slaughter, and 
 you condemn to death, it may be, as in the last case, a million 
 of human beings, and you have not got a single definite or 
 proved fact to justify the course you have taken. 
 
 I deny altogether that there is anything in the aggressive
 
 PEACE AND WAR 343 
 
 character of Russia, or anything with regard to the guardian- 
 ship of the straits, or anything with which the honor and the 
 interests of England is concerned, to justify us in the course we 
 are taking with regard to this matter, or that justified us twenty 
 years ago in that war, or would justify us now if the government 
 were to involve the country in another struggle. Look at the 
 map of Europe and measure the distance from London, or if 
 you like from the Land's End, round by Gibraltar, the whole 
 length of the Mediterranean, through the Sea of Marmora to 
 Constantinople, you will find that we are close upon three 
 thousand miles away. Does any man believe that the honor 
 and interests of England are so involved in the question of ter- 
 ritory or of conquest in that part of the world, that it can jus- 
 tify us in vast, tremendous, and incalculable sacrifices for a war 
 of this nature ? The nations that are nearer to Russia are not 
 afraid of her. Germany is a powerful country, and Austria 
 is powerful, though less powerful than Germany ; but both of 
 them have interests as direct and as clear as any interest that 
 we can pretend to have, and yet they can be tranquil. They do 
 not get into a passion. Their Prime Ministers do not speak — 
 what shall I call it? — rhodomontade and balderdash. They do 
 not blow the trumpet and call the nations to arms for purely 
 fancied causes, like those in which — I say it with as much sin- 
 cerity as ever I have said anything in my life — in which we 
 have as much interest as would justify us in sending one 
 single man to slaughter. But I hope and I believe that out 
 of this matter there will not be war. The statements that are 
 offered to us in the newspapers this morning appear to me as 
 likely very much to soothe anxieties which we sometimes feel 
 upon this matter. There is a conversation which has taken 
 place between the English minister to Russia and the Emperor 
 of Russia. I believe no man in the world who knows anything 
 about the Emperor of Russia doubted for a moment that he 
 at least is as anxious for peace as any of the statesmen of either 
 party in this country — and I think the explicit declarations 
 which he has made are immensely to his credit — not merely the 
 opinions which he holds and which he has declared ; but in his 
 position he has condescended to make these expressive declara- 
 tions with a view to appeal to the common-sense and good- 
 sense, the peaceful feeling if you like, the Christian and human
 
 ■7AA BRIGHT 
 
 feeling, of the population of England. Now, the public, notwith- 
 standing what I say, are not wholly free from terror and from 
 suspicion of the Russian power, but their conscience has been 
 touched by some knowledge of the past, and by the horrors 
 committed by the Turks, of which, bad as they are, only 
 a faint outline has been fully narrated to us even by the corre- 
 spondents of the London papers. But they hesitate still, and I 
 believe they will not be dragged into war at the bidding of any 
 minister. If public opinion be right, the government, I think, 
 in this matter will not go wrong. 
 
 There is one point with regard to this question, not with 
 regard to the Eastern question, but rather with regard to the 
 question which was specially brought before us by Mr. Glover 
 in his interesting speech, on which I would like to make two or 
 three observations. I think we ought to begin to ask ourselves 
 how it is that Christian nations should be involved in so many 
 wars? If one may presume to ask one's self what, in the eye 
 of the Supreme Ruler, is the greatest crime which His creatures 
 commit, I think we may almost with certainty conclude that it 
 is the crime of war. Someone has described it as the sum 
 of all villanies. It has been the cause of sufferings, misery, and 
 slaughter which neither tongue nor pen can ever describe, and 
 all this has been going on for eighteen hundred years after men 
 have adopted the religion whose founder and whose head is de- 
 nominated the Prince of Peace. It was announced as a religion 
 which was intended to bring " peace on earth, and good-will 
 toward men " ; and yet, after all these years, peace on earth has 
 not come, and the good-will among men is only partially and 
 occasionally exhibited, and amongst nations we find almost no 
 trace of it century after century. Now, in this country we have 
 a great institution called the Established Church. I suppose 
 that great institution numbers 20,000 or more places of worship, 
 churches in various parts of the kingdom. I think this does 
 not include what there are in Scotland and Ireland. With these 
 20,000 churches there are at least 20,000 men, educated and for 
 the most part Christian men, anxious to do their duty as teach- 
 ers of the religion of peace ; and besides these there are 20,000 
 other churches which are not connected with the established 
 institution, but have been built and are maintained by that 
 portion of the people who go generally under the name of Dis-
 
 PEACE AND WAR 345 
 
 senters or Nonconformists, and they have other 20,000 min- 
 isters also — men as well educated in the bulk, as much Christian 
 and devoted men, as the others, and they are at work contin- 
 ually, from day to day, and they preach from Sabbath to Sab- 
 bath what they believe to be the doctrines of the Prince of 
 Peace ; and yet, notwithstanding all that, war, profligate war, 
 is either just behind us or it is just before us, and we have twen- 
 ty-five or twenty-six millions a year spent in sustaining armies 
 and navies in view of wars which may suddenly and soon take 
 place. Now, why is it, I should like to ask, if there be any 
 clergyman of the Church of England, or any minister of a Non- 
 conformist body here, and if my words should go from this 
 platform to a wider circle than can now hear me, I would ask 
 all these ministers of these churches — on this point there can 
 be no difference between church and chapel, for all these teach- 
 ers and preachers profess to be the servants of the Most High 
 God, and teachers of the doctrines of His Divine Son — and 
 being such, may I not appeal to them and say : What have you 
 40,000 or 50,000 men, with such vast influences, what have you 
 been doing with this great question during all the years that 
 you have ministered and called yourselves ministers of the 
 Prince of Peace? And I would not confine my appeal to them 
 only, but to the devout men of every church and every chapel 
 who surround the minister and uphold his hand, who did in 
 many things his bidding, and who join him heartily and con- 
 scientiously in his work. I say: What are they doing? Why 
 is it that there has never been a combination of all religious 
 and Christian teachers of the country with the view of teaching 
 the people what is true, what is Christian, upon this subject ? I 
 believe it has been within the power of the churches to do far 
 more than statesmen can do in matters of this kind. I believe 
 they might so bring this question home to the hearts and con- 
 sciences of the Christian and good men of their congrega- 
 tions that a great combination of public opinion might be 
 created which would wholly change the aspect of this question 
 in this country and before the world, and would bring to the 
 minds of statesmen that they are not the rulers of colonists 
 of Greece, or of the marauding hordes of ancient Rome, but 
 that they are, or ought to be, the Christian rulers of a Christian 
 people.
 
 34 6 BRIGHT 
 
 And now I have said all that is necessary on this occasion. 
 I ought to say I only engaged with my friends who called upon 
 me to make a few observations which might arise out of the lec- 
 ture which we expected would be delivered, and which to-night 
 we have heard with so much pleasure. It is not to be supposed, 
 of course, that a small town, just as it were new-born into the 
 family of towns like Llandudno, should have a powerful 
 influence upon public opinion, and upon government. You 
 represent a small town with a small population ; you cannot con- 
 trol or terrify a feeble, or unwise, or unprincipled administra- 
 tion, but you can add to the great volume of sound opinion 
 throughout the country, whose mandate such administration 
 dare not in the long run disobey. 
 
 In Wales there is much that Welshmen have to be proud of. 
 There is no part of the country, I believe, where, for the popula- 
 tion, there are so few offences committed against the law ; there 
 is no part of the country in which the people by voluntary ef- 
 fort have done so much for education and for the teaching of 
 the Christian religion ; there is no part of the country to which 
 Englishmen can come with so much pleasure to behold all that 
 is beautiful in nature, and all that the inhabitants of this district 
 have so much reason to love and to be proud of. May I ask 
 you then to do what you can — you are not asked to do more, 
 but whoever you may come in contact with, whenever you may 
 have the opportunity of discussing this great question, to go 
 to the kernel of it, stripped of all the husk by which states- 
 men and the press succeed so often in misleading the people ; 
 go to the kernel of the matter, and ask yourself the question : 
 Can it be your duty to send out your sons and brothers three 
 thousand miles to the slaughter — it may be of the Russians or 
 any other people — can it be your duty to do this? Ask your 
 consciences within the sight of Heaven if it can be your duty ; 
 and if you cannot find an answer in the affirmative, then, I say, 
 have nothing to do with the accursed system, and wherever 
 your influence extends, let it be honestly and earnestly in favor 
 of Christianity and peace.
 
 FUNERAL ORATION ON LORD 
 PALMERSTON 
 
 BY 
 
 DEAN STANLEY 
 
 (Arthur Penrhyn Stanley)
 
 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, DEAN STANLEY 
 
 1815— 1881 
 
 Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, the second son of Edward Stanley, Bishop 
 of Norwich, was born at Alderley while his father was rector of that 
 parish, on December 13, 1815. He entered Rugby in January, 1829, 
 where Dr. Arnold had been installed as head-master the previous sum- 
 mer. During the three years or more spent under the care of that 
 eminent man Stanley's respect for his teacher " ripened into an affec- 
 tion that rose to veneration." Arnold's influence was the " load-star " 
 of his life, as he expressed himself, and there can be no doubt that it 
 guided him in his conduct through the turmoil and animosity of re- 
 ligious factions which he soon was to encounter at Oxford during a 
 critical period of his life. 
 
 Stanley went to Balliol College as an exhibitioner from Rugby and 
 became distinguished for his scholarship throughout his college career. 
 In 1838 he was chosen a fellow of University College, and in December 
 of the following year he was ordained by the Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 In 1840 Stanley set out for a tour of Italy, Switzerland, and Greece, 
 and scarcely a year passed after that without his making some extensive 
 trip to the Continent, Asia, America, or other parts of the world. The 
 appointment of Arnold to the chair of modern history at Oxford in 
 1841 gave extreme satisfaction to Stanley. He had hoped his influence 
 would restore a healthier tone to university life, and his disappointment 
 was therefore great when Arnold died, June 12, 1842. The life of Arnold 
 by Dean Stanley, which was published two years later, secured for him 
 a recognized position in the world of letters. During the religious con- 
 troversies agitating Oxford at this time, Stanley did not sympathize 
 with the views of either faction. As a tutor his efforts met with the 
 greatest success, so much that his college rose to a high rank in the 
 university. In his sermons " On the Apostolic Age," delivered during 
 the years 1846 and 1847, he expounded views divergent from those of 
 both parties and defended the cause of free inquiry as applied to Biblical 
 study. In July, 1851, after the death of his father, Stanley was ap- 
 pointed a canon of Canterbury and left Oxford. The next five years 
 were a period of great literary activity, interrupted only by tours abroad. 
 
 A larger sphere of activity presented itself to Stanley when, in De- 
 cember, 1856, he was appointed professor of ecclesiastical history at 
 Oxford. Here, through his lectures and through the pulpit, he exer- 
 cised a remarkable influence on the young men with whom he came in 
 contact, while his passion for justice plunged him into many contro- 
 versies. He was invited to accompany the Prince of Wales on a tour 
 in the East, and on his return married Lady Augusta Bruce, on De- 
 cember 23, 1863. In January of the following year he was installed as 
 Dean of the Abbey in succession to Trench, who became Archbishop 
 of Dublin. In his new capacity Dean Stanley soon became prominent. 
 In literature, in the official duties of his office, and in the pulpit his 
 labors were fruitful of the best and most far-reaching results. He 
 was a firm advocate and upholder of the established law governing the 
 relations of the Church and State and was opposed to every attempt 
 to loosen the ties between them. 
 
 Stanley's was a mind marked by the breadth of its charity and his 
 attitude of toleration towards those of other religious beliefs. He in- 
 sisted that the essence and vitality of Christianity lay not in dogmas, 
 forms, and institutions, but in the true Christian character. Stanley 
 died July 18, 1881. His fine oration on Lord Palmerston is one of 
 numerous funeral orations he delivered during his career. 
 
 348
 
 FUNERAL ORATION ON LORD PALMERSTON 
 
 Delivered October 29, 1865, on the Sunday following Lord Palmcr- 
 ston's burial in Westminster Abbey 
 
 £> EE that ye zvalk circumspectly . . . redeeming the 
 il time . . . understanding what the will of the Lord 
 is. 1 So spoke the Apostle in the epistle of this day. He 
 tells his readers to " walk circumspectly " — that is, with a keen, 
 critical observance of all they see ; to " redeem the time " — 
 that is, to make the most of every opportunity that is thrown in 
 their way, not to let any part of it escape them ; to make every 
 effort of mind and heart to " understand what the will of the 
 Lord is " — that is, to understand what is the special intention of 
 God, wrapped up in the different dispensations of joy and sor- 
 row which come across them. It is this very thing which we 
 are called upon to do this day — to look hard into the essential 
 lessons of the great solemnity at which, on Friday last, so many 
 of us assisted ; to redeem, and make the most of, for our in- 
 struction, the opportunity of serious thought, thus afforded to 
 us ; to understand, so far as we can, what is the will of the 
 Lord concerning us, in the national homage then paid to the 
 illustrious dead. 
 
 It is one of the most instructive parts of solemnities of this 
 kind that each has its own peculiar lesson to convey. Of all 
 the great men who are laid within these walls, every single one, 
 probably, is laid there for a separate and distinct reason, which 
 could not apply to anyone else. That grand truth which was 
 read in our ears in the funeral lesson, from the apostolic epistle, 
 has its special force on every such occasion here — " There is 
 one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and an- 
 other glory of the stars ; for one star differeth from another 
 star in glory." 
 
 1 Ephesians, v. 15, 16, 17. 
 349
 
 35° DEAN STANLEY 
 
 In the chambers of the dead, in the temple of fame, no less 
 than in the house of our heavenly Father, there are indeed 
 " many mansions," many stages, many degrees. Each human 
 soul that is gifted above its fellows, leaves, as it passes out of 
 the world, a light of its own, that no other soul, whether more 
 or less greatly gifted, could give equally. As each lofty peak 
 in some mountain is illuminated with a different hue of its 
 own, by the setting sun, so, also, each of the higher summits 
 of human society is lit up by the sunset of life with a different 
 color, derived, it may be, from the materials of which it is com- 
 posed, or from the relative position which it occupies, but each, 
 to those who can discern it rightly, conveying a new and sepa- 
 rate lesson of truth, of duty, of wisdom, and of hope. 
 
 What, then, are the special lessons which we may learn from 
 the character of the remarkable man who has been taken away, 
 and from the tribute paid to his memory? I leave altogether 
 the questions of political and religious parties, which have no 
 place here, and confine myself entirely to those direct, practical 
 lessons which may be applied to all, of whatever opinions, 
 equally. I leave, also, altogether, those questions of the un- 
 seen world which are known to God only. I leave them, as 
 our Church leaves them, to that holy and merciful Saviour, 
 whose mighty working is able to subdue all things to Himself, 
 who sees as man sees not, but who, we cannot doubt, com- 
 mends to our admiration whatsoever there is good and true in 
 every one of His servants, that from each we may understand 
 the more fully what the will of the Lord is, what the whole 
 counsel of God is towards us. 
 
 First, then, there was this singular peculiarity, that the gifts 
 by which the eminence of the departed statesman was achieved 
 were such as are far more within the reach of all of us than is 
 usually the case with those who occupy a position like his. It 
 has been said of Judas Maccabaeus, that of all military chiefs, 
 he was the one who accomplished the greatest victories with the 
 smallest amount of external resources. It may be said of our 
 late chief, that of all political leaders, he accomplished the 
 greatest success by the most homely and the most ordinary 
 means. It is this which makes his life, in many respects, an ex- 
 ample and an encouragement to all. The persevering devotion 
 of his days and nights to the public service, the toil and en-
 
 FUNERAL ORATION ON LORD PALMERSTON 35 x 
 
 durance of more than half a century in the various high sta- 
 tions in which he was employed — these are qualities which 
 might be imitated by every single person, from the highest to 
 the lowest amongst you. You, whoever you may be, who are 
 disposed, as so many young man are, to give yourselves up to 
 ease and self-indulgence, who think everything that costs you 
 any trouble a reason for putting work aside, remember that not 
 by such faint-hearted, idle carelessness can God or man be 
 served, or the end of any human soul be attained, in this life 
 or the next. You, whoever you be, who are working on zeal- 
 ously, humbly, honestly, in your different stations, work on the 
 more zealously and the more faithfully, from this day forward, 
 with the feeling that, in the honors paid to me who was, in 
 these respects, but a fellow-laborer with you, the nation, as 
 in the sight of God, has set its seal on the value of work, on 
 the nobleness of toil, on the grandeur of long, laborious davs, 
 on the splendor of plodding, persevering diligence. 
 
 Again, he won his way, as we have been told a hundred times, 
 not so much by eloquence, or genius, or far-sighted wisdom, as 
 by the lesser graces of cheerfulness, good humor, gayety, and 
 kindness of heart, tact, and readiness — lesser graces, doubtless, 
 graces of which some of the highest characters have been al- 
 most destitute, yet graces which are assuredly not less the gifts 
 of God — graces which, even in the house of God, we do well to 
 reverence and admire. Those who may think it a matter of 
 little moment to take offence at the slightest affront ; those who 
 by their presence throw a dark chill over whatever society they 
 take part in ; those who make the lives of those around them 
 miserable, by recklessly trampling on their tenderest feelings, 
 and wounding them in their weakest point ; those who poison 
 discussion and embitter controversy by pushing particular views 
 to their extremest consequences, by widening differences be- 
 tween man and man ; those who think it a duty to make the 
 worst of everyone from whom they dissent, and to maintain 
 a never-ending protest against those who have ever done them 
 a wrong, or from whom they have ever differed — such as these 
 may have higher pretensions and, it may be, higher claims on 
 our respect ; yet if they would understand what the will of the 
 Lord is, a silent rebuke will rise to them from yonder grave, 
 such as God designs for their special benefit. The statesman
 
 35* 
 
 DEAN STANLEY 
 
 who had always a soft word ready to turn away wrath ; who, if 
 at times he attacked or was attacked justly, yet never bore 
 lasting malice towards his enemies ; who was able to see, even 
 in those who opposed him, the true worth and value of their 
 essential characters — from him, and from the honor paid to 
 him, many an eager partisan, many a hard polemic, many an 
 austere moralist, may learn a lesson that nothing else could 
 teach them. How many, by praising him, have condemned 
 themselves ! How many, by making much of him, have made 
 much of the very graces which, in all other times and persons, 
 they have been unwilling even to acknowledge ! 
 
 Yet again, the long life which has just closed was an endur- 
 ing witness to the greatness of that gift which even heathens 
 recognized, of hope, unfailing, elastic hope. " Never despair! " 
 so the vicissitudes of the octogenarian chief seemed to say to 
 us. From a youth of comparative obscurity, from a middle- 
 age of constant struggle with opposition, through a shifting 
 career of many changes and many falls, was attained at last that 
 serene and bright old age, that calm and honored death, which, 
 in its measure, is within the reach of all of us, if God should so 
 prolong our years, and if we should not despair of ourselves. 
 Never be dispirited ; never say, " It is too late " ; never think 
 that your day is past ; never lose heart under opposition ; hold 
 on to the end, and you may at last be victorious and successful, 
 even as he was — it may be in still nobler causes, and with still 
 more lasting results. Nor let us shut out the encouragement 
 which this is designed to give us, by saying that it was, after 
 all, only the natural result of a buoyant and vigorous consti- 
 tution. To a great degree, no doubt, it was so ; yet it also 
 rested in large measure on the deeper ground of a quiet con- 
 viction that the fitting course for a man was to do what is 
 good for the moment, without vainly forecasting the future — 
 to do the present duty, and to leave the results to God. " I do 
 ndt understand," so he once said to one who knew him well — 
 " I do not understand what is meant by the anxiety of respon- 
 sibility. I take every pains to do what is for the best, and 
 having done that, I am perfectly at ease, and leave the conse- 
 quences altogether alone." That strain, indeed, is of a higher 
 mood : it is the strain of the inspired wisdom of ancient days 
 — " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy
 
 FUNERAL ORATION ON LORD TALMERSTON 353 
 
 might." It is the strain, also, may we not say, of true Chris- 
 tain humility and courage, which may well calm many a care, 
 and nourish many a hope, and strengthen many a faith, beside, 
 and beyond, and above the care, and the hope, and the faith of a 
 mere political career. 
 
 And this leads me to another and a wider view of the sub- 
 ject, in which, nevertheless, all, even the humblest of us, may 
 take an interest. If any were asked what was the thought or 
 belief which, from first to last, most distinctly guided his 
 policy and sustained his spirit, they would say his unfailing 
 trust in, and concern for, the greatness of England. He was 
 an Englishman even to excess. It was England, rather than 
 any special party in England — it was the honor and interests of 
 England, rather than even the constitution, or the State, or the 
 Church of England, that fired his imagination, and stimulated 
 his efforts, and secured his fame. For this it was that his name 
 was known throughout the world, in the most secluded villages 
 of Calabria, on the wild shores of the Caspian, in the monastic 
 solitudes of Thibet. To England, and to no lesser interest, the 
 vast length of that laborious life, with whatsoever shortcom- 
 ings, was in all simplicity and faithfulness devoted. My breth- 
 ren, I know well that when I thus speak there are considerations 
 far greater than these by which the human soul must be stayed 
 in life and death, by which the world and Church are guided on 
 their appointed course ; but on this occasion this is the thought 
 which presses most forcibly upon us ; this is the framework 
 in which those higher considerations present themselves ; this 
 is the special opportunity which we are to redeem, and out of 
 which the will of the Lord will make itself clear. In this great 
 historic building, on the disappearance from amongst us of one 
 of our chief historic names in the sight of all that was highest 
 and noblest in our national life gathered round that open vault, 
 it is the very mission of the preacher to ask you to reflect on 
 what should be our Christian duty towards that kingly com- 
 monwealth of which we, no less than he, are members — of 
 which we, no less than he, are proud — for which we, no less 
 than he, are bound in the sight of God to lay down our lives 
 and to spend our latest breath. 
 
 " England, we love thee better than we know ! " 
 Vol. II. — 23
 
 354 DEAN STANLEY 
 
 It was surely an allowable feeling which caused one whose 
 voice has often been heard from this place thus to describe the 
 thrill of joy and exultation with which, in a foreign land, he — 
 
 "... heard again thy martial music blow, 
 And saw thy gallant children to and fro 
 Pace, keeping ward at one of those huge gates 
 Which, like twin giants, watch the Herculean straits." 2 
 
 Some such feeling of pride as this it was which was roused by 
 the awe awakened in many a distant and many a suffering na- 
 tion at the sound of the powerful name now to be inscribed 
 within these walls. 
 
 But it is with loftier thoughts than pride or even thankful- 
 ness that our spirits mount upwards when we reflect on what 
 is really involved in that idea which so inspired the long career 
 which has just closed — England, and a citizen of England. 
 Think of our marvellous history, slowly evolved out of our 
 marvellous situation. Think of that fusion of hostile races and 
 hostile institutions within the same narrow limits. Think of 
 the long, bright, continuous line of our literature such as is un- 
 known in any other country. Think of our refuge for freedom 
 and for justice. Think of our temperate monarchy and con- 
 stitution, so fearfully and wonderfully wrought out through 
 the toil and conflict of so many centuries. Think of our pure 
 domestic homes. Think of the English prayers and the English 
 Bible woven into our inmost and earliest recollections. Think 
 of the liberty of conscience and the liberty of speech which give 
 to conscience and to speech a double, treble weight and value. 
 Think of the sober religious faith which shows itself amongst 
 us in so many diverse forms, each supplying what the other 
 wants. These are some of the elements which go to make up 
 the whole idea that is conjured up by the sacred name of Eng- 
 land for which our statesman lived and died. 
 
 And then remember that what England is, or will be, depends 
 in great measure on her own individual sons and daughters. 
 Nations are the schools in which individual souls are trained. 
 The virtues and the sins of a nation are the virtues and the 
 sins of each one of its citizens, on a larger scale and written 
 in gigantic letters. To be a citizen of England, according to 
 
 '"Gibraltar": a sonnet, by R. C. Trench, Archbishop of Dublin.
 
 FUNERAL ORATION ON LORD PALMERSTON 355 
 
 our lost chief, was the greatest boast, the greatest claim on 
 protection and influence, that a man could show in any part of 
 the world. To be a citizen of England in the fullest sense, 
 worthy of all that England has been and might be, worthy of 
 our noble birthright, worthy of our boundless opportunities, this 
 is, indeed, a thought which should rouse every one of us, not 
 in presumptuous confidence, but in all Christian humility, to re- 
 deem the time that is still before us, and to labor to understand 
 what the will of the Lord is for ourselves and for our children. 
 When, two days ago, we stood amidst the deepening gloom 
 round the grave of the aged statesman, it was impossible not to 
 feel that we were witnessing not only the flight of an individual 
 spirit into the unseen world, but the close of one generation, 
 one stage of our history, and the beginning of another. We 
 had climbed to the height of one of those ridges which part 
 the past from the future. We were on the water-shed of the 
 dividing streams. We saw the last thread of the waters which 
 belonged to the earlier epoch amongst the remains of which 
 the ashes of the dead were laid ; we were on the turning-point 
 whence, henceforward, the springs of political and national life 
 will flow in another direction, taking their rise from another 
 range, destined to commingle with other seas, and to fertilize 
 other climes. Even the oldest of living statesmen, compared 
 with him who has gone, belongs to a newer age, and has to face 
 a newer world. On this eminence, so to speak, we stand to-day. 
 To this new start in our pilgrimage we have each one of us 
 to look forward. It is not in England as in other countries, 
 where the national will is but little felt compared with the will 
 of a single ruler. Here, for good or for evil, the mind, the 
 wishes, the character of the people are almost everything. 
 That public opinion, of which we hear so much, which was 
 believed to be the guiding star of the sagacious mind which has 
 just gone from us — that public opinion is moulded by everyone 
 who has a will, or heart, or head, or conscience of his own, 
 throughout this vast empire. On you, on me, on old and young, 
 on rich and poor, it more or less depends, whether that public 
 opinion be elevating or depressing, just or unjust, pure or 
 impure, Christian or un-Christian. If it be true, as some think, 
 that to follow and not to lead public opinion must henceforth 
 be the course of our statesmen, then our responsibility and the
 
 356 DEAN STANLEY 
 
 responsibility of the nation is deepened further still. The very 
 creation of the character of our public men must then devolve 
 in a manner upon those below them and around them. They 
 may inspire us, but we must also inspire them. We must 
 strive with all our strength to be that in our stations which 
 we would wish them to be in theirs. We must act as those 
 act in a beleaguered city, where every sentinel knows that on 
 his single courage and fidelity may depend the fate of all. A 
 single resolute mind, loving the truth, and the truth only, has 
 ere now brought the whole mind of a nation round to himself. 
 A single pure spirit has, by its own pure and holy aspirations, 
 breathed a new spirit into the corrupt mass of a whole national 
 literature. A single voice raised constantly in behalf of hon- 
 esty, and justice, and mercy, and freedom, has rendered forever 
 impossible practises which were once universal. 
 
 " Brethren," so says the Apostle in the chapter which you 
 have just heard in this evening's service, " Brethren, forget- 
 ting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto 
 those things which are before, I press towards the mark, for 
 the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." So let me 
 call upon you, in the presence of that grave which has been so 
 lately closed ; in the prospect of the changes and trials, what- 
 soever they may be, which are now before us ; in the midst of 
 those mighty memories by which we are surrounded ; in the 
 face of that mighty future to which we are all advancing, for- 
 get those things which are behind. Forget in him who is gone 
 all that was of the earth and earthy; reach forward in his 
 character to all that is immortal — the kindness, the persever- 
 ance, the freedom from party spirit, the hope, the self-devo- 
 tion, which can never pass away, and which are still before each 
 one of us. Forget, too, in the past and the present generation, 
 all that is behind, all that is behind the best spirit of our 
 age, all that is behind the true spirit of the gospel, all that 
 is behind the requirements of the most enlightened and the 
 most Christian conscience; and reach forward, one and all, 
 towards those great things which we may trust are still be- 
 fore us — the great problems which our age, if any, may solve, 
 the great tasks which our nation alone can accomplish, the 
 great doctrines of our common faith, which we may have the 
 opportunity of grasping with a firmer hold than ever before,
 
 FUNERAL ORATION ON LORD PALMERSTON 357 
 
 the great reconciliation of things old with things new, of things 
 common with things sacred, of class with class, of man with 
 man, of nation with nation, of church with church, of all with 
 God. This is the high calling of England, this is the high call- 
 ing of an English statesman, this is the high calling of every 
 English citizen, this is the high calling of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, this is the will of the Lord concerning us ; this, and noth- 
 ing less than this, is " the prize of the high calling of God in 
 Christ Jesus " our Lord.

 
 ONE-MAN POWER 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD SALISBURY 
 
 (Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne Cecil)
 
 ROBERT ARTHUR TALBOT GASCOYNE CECIL, 
 LORD SALISBURY 
 
 Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne Cecil was born at Hatfield in 1830. 
 He is the eldest surviving son of the second Marquis of Salisbury, and 
 succeeded in 1868, after the demise of his elder brother in 1865, to the 
 title and estates of the family. Lord Salisbury was educated at Eton and 
 later at Christ Church, Oxford. He was elected fellow of All Souls' Col- 
 lege, and in the same year entered Parliament as a member for Stamford, 
 which seat he held for many years in the Conservative interests. In 
 Lord Derby's third administration Lord Salisbury was appointed Sec- 
 retary of State for India, but soon resigned on account of the discordant 
 views on the Reform Bill prevalent in the Cabinet. When Disraeli 
 returned to power in 1874 he was again appointed to the same office. 
 In November, 1876, Lord Salisbury was sent as special ambassador to 
 Constantinople to assist in adjusting the difficulties respecting the Chris- 
 tian subjects of the Sultan, but the proposals of the great powers were 
 rejected by the Turkish government. 
 
 In April of the following year Salisbury succeeded the Earl of Derby 
 as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and soon after joined the 
 Earl of Beaconsfield as representative of Great Britain at the Congress 
 of Berlin. The successes achieved for their country by the two British 
 statesmen, incidental to the new division of the Sultan's dominions, 
 mark, perhaps, the period of the greatest triumphs in the lives of both 
 men. 
 
 After the death of Lord Beaconsfield in 1881 Lord Salisbury became 
 the leader of the Conservatives in the Upper House. Since then his 
 career has been most intimately connected with the successes and re- 
 verses of that party. Lord Salisbury was a vigorous opponent of Glad- 
 stone on the Irish Home Rule bill, and on the defeat of Gladstone in 
 1886 Lord Salisbury became once more Prime Minister. His party re- 
 mained in power for six years, Salisbury assuming the portfolio of 
 foreign affairs in 1888, when a reconstruction of the ministry was made 
 necessary by the resignation of Lord Randolph Churchill from the 
 Cabinet. The present government, in which Lord Salisbury holds the 
 portfolio of Foreign Affairs and is Prime Minister, was returned to 
 power in 1895. 
 
 Lord Salisbury is a man of science and a scholar as well as a states- 
 man. Though not endowed with any great oratorical powers, his public 
 speeches, like the one on " One-Man Power," given here, are master- 
 pieces of exposition and style. 
 
 ?6o
 
 ONE-MAN POWER 
 
 Delivered at Dumfries, October 22, 1884 
 
 IN rising to thank Lord Galloway, the Conservative Associa- 
 tions, and you, for the kind reception which has been 
 accorded to me, I cannot in the first instance forbear 
 from noting the melancholy fact that if I had addressed you 
 here from this platform a year ago it is probable that the chair 
 would have been occupied by another person. I cannot wel- 
 come my noble friend the Duke of Buccleuch to his new honors 
 and the vast position of influence which they give him without 
 recalling the memory of that splendid Scotchman and patriot 
 who has passed away. He passed a life far longer in that posi- 
 tion than an ordinary life. In the discharge, in the sedulous 
 and unfailing discharge, of the highest duties of a subject he 
 never permitted the privileges and enjoyment which his posi- 
 tion gave him to induce him for a moment to forget the obli- 
 gations under which he lay towards his fellow-subjects, or the 
 duties which his position imposed upon him. He passed a life 
 of unflagging exertion in the discharge of social duties of no 
 common importance, and he leaves behind him a memory of 
 sagacity, of patriotism, of public spirit, of equable and calm 
 judgment, which no Scotchman within our experience has sur- 
 passed or equalled. 
 
 Gentlemen, I approach the task of addressing you to-night 
 with the somewhat consoling feeling that we are standing on 
 the verge of the close of this autumn campaign. It has been 
 one of considerable exertion, not only for the speakers, but for 
 the hearers, and my impression is that when it passes into his- 
 tory those who have passed through it will dismiss it with the 
 hope that the like of it may never occur again. But from a po- 
 litical point of view I cannot say that it has left upon my mind 
 a shade of regret for the course which the House of Lords 
 
 3 6 i
 
 362 LORD SALISBURY 
 
 and the Conservative party have thought it their duty to take. 
 It appears to me that it has left the Conservative party more 
 united than ever it was before, and it has given to the country 
 an opportunity of discussing questions deeply affecting the 
 constitutional working of our Government — an opportunity of 
 hearing both sides of the question, and of forming their delib- 
 erate judgment thereupon. From all I see and all I hear I do 
 not believe that that judgment is unfavorable to the existing 
 constitution of the country. Some people on the other side are 
 constantly telling us that we have not pursued the right course 
 for the benefit of the Tory party. I am always struck with the 
 singular perception which our adversaries have of that which 
 the Tory party in its own interests ought to do, and they have 
 not been tired of impressing upon us that we have made a 
 great mistake in not attacking them in their own way — that we 
 have drawn attention to matters which we had better not have 
 noticed, and that we have committed the great impolicy of 
 bringing in the first place the question of the House of Lords 
 before the country ; and, in the second place, that we have 
 distracted the minds of the people of this country from the 
 other blunders of the Government. Now, I accept with thank- 
 fulness that admission on the part of our opponents that there 
 are considerable blunders of the Government to notice, but I do 
 not in the least admit the error which they impute to us, because 
 the imputation of that error rests upon the assumption that the 
 people of this country must be treated rather like lunatics, and 
 that it is dangerous to mention any matter in their hearing lest 
 it should set up a perilous and destructive line of thought. I 
 do not believe in the policy of plastering over difficulties and 
 trying to avoid dangers by reticence. The only chance we 
 have in this country is fair, free, open discussion; and if I am 
 told that we have brought before the attention of the country 
 subjects which but for us would not have been brought before 
 them I say all the better. The sooner that they discuss them 
 the better they will be able to judge upon them. The only 
 thing that we have to fear is a hasty, uninformed judgment, 
 and the longer they are able to discuss them the more thor- 
 oughly these questions are agitated in their view, with the more 
 perfect confidence may we assure ourselves of the sound judg- 
 ment that will ultimately be arrived at.
 
 ONE-MAN POWER 363 
 
 Now, as we approach the close of this campaign, let us try 
 to impose our experience, let us try to trace what are the 
 tendencies, what the prospects which the progress and char- 
 acter of this agitation have disclosed before us. I think, if 
 you will examine all that is new in the character of this agita- 
 tion, you will find that the indications point in one particular 
 direction. You will find that there is a tendency, beyond any- 
 thing that our fathers have experienced before, to give the 
 power to the ministry of the day, and especially to the Prime 
 Minister who is at their head ; and in all the arguments that 
 have been urged and the new doctrines that have been im- 
 pressed upon us that is the tendency, that is the object to which 
 our opponents seem to direct their efforts, and in my judgment 
 that is the course of events which it most concerns the people 
 of this country to prevent. Now, if you will look at the state 
 of this controversy, which has been thrashed out before you 
 during the last three months, you will see that we stand at this 
 point. The Government have summoned an early session. 
 They want to pass, so they tell us, the franchise bill and a redis- 
 tribution bill. According to all former precedent, according to 
 the ordinary practice of Parliament, what they would do would 
 be to introduce those two bills together, and to pass them 
 through as quickly as they can. They have an unusually long 
 session in which to do it, because they have begun six weeks 
 earlier than the ordinary session, and therefore it is presumable 
 that even within the time they have before next August they 
 would be able, if they try, to accomplish this object. But 
 they are not limited to next August. There is nothing which 
 it is more important to remember, when they tell you they have 
 no time to pass these bills, that the amount of time they will 
 take is absolutely a matter of their own discretion. They can 
 continue the session ; they have no need to prorogue Parlia- 
 ment, for they can continue it as long as they like ; and, there- 
 fore, if they do not get time enough to pass these two bills, 
 which they profess their desire to pass, and which they have 
 called us at this early period for passing, it must be entirely 
 their own decision or their own fault. Well, you may ask me, 
 why do not the Government take advantage of this? Why 
 did they not introduce these two bills at once and pass them 
 together? They tell us they cannot pass these bills unless they
 
 364 LORD SALISBURY 
 
 can put the Houses of Parliament under compulsion — I am not 
 using my own words, that was precisely the word used by Lord 
 Hartington — unless they could put the Houses of Parliament 
 under compulsion they say that they will not be able to pass 
 these two bills. I need not tell you that this is an entirely new 
 pretension in our constitutional history. Never before has a 
 minister of the Crown assumed to have the right to exercise 
 compulsion upon the free decision of the two Houses of Par- 
 liament. They are repeatedly trying to impress upon you that 
 this is a conflict with the House of Lords, but this idea of com- 
 pulsion points to the House of Commons, because it would be 
 just as easy to agitate against the House of Lords upon the 
 question of redistribution as upon the question of franchise. 
 Therefore, it is the House of Commons which they aim at 
 when they say that they must be armed with a power of compul- 
 sion which they do not now possess — that is to say, they must 
 be able to say to the House of Commons, " Unless you pass this 
 bill which we present to you, this redistribution bill, you will 
 have to submit to the franchise without redistribution, which 
 we know you will regard as a horrible alternative." Well, I 
 said just now that the reticence principle rather made you 
 think they were treating the people of England as lunatics, but 
 this idea makes me think they are treating the people of Eng- 
 land as if they were babies in arms. Those who have domestic 
 experience may know that the way of making a baby take 
 medicine is to pinch its nose and to insert a drenching-spoon into 
 its mouth, and in that way the baby is made to take the medicine 
 to which it would otherwise object. That is precisely the 
 process Her Majesty's Government propose to apply to the 
 House of Commons. They propose, by means of this parlia- 
 mentary drenching-spoon, to force down the throats of the 
 House of Commons the medicine which they know very well if 
 the House of Commons had the opportunity of unbiassed judg- 
 ment it would decline to accept. 
 
 I think we have in some of the revelations that have recently 
 been made an explanation why the ordinary mode of taking 
 medicine is to be abandoned, and why the drenching-spoon is 
 to be resorted to. I dare say you have read the clear, forcible, 
 and vigorous exposition of the defects of the redistribution bill 
 which appeared in the " Standard " from the mouth of Lord
 
 ONE-MAN POWER 365 
 
 Randolph Churchill. I need not repeat his demonstration, I 
 should only spoil it by doing so ; but it seems to be substantially 
 just and fair. There is one feature of it which I cannot forbear 
 to notice. About ten days ago Lord Hartington, speaking at 
 Rawtenstall, spoke to us with pitying contempt of our unworthy 
 desire to cast up how many we should gain or how many we 
 should lose by any redistribution bill. Well, it seemed to me 
 at the time a very dignified appeal, and I was much struck that 
 a day or two afterwards appeared this bill, which had been pre- 
 pared by a committee of the Cabinet. From that it appeared 
 that somewhat strange things had been done in Lord Harting- 
 ton's own county. A certain town called Accrington has 60,000 
 inhabitants, and, as you know, according to strict numeral cal- 
 culations 54,000 inhabitants is enough to qualify for a member, 
 but the town of Accrington was not to have a member. And 
 why? Because it was in Lord Hartington's county, and be- 
 cause the urban voters in the town of Accrington, who vote for 
 Lord Hartington, would be made county voters instead of 
 urban voters by that arrangement. Well, when that appeared 
 I thought there was something exquisitely humorous in Lord 
 Hartington's deprecation of our unworthy conduct in casting 
 up the amount of seats we should gain or lose. I do not for a 
 moment accuse Lord Hartington of being conscious of what 
 his friends are doing, but no doubt the moment he saw that 
 scheme appear in the " Standard " he took a cab and dashed 
 down to the office and insisted that Accrington should have a 
 member. The point that I have ventured to bring before you 
 is that all these proceedings go in the direction that I have indi- 
 cated to you. It is effected by that tendency to give excessive 
 power to the ministry which I ventured to signalize to you as 
 the great danger of our day. The ministry recommend for 
 their own reasons and purposes some scheme to the House of 
 Commons. They are afraid that the House of Commons will 
 not, according to the ordinary practice, pass it, and they re- 
 quire, for the first time in our history, powers of compulsion. 
 They require to be able to put the House of Commons under a 
 penalty unless it will pass a redistribution scheme which suits 
 their purpose. If they were not actuated by party motives it 
 would involve the most intolerable annoyance, for it would in- 
 volve the assumption that they are capable of dictating to the
 
 366 LORD SALISBURY 
 
 Houses of Parliament that which the Houses of Parliament 
 ought to accept, and that their judgment is superior to any 
 that the Houses of Parliament can exercise. 
 
 Take another point. Mr. Chamberlain has been good 
 enough to say, with singular reiteration, that this is a contest 
 between the House of Lords and the people, and he goes into a 
 great many heroics about the duty of some people to resist this 
 intolerable aristocratic tyranny. My impression is, if there is 
 any aristocratic tyranny, a very small portion of this free peo- 
 ple would know how to get rid of it at once ; but the truth is 
 that there is no conflict whatever between the House of Peers 
 and the people. What the House of Lords desire to know is 
 what the people think. They desire to know it in the authorized 
 and regular way. They wish to know it by the counting of 
 opinions at the polls. That is the only way in which it can be 
 really ascertained. I have no doubt that Mr. Chamberlain 
 would wish us to believe that the hired ruffians who were sent 
 to break into Aston Hall the other day represented the people ; 
 but we decline to accept that species of indication of popular 
 opinion. As for the demonstrations, I can say two things 
 of them. In the first place, one side or the other, I do not 
 believe they have affected two per cent, of the population ; and, 
 in the second place, as far as any fair return of them will give in- 
 dication, it seems to me that opinion is as much in the Con- 
 servative as in the Radical direction. But if they dispute our 
 view the simple resource — a resource of which they are marvel- 
 lously afraid — is to consult the people. They tell us they are 
 delighted with this agitation, and that the whole public opinion 
 is on their side. My impression is that if they were so delight- 
 ed they would not be so mortally afraid of the possibility of an 
 appeal to it. You know, those who can remember elections 
 as they were some ten or eleven years ago, that the form was 
 that first a show of hands was taken, and if anybody objected to 
 the show of hands and demanded a poll, then a poll was taken ; 
 but I never heard anybody say that because you objected to a 
 show of hands, and demanded a poll, therefore you were repu- 
 diating the authority of the constituency. The House of Lords 
 is in that position. It does not think that the show of hands 
 is any clear indication that the people have decided against 
 the course which they have pursued, and they demand ajjoll ;
 
 ONE-MAN POWER 367 
 
 and if a poll is not granted to them now they have no wish, 
 according to the common phrase, to force a dissolution. A dis- 
 solution will come soon enough. According to the constitu- 
 tional doctrine laid down by Mr. Gladstone himself there must 
 be a dissolution within fifteen or sixteen months, and the House 
 of Lords are perfectly content to wait for that time. They have 
 no wish to force a dissolution, but they will not accept a show 
 of hands decided by not an impartial authority ; and they insist 
 that this great issue can only be decided by the great national 
 poll. 
 
 But now the point I want to observe is the doctrine that is 
 held on the other side upon this subject. We are told that it is 
 an intolerable thing that the House of Lords should have the 
 power to force a dissolution. As I have said to you, the House 
 of Lords has never pretended to do anything of the kind. All 
 it has pretended to do is to put by a certain question until a dis- 
 solution can be had. But who is to have this power of dissolu- 
 tion ? Is it the Crown ? No. Mr. Gladstone was very careful 
 in his last speech to point out that the Crown in his view meant 
 nothing but the decision of the Prime Minister. I do not agree 
 with him. I do not admit that to be the constitutional law. 
 In my view, whatever else is surrendered to the discretion of 
 the Prime Minister, this question of dissolution never can be 
 disconnected from the initiative and the will of the Crown. 
 And I will tell you why. A dissolution is the only appeal the 
 people have against a Prime Minister who is not acting accord- 
 ing to their wish. That the Prime Minister should have a right 
 of advising an appeal to the people I do not deny for a moment, 
 but I do deny that he has a right to interpose his will and say, 
 The people may storm and object ; they may think that my 
 course is wrong, but so long as I can control the majority in the 
 House of Commons, elected under my auspices, controlled by 
 my machinery, so long I will not permit an appeal to be made 
 to the people against myself. That does not seem to me to be 
 true constitutional law. But whether it is true or not, what I 
 wish to point out to you is the tendency of all these new doc- 
 trines that are started, not to centre all power into the hands of 
 the Prime Minister alone. Mr. Chamberlain insists that the 
 majority shall have all power, and that the minority shall have 
 no rights, and he says that if the majority abuse the power they
 
 368 LORD SALISBURY 
 
 shall soon become a minority. Aye, but there are seven long 
 years to run before the majority becomes a minority. There 
 are seven long years to run before any abuse of power can be 
 punished, and during that time blows may be dealt against the 
 institutions of the country which it will be impossible afterwards 
 to repair. In his zeal to control the power of the people against 
 the House of Lords Mr. Chamberlain has introduced a new 
 way of expressing the opinion of the people. But, as you know, 
 or at least as his friends have thought, the best way to express 
 the opinions of the people is by attacking a meeting at which so 
 moderate and careful a statesman as Sir Stafford Northcote 
 was to express his opinions — by dint of bludgeons and chair- 
 backs to make the expression of opinion impossible. Mr. 
 Chamberlain has been pleased to say that this riot at Birming- 
 ham was due to some observations which I made. The obser- 
 vations which I made were that if he incited to a riot I hoped 
 that he would head the riot, when I was pretty confident that 
 his head would get broken. If Mr. Chamberlain means to say 
 that a minister of the Crown who incites a riot ought not to 
 have his head broken I differ from Mr. Chamberlain. To in- 
 cite to disorder is a grave offence on the part of anybody, but 
 on the part of a Cabinet Minister, on the part of one of those 
 who are charged with the peace and order of the vast industrial 
 communities in which we live, it is one of the greatest offences 
 that a man could commit. But I do not wish to argue the 
 point with Mr. Chamberlain if he thinks that the penalty of 
 having his head broken for such an offence is too severe. For 
 the sake of argument I am willing to put the question aside. 
 Let us leave Mr. Chamberlain's head alone, and assume that 
 some milder chastisement would be appropriate to the sup- 
 posed offence. What I want to point out to you is that they 
 all fall into the same groove, which I have already pointed out 
 to you as the groove in which Liberal opinion is fitting itself. 
 It all implies that despotic imposition of the opinion of the ma- 
 jority, which happens to be Liberal, upon their opponents, and 
 the use of any means, no matter how repulsive or atrocious, 
 which may seem likely to compass the results at which he aims. 
 In this country of Scotland you have had some people who 
 have even improved upon Mr. Chamberlain's lessons. Sir 
 George Campbell, who in his time was charged with the gov-
 
 ONE-MAN POWER 369 
 
 ernment of sixty-four millions of people, and would have dis- 
 posed of anybody who had incited to disorder with extreme 
 rapidity, is reported to have said : " I entreat you now to be 
 content with lawful proceedings " — these were his words — 
 " but if the House of Lords does not pass the franchise bill, 
 why then we will take stronger measures." That is to say, 
 stronger measures than lawful proceedings. That is the kind 
 of result which Liberal doctrine, as preached by Mr. Chamber- 
 lain, is producing in this country. 
 
 Now, there are other indications of the same tendency — a 
 tendency against which I think all good citizens should watch ; 
 and there are indications which show at once what danger at- 
 tends this one-man power. In 188 1, as you are aware, there 
 were a series of actions terminating in an action on Majuba 
 Hill, and there were a series of negotiations terminating in 
 a convention which the Boers have not observed, and which 
 the English ministry again and again has consented to revise. 
 Well, what was our constitutional majority doing during that 
 time? Why was it the House of Commons did not interpose 
 to stop proceedings so much at variance with all the traditions 
 of this country? The House of Commons was blameless 
 in the matter. Again and again Sir Michael Hicks-Beach 
 urged upon the Government that some opportunity should be 
 given of discussing the affairs of the Transvaal. Again and 
 again the Prime Minister, contrary to all precedent, refused to 
 give any opportunity for reviewing the conduct of his own 
 Government. Again and again his power over the majority 
 of the House of Commons was used to prevent any such discus- 
 sion. And it was not till the middle of the month of August, till 
 the House was empty and everyone exhausted, and, what is 
 more, till the false steps had been irrevocably taken, it was not 
 till then that a full discussion was obtained of the policy to 
 which the Government were committing the country. Again, 
 what happened this year? You know what is the state of things 
 in Egypt. I do not know where to begin in the list of Govern- 
 ment blunders, because it goes so far back; but after the 
 destruction of poor General Hicks the Government, in a mo- 
 ment of singular ill-advisedness, announced their intention 
 to all the tribes, friendly and otherwise, that they were about to 
 abandon Gordon. It was the first piece of practice to which 
 Vol. II.— 24
 
 37 o LORD SALISBURY 
 
 they ever committed themselves. The result was, of course, 
 the tribes, who always worship the rising sun, turned against 
 us, and the lives of many garrisons to which we were in honor 
 committed became endangered. Well, then the Government 
 conceived the extraordinary idea of sending one man, without 
 forces of any kind, to try and save the lives of those garrisons. 
 It is needless to say that one man did not succeed, and that 
 the garrisons got their throats cut, but that was not all. The 
 one man, the heroic General Gordon, of whose character and 
 efforts it is impossible to speak in language of too high enco- 
 mium, he in his efforts to do the strange and impossible duty 
 which the Government had imposed upon him, placed himself 
 in a position of imminent danger from which he could not 
 rescue himself. And now that the garrisons have had their 
 throats cut, and General Hicks has been butchered, at an enor- 
 mous cost, something like, I believe, £150,000 or £160,000 a 
 week, we are fitting out a great expedition for the purpose of 
 rescuing the man whom we ought not to have sent on a task 
 which it was impossible for him to perform, in order to save the 
 lives of garrisons who have long ago been butchered, and to 
 attain no other object whatever but in this way to remedy the 
 pile of blunders which one upon another the Government have 
 committed. This is one very serious matter. We are com- 
 mitted, in a time of increasing distress and declining trade, to 
 a tremendous expedition which, when it has succeeded, will 
 only result in putting us in the same position in which we were 
 two years ago, and in which we might have remained if the 
 Government had had ordinary common-sense. But that is not 
 all. The Government, which have always been so proud of 
 the concert of Europe, have contrived by an act of illegality — 
 to which they have added features unnecessarily harsh and 
 repulsive — by an act of illegality they have contrived to unite 
 Europe against them, and cannot now count on the counte- 
 nance of any European power in solving this difficult problem 
 which they have made for themselves in Egypt. 
 
 Again, I ask, where was the constitutional machine? Why 
 did not the House of Commons interfere to prevent this great 
 absurdity? The answer is the same. Against all former pre- 
 cedent the Government used its majority to prevent the House 
 of Commons having an opportunity of discussion, and the
 
 ONE-MAN POWER 37l 
 
 mode in which the Government used its majority was so pecul- 
 iar that I must venture to dwell for a moment upon it. It 
 was agreed — they seemed to think that they could not in de- 
 cency refuse to agree — to give a day for the discussion of the 
 policy upon which the late conference was initiated, which 
 would have given an opportunity for an explanation of the 
 whole Egyptian policy. The Government had given the day ; 
 the day came ; the mover was there with his motion ; all the 
 speakers were ready ; all the forces were assembled for a divi- 
 sion, when there arose a gentleman — and the Government and 
 the gentleman tell us that it was by accident — there arose Mr. 
 Goschen, whose word we are bound to believe, to move that it 
 was not expedient that this discussion should take place, and 
 the Government thereupon took up his motion in the strangest 
 possible way. They did not honestly vote with him ; they 
 voted against him ; but there suddenly spread through their 
 ranks an inconceivable and perfectly unprecedented paroxysm 
 of disobedience. All the most devoted followers of the Gov- 
 ernment on that occasion voted against them. It was told to 
 me — it has been denied since, but I suspect there was some- 
 thing in it — that some of those who ordinarily marshalled the 
 forces of the Government stood in the door, and by signs not 
 easily mistakable showed which way their preference lay. At 
 all events, that strange result was produced that son was set 
 against father and brother against brother on that strange and 
 monstrous occasion. Mr. Gladstone's son voted against him. 
 Lord Northbrook's son voted against him. Lord Spencer's 
 brother voted against him. It was a fearful moment for the 
 dominion of the evil powers. The discussion did not take place. 
 The controlling power of the House of Commons was paral- 
 yzed. No supervision of the Government's efforts was made, 
 and the result is that hopeless imbroglio in Egypt, diplomatic 
 and military, upon which, with so much apprehension, the peo- 
 ple of this island are now looking. Again, I say, you see here 
 what is the result of departing from your old constitutional 
 rules. You see what is the result of leaving to the Government 
 of the day this despotic, unquestioned power which they claim 
 as the result of Liberal principles. You see now what is the 
 result of this strange and monstrous conversion which makes 
 the party that professed to defend freedom and progress the
 
 3?2 LORD SALISBURY 
 
 champions of the power of the man and the advocates of unlim- 
 ited submission. 
 
 I wish before I sit down to turn for a short time from this 
 subject, because I confess I feel, and I have felt in this autumn 
 campaign, that the result of the argumentative contest to which 
 the Government has challenged us was that a question of im- 
 portance, comparatively secondary, was obscuring matters of 
 far greater moment to the country. I will not refer on the 
 present occasion to the great dangers and difficulties which 
 threaten us in connection with foreign affairs, but I will only say 
 this — that it is not by any act of ours if those matters have been 
 pushed back into the second distance, and if the attention of 
 the constituencies and of the people has been concentrated on a 
 matter that is not, speaking comparatively, of primary impor- 
 tance. Lord Hartington reproaches us that in the midst of the 
 dangers which we point out to the Empire we have agitated 
 this question. Our answer is, in«the first place, that it was not 
 by our advice that in this particular crisis this question was 
 brought forward at all ; and, in the second place, this Govern- 
 ment have chosen to desert the road which all former Govern- 
 ments in dealing with the reform of the representation had 
 uniformly trodden ; and that if evil results have come from this 
 abandonment of precedent with them and not with us, who 
 point them out, the responsibility must lie. But the matter to 
 which I wish to call your attention — I hardly need to do so — is 
 the condition at this moment in which industries of the country 
 find themselves, and the necessity that your attention and the 
 attention of all who give themselves to politics, of all who ex- 
 ercise any influence, however humble, upon the management of 
 affairs, should be concentrated at this crisis. You know that for 
 years back there has been depression, and that it seems to be 
 going on from bad to worse. You know, no one better, what 
 it is in agriculture. It used to be thought, the Duke of Rich- 
 mond's commission thought so, that there was nothing but the 
 sun to blame, and that when a good harvest came back agricul- 
 tural prosperity would return with it ; but we have had a year 
 which I imagine is as good as any we can expect to have. We 
 shall not have many such years as we have had last year, and 
 yet I have been told by those to whom the matter is familiar that 
 the agricultural prospect in many parts of the country was never
 
 ONE-MAN POWER 
 
 373 
 
 more gloomy than it is at the present moment. Why is that ? 
 First, because your prices have failed. And why have your 
 prices failed ? Because your buyers are no longer numerous or 
 keen. And why are your buyers no longer numerous or keen ? 
 Because trade and industry no longer give them the material 
 wherewith to purchase. Therefore your inland market is de- 
 stroyed. I know that outside agriculture a cry of distress is 
 rising from one after another of the great industries by which 
 this great country is supported. We have heard terrible ac- 
 counts from Sunderland of 30,000 to 40,000 being out of work. 
 When I was in Glasgow they told me there were as many as 
 50,000 people out of work there. I believe that in Newcastle 
 the distress is assuming graver and graver proportions every 
 day. For some reason or other the great mechanism by which 
 the trade and industry of this country have hitherto been 
 worked seems to have failed at some points, and we only ask, 
 What is the cause, and how far is it possible that, by powers 
 which Government possess, by the action of any political force, 
 any mitigation of this evil can be brought about. 
 
 Do not let me seem to hold out a hope which I do not myself 
 entertain, that any action of the Government can wholly miti- 
 gate the distress under which we suffer. I know that it is not 
 so, that there are causes outside the power of any political ma- 
 chinery which impose upon us the suffering which is now pres- 
 ent, and which is, I fear, in the immediate future. But though 
 we may not be able to prevent we may be able to palliate and to 
 mitigate, and we must ask ourselves, Is there anything in the 
 political conduct of our Government which aggravates or has 
 aggravated this evil ? Is there any change of policy by which 
 these disasters can be mitigated or averted ? There is one 
 thing that I have always been anxious to urge upon all assem- 
 blies of my countrymen — I feel that it is not sufficiently recog- 
 nized in the legislation of recent years — and that is that industry 
 cannot flow unless capital is confident, and capital will not be 
 confident as long as it fears that Parliament may meddle with it, 
 and balk it of its profits. There is no question of this, that of 
 recent years Parliament has been singularly meddlesome. I do 
 not say that it is from a bad motive ; on the contrary, usually the 
 motive has been philanthropy — possibly in some cases of ill- 
 guided philanthropy — but always pure and humane motives
 
 374 LORD SALISBURY 
 
 have been at the bottom of this meddlesome legislation, but the 
 effect has been not to interfere-'with periods of prosperity, but 
 in periods of difficulty to make capital shrink from exposing it- 
 self to unknown dangers and to deprive the workman's industry 
 of the only food by which it can be nourished. In acting thus 
 men do not think much of the action of Parliament. They 
 think that, happen what may, be the restrictions what they may, 
 they can at all events secure profit enough to pay them for the 
 risk and trouble they incur. But when bad times come, and 
 when the question in every man's mind arises whether he shall 
 invest his capital in an industry or not, there comes up the 
 doubt, Had I not better desist, seeing the temper that prevails in 
 Parliament ? I know they have passed act after act, with what- 
 ever motive, that has diminished our profits hitherto. How 
 can 1 know that they will not pass acts of the same character 
 in future? And this tendency becomes much more dangerous 
 when the policy of Parliament approaches, if ever so small a 
 degree, to the character of confiscation. If there is in the legis- 
 lation a tendency dishonestly to interfere with the rights of men 
 for the purpose of gaining Parliamentary or electioneering 
 strength, the evil is not confined to the number of people whom 
 their conduct injures. The evil spreads throughout the com- 
 munity. A feeling of fear attaches itself to all enterprises 
 upon which the capitalist is invited to embark, and many more 
 industries suffer than those which are affected by the particular 
 legislation to which I refer. 
 
 Now, I will give you an example. There has been a good 
 deal of legislation about land. I do not wish in the least to dis- 
 cuss its character, but it has had the effect of frightening the 
 owners of land. What has been the result? I heard in this 
 neighborhood, in this county, of a very great industrial pro- 
 posal, which would have given employment to a vast number 
 of men ; it was laid before wealthy men, who were interested in 
 it as territorial proprietors, but the answer was : " At ordinary 
 times we might have been glad to look upon this undertak- 
 ing. It might have added to our property and have promoted 
 the welfare of the community. But with the tendency that has 
 shown itself in Parliament we dare not risk any large sums of 
 money and sink them in improvements which would take many 
 years to realize, because we do not know how far the doctrines
 
 ONE-MAN POWER 375 
 
 which now prevail may operate hereafter to prevent us reaping 
 the profits to which we are entitled." I want you, if possible, to 
 put aside all consideration of the owners of land altogether. 
 Do not think whether it is just to them or not. What I 
 want you to think of is whether it is good for a community, 
 and what I say is that this feeling of doubt and apprehen- 
 sion is the most dangerous disease by which the industry of 
 a community could be affected. It affects a community pre- 
 cisely as cattle disease has affected the industry of cattle-breed- 
 ing in this country. The foot-and-mouth disease was only in 
 a few localities by itself; it did not do an enormous amount of 
 harm, but it filled every man's mind with apprehension, it 
 limited the investment of capital, and as the investment of cap- 
 ital was limited employment was restricted, wages ceased to 
 flow, and distressed populations had to appeal to the sympathy 
 of the public for their support. That is one serious evil of the 
 tendency which recent Parliaments have shown which I should 
 be wrong if I did not impress upon you. 
 
 There is another matter — a much more serious matter, and 
 one which you must carefully consider — and that is the condi- 
 tion of the markets of the world. I am not speaking now of 
 foreign policy. No doubt it is very disappointing that a min- 
 istry which came in on principles of peace should have so con- 
 ducted its foreign policy that at every step it seems to dry up a 
 market by which the produce of the industry of this country 
 might be absorbed. Egypt, the Cape of Good Hope, China — 
 all these are names familiar to the markets of this country. In 
 all these the operations which have taken place, the political 
 events which have developed themselves under the auspices of 
 the present Government, have diminished the purchasing 
 power, have restricted the exportation, and have consequently 
 added to the volume of distress which threatens us in the ap- 
 proaching winter. But there is another and much more seri- 
 ous question. It is a question which politicians do not like 
 to deal with, but which will grow from year to year, and which 
 invites the attention of the people of this country— I mean the 
 effect which obstructive and hostile tariffs have upon the inter- 
 ests of this country. We have undergone as great a disap- 
 pointment in this respect. When free trade was adopted we 
 hoped that free trade would spread through the world, but we
 
 376 LORD SALISBURY 
 
 are almost the only converts after nearly half a century has 
 passed. It is not only so, but matters seem to be getting worse 
 rather than better. I do not know if you have noticed the fact 
 that in the French Chambers the French Minister has recently 
 announced his intention of putting a duty upon corn and a fresh 
 duty upon cattle. I do not quote it as a case of a tariff which 
 interferes with the exports of this country. I quote it to show 
 you that the anticipations which were entertained years and 
 years ago that all nations, when we once set the example, would 
 follow in our footsteps in free trade, have, most unhappily, not 
 been realized. Mr. Bright is very fond of referring to the 
 achievements of free trade as one that entitles him forever to the 
 gratitude of his countrymen. I do not differ as to the value of 
 free trade, but I differ very much as to the value of Mr. Bright's 
 services. When free trade was pressed upon Lord Melbourne 
 just at the close of his administration in 1840 — and Lord Mel- 
 bourne, as you know, was a Liberal minister — his answer was : 
 " I admire free trade exceedingly, but it seems to me absurd to 
 introduce it without some communication with the other na- 
 tions of the world ; because if we do so we sacrifice the only 
 bribe that we have to offer them when we admit their produce 
 free to induce them to do the same." That was the opinion of 
 Lord Melbourne. About that time Mr. Bright came into the 
 controversy. He did not deal with it as a matter of scientific 
 discussion, as a question to be argued out before the tribunal of 
 the people ; he dealt with it as an opportunity of setting class 
 against class. He seized upon that one question of the corn 
 laws, and he tried, and with his friends he was successful in his 
 efforts, to persuade them that the only obstacle, the only objec- 
 tion, to free trade was the greed which he imputed to the owners 
 and the occupiers of the land. What was the result of this turn 
 to the controversy given by Mr. Bright ? He has always loved 
 to treat every political discussion as material for sowing dissen- 
 sion between the classes of which this community is composed. 
 He raised a formidable agitation, and Sir Robert Peel, rightly or 
 wrongly, was of opinion that it was necessary for the interests 
 of the country that that agitation should be closed. Without 
 waiting for any negotiations with foreign powers he introduced 
 the system of free trade, which Mr. Gladstone has carried fur- 
 ther, and the consequence is that we have now no motive by
 
 ONE-MAN POWER 377 
 
 which we can prevail upon foreign powers to lower tariffs or 
 open their markets to our industries, which sorely need them. 
 Do not understand me to be blaming Sir Robert Peel. He 
 acted under great difficulties, and there is much to be said for 
 what he did, but that the result of that one-sided policy of free 
 trade has been unfortunate I, for one, cannot doubt. It puts 
 us in the position that though we gain by the free importation 
 of corn and other materials, so that the prices of them are low 
 to the consumers, we do not gain all that we might have gained. 
 We do not gain an issue for the industry of our own community 
 or for the exportation of goods that we produce. We do not 
 gain an issue to those industries, and therefore those industries 
 languish. Therefore employment is becoming scarcer, wages 
 are becoming smaller, and the distress of the population is be- 
 coming larger, and the blessings of free trade, which ought to 
 have been enormous, have been robbed of half their value, owing 
 to the precipitate and the improvident manner in which the po- 
 sition of this country as regards other countries was sacrificed. 
 Well now, I have pressed this point upon you precisely be- 
 cause in all this matter of free trade there is a habit on the part 
 of ministerial advocates of what I may call browbeating. They 
 treat this question of free trade as if it were some revelation from 
 heaven which it would be blasphemy to inquire into. If you 
 suggest that some particular working of it should be examined, 
 if you ask for an inquiry into the effect on some particular in- 
 dustry, if you say that, owing to some miscalculation, it has not 
 produced all that was expected of it, they cried out, " Oh ! you 
 are a mere protectionist ; all your protestations are of no avail ; 
 we will not listen to you for a moment." I protest against deal- 
 ing in that spirit with any question which affects the industry 
 and the livelihood of vast masses of our countrymen. Politics 
 is not an exact science, and if those formulas of free trade in 
 which they trust are not producing the results which they an- 
 ticipated, and which they promised to us, we, at least, without 
 incurring the imputation of any economic heresy, may press 
 for an inquiry to examine where is the defect, where the short- 
 coming to which our misfortunes point. I am anxious, in 
 speaking the words which I believe will close the autumn con- 
 troversy, to urge upon you that you should not allow the 
 matters that we have discussed, however important they are,
 
 378 LORD SALISBURY 
 
 to obscure in your sight the far more momentous questions 
 which surround the industry, the employment, the social well- 
 being of the people. It seems a mere derision to tell men who 
 are starving in Sunderland and Glasgow that we are fighting 
 for the question as to how they shall exercise their privilege at 
 the ballot-box ; to offer to men who are without employment, 
 who have muscles to labor, but who cannot with their best will 
 compass the limits of their daily need — to offer to them some 
 extension of the franchise or arrangement of seats is like offer- 
 ing a stone to those who are asking for bread. I entreat you not 
 to allow these questions to be banished from your minds by the 
 din of the controversy which is now passing away. I do not say 
 that I can put into any formula that can be placed at a meeting 
 like this the remedy that may be required. What I ask is that 
 the best intellect of the country shall be applied to the discovery 
 of what is the cost of the most terrible evil by which the country 
 can be afflicted. I know there are complicated difficulties. I 
 know that by diplomatic instruments we, in the full confidence 
 in our political orthodoxy, have been winding band after band 
 round our own limbs, so that in many cases we are not free to 
 move. I know that such a position involves relations unpre- 
 cedented in the history of the world with our self-governed 
 colonies ; I know it involves our imperial relations with far- 
 distant lands. I do not ask for a simple remedy or profess to 
 have any compact or ready nostrum by which our difficulties 
 can be dispelled. All I propose to you is, do not allow your- 
 selves to be driven off from the consideration of this momentous 
 question by being told that you are protectionists in disguise, 
 or by being told that this is a thing which has been decided 
 many years ago, and that if you venture to inquire into it you 
 will suggest doubts of the soundness of the opinions you enter- 
 tain. The interests that are involved are far too large, far too 
 deep, too pathetic, and too perilous for arguments of that kind. 
 This agitation which has taken place during the autumn is in 
 many respects highly beneficial to the country. I think it has 
 brought before the minds of the people of the country questions 
 with which they must grapple, facts which they must learn to 
 understand, if they are to be our rulers. I desire nothing better 
 than that they should be thoroughly and perfectly informed. 
 I think the agitation has had a tendency to strengthen the
 
 ONE-MAN POWER 379 
 
 House of Lords in the opinion of the people of this country. 
 But the only reason for which I could possibly regret it would 
 be if it should have the effect of diverting your minds and the 
 minds of the constituencies of this country from the far graver 
 and more important questions which are approaching us in the 
 immediate future. I should regret it deeply if it blinded your 
 eyes to the dark and black clouds which are surrounding our 
 horizon. I should regret it deeply if it diverted your atten- 
 tion from the problems which you as governors of this coun- 
 try must grapple with and must solve. I should regret it 
 deeply if it induces us for a moment to forget that the first 
 function of government, its most vital and imperative duty, is 
 to care for the industry, the vast industry, whose prosperity or 
 depression means the difference between well-being and misery, 
 between health and disease, between a life of hope and a life of 
 despair to millions of our toiling fellow-countrymen.
 
 FUNERAL ORATION ON GENERAL 
 
 GRANT 
 
 BY 
 
 CANON FARRAR 
 
 (Frederic William Farrar)
 
 FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR, CANON FARRAR 
 
 Frederic William Farrar was born at Bombay, India, August 7, 1831. 
 He was educated at King William's College, in the Isle of Man, and 
 later at King's College, London. He graduated from Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, in 1854, with the highest honors, was made fellow of Trinity 
 two years later, became a master of arts in 1857, and was admitted into 
 priest's orders the same year. 
 
 For many years, from 1855 to 1871, Farrar was one of the assistant 
 masters at Harrow, first under Dr. Vaughan and later under Dr. Butler. 
 For the succeeding five years, from 1871 to 1876, he held the head- 
 mastership at Marlborough. He has been repeatedly one of the select 
 preachers at Cambridge and chosen to deliver special lectures at both uni- 
 versities. He was appointed chaplain-in-ordinary to the Queen in 1873 
 and, in April, 1876, to a canonry in Westminster Abbey and to the rector- 
 ship of St. Margaret's. Made Archdeacon of Westminster in 1883, he 
 accepted the chaplaincy of the House of Commons in 1890. To this 
 uninterrupted series of preferments we must add his latest appointment 
 as Dean of Canterbury and Deputy Clerk to the closet of the Queen in 
 1895. 
 
 As an author Canon Farrar has gained some distinction in three dis- 
 tinct fields of labor. He is the author of some works of fiction, in which 
 he depicts school and college life from his own experience; they have 
 retained their popularity with the readers for whom they were intended. 
 His practical work at school led him to undertake philological researches, 
 the results of which, embodied in several works, while not of the high- 
 est scientific value, have done much to make the subjects popular and 
 to stimulate others to further inquiry. He has also written much on 
 public education, and done much to enlarge the ideas on this subject 
 in England. 
 
 The greater number of works of Canon Farrar have, however, been 
 produced by him as a theologian and a religious writer, among these 
 his " Life of Christ " is undoubtedly the best known and most widely 
 read, reaching its twelfth edition in a single year. Being of a specu- 
 lative turn of mind, yet in close touch with the tendencies and aspira- 
 tions of the times, he is one of those men who thoroughly appreciate 
 the difficulties which the Christian Church encounters from materialistic 
 philosophy and the unsparing criticism of the day. 
 
 On his visit to America in 1885 Canon Farrar was received every- 
 where with a hearty welcome from all classes. Of late years he has 
 become an advocate of the entire suppression of the traffic in liquor. 
 
 The many distinctions he had conferred upon him give ample proof 
 of his great powers in the pulpit. His thoughts are always clear, logical, 
 and well arranged, while the style in his sermons, as in his books, is 
 invariably brilliant and rhetorical. His " Funeral Oration on General 
 Grant," delivered in London simultaneously with General Grant's fune- 
 ral in America, is a beautiful and touching eulogy. 
 
 382
 
 FUNERAL ORATION ON GENERAL GRANT 
 
 Delivered in Westminster Abbey, London, August 4, 1885. 
 
 EIGHT years have not passed since the Dean of West- 
 minster, whom Americans so much loved and honored, 
 was walking round this Abbey with General Grant, and 
 explaining to him its wealth of great memorials. Neither of 
 them had attained the allotted span of human life, and for both 
 we might have hoped that many years would elapse before 
 they went down to the grave, full of years and honors. But 
 this is already the fourth summer since the dean fell asleep, and 
 to-day we are assembled at the obsequies of the great soldier 
 whose sun has gone down while it yet was day, and at whose 
 funeral service in America tens of thousands are assembled at 
 this moment to mourn with his widow, family, and friends. 
 Yes ; life at the best is but as a vapor that passeth away. The 
 glories of our birth and state are shadows, not substantial 
 things. But when death comes, what nobler epitaph can any 
 man have than this, that, having served his generation, by the 
 will of God he fell asleep? Little can the living do for the dead. 
 The pomps and ceremonies of earthly grandeur have lost their 
 significance, but when our soul shall leave its dwelling the 
 story of one fair and virtuous action is above all the escutcheons 
 on our tombs or silken banners over us. I would desire to 
 speak simply and directly, and, if with generous appreciation, 
 yet with no idle flattery of him whose death has made a nation 
 mourn. His private life, the faults and failings of his character, 
 whatever they may have been, belong in no sense to the world. 
 They are for the judgment of God, whose merciful forgiveness 
 is necessary for the best of what we do and are. We touch only 
 on his public actions and services, the record of his strength, 
 his magnanimity, his self-control, his generous deeds. His 
 life falls into four marked divisions, of which each has its own 
 
 383
 
 384 CANON FARRAR 
 
 lesson for us. He touched on them himself in part when he 
 said: 
 
 " Bury me either at West Point, where I was trained as a 
 youth ; or in Illinois, which gave me my first commission ; or 
 in New York, which sympathized with me in my misfortunes." 
 
 His wish has been respected, and on the cliff overhanging 
 the Hudson his monument will stand, to recall to the memory 
 of future generations those dark days of a nation's history 
 which he did so much to close. First came the early years of 
 growth and training, of poverty and obscurity, of struggle and 
 self-denial. Poor and humbly born, he had to make his own 
 way in the world. God's unseen providence, which men nick- 
 name chance, directed his boyhood. A cadetship was given 
 him at the military academy of West Point, and after a brief 
 period of service in the Mexican War, in which he was three 
 times mentioned in despatches, seeing no opening for a soldier 
 in what seemed likely to be days of unbroken peace, he settled 
 down to a humble life in a provincial town. Citizens of St. 
 Louis will remember the rough backwoodsman who sold cord 
 wood from door to door, and who afterwards became a leather- 
 seller in the obscure town of Galena. Those who knew him in 
 those days have said that if anyone had predicted that the silent, 
 unprosperous, unambitious man, whose chief aim was to get a 
 plank road from his shop to the railway depot, would become 
 twice President of the United States, and one of the foremost 
 men of his day, the prophecy would have seemed extravagantly 
 ridiculous. But such careers are the glory of the American con- 
 tinent. They show that the people have a sovereign insight 
 into intrinsic force. If Rome told with pride how her dictators 
 came from the plough-tail, America, too, may record the answer 
 of the President who, on being asked what would be his coat- 
 of-arms, answered, proudly mindful of his early struggles, " A 
 pair of shirt sleeves." The answer showed a noble sense of 
 the dignity of labor, the noble superiority to the vanities of 
 feudalism, a strong conviction that men are to be honored 
 simply as men and not for the prizes of birth and accident, 
 which are without them. You have of late years had two 
 martyr Presidents, both men, sons of the people. One was 
 the homely man, who at the age of seven was a farm lad, at 
 seventeen a rail-splitter, at twenty a boatman on the Mississippi,
 
 FUNERAL ORATION ON GENERAL GRANT 385 
 
 and who in manhood proved to be one of the most honest and 
 God-fearing of modern rulers. The other grew up from a shoe- 
 less child in a log-hut on the prairies, round which the wolves 
 prowled in the winter snow, to be a humble teacher in Hiram 
 Institute. With these Presidents America need not blush to 
 name also the leather-seller of Galena. Every true man de- 
 rived his patent of nobleness direct from God. 
 
 Did not God choose David from the sheepfold, from follow- 
 ing the ewes great with young ones, to make him the ruler of 
 his people Israel ? Was not the Lord of Life and all the worlds 
 for thirty years a carpenter at Nazareth ? Do not such things 
 illustrate the prophecy of Solomon : 
 
 " Seest thou a man diligent in his business ? he shall stand 
 before kings ; he shall not stand before mean men." 
 
 When Abraham Lincoln sat, book in hand, day after day, 
 under the tree, moving round it as the shadow crossed, absorbed 
 in mastering his tasks ; when James Garfield rang the bell at 
 Hiram Institute on the very stroke of the hour, and swept the 
 school-room as faithfully as he mastered his Greek lesson ; 
 when Ulysses Grant, sent with his team to meet some men 
 who came to load his cart with logs, and, finding no men, loaded 
 the cart with his own boy's strength — they showed in the con- 
 scientious performance of duty the qualities which were to 
 raise them to become kings of men. When John Adams was 
 told that his son, John Quincy Adams, had been elected Presi- 
 dent of the United States, he said: "He has always been 
 laborious, child and man, from infancy." 
 
 But the youth was not destined to die in the deep valley of 
 obscurity and toil, in which it is the lot — and perhaps the happy 
 lot — of most of us to spend our little lives. The hour came ; 
 the man was needed. In 1861 there broke out that most terrible 
 war of modern days. Grant received a commission as colonel 
 of volunteers, and in four years the struggling toiler had been 
 raised to the chief command of a vaster army than had ever 
 been handled by any mortal man. Who could have imagined 
 that four years would make that enormous difference ? But it 
 is often so. The great men needed for such tremendous crises 
 have stepped often, as it were, out of a door in the wall which 
 no man had noticed ; and, unannounced, unheralded, without 
 prestige, have made their way silently and single-handed to 
 Vol. II.— 25
 
 3 86 
 
 CANON FARRAR 
 
 the front. And there was no luck in it. It was a work of in- 
 flexible faithfulness, of indomitable resolution, of sleepless en- 
 ergy, and iron purpose and tenacity. In the campaigns of Fort 
 Donelson ; in the desperate battle at Shiloh ; in the siege of 
 Corinth ; in the successful assaults at Pittsburg ; in battle after 
 battle, in siege after siege ; whatever Grant had to do, he did 
 it with his might. Other generals might fail — he would not 
 fail. He showed what a man could do whose will was strong. 
 He undertook, as General Sherman said of him, what no one 
 else would have ventured, and his very soldiers began to reflect 
 something of his indominable determination. His sayings re- 
 vealed the man. " I have nothing to do with opinions," he 
 said, at the outset, " and shall only deal with armed rebellion." 
 " In riding over the field," he said at Shiloh, " I saw that either 
 side was ready to give way, if the other showed a bold front. I 
 took the opportunity, and ordered an advance along the whole 
 line." " No terms," he wrote to General Buckner at Fort 
 Donelson (and it is pleasant to know that General Buckner 
 stood as a warm friend beside his dying bed) ; " no terms other 
 than unconditional surrender can be accepted." " My head- 
 quarters," he wrote from Vicksburg, " will be on the field." 
 With a military genius which embraced the vastest plans while 
 attending to the smallest details, he defeated, one after an- 
 other, every great general of the Confederates, except General 
 Stonewall Jackson. The Southerners felt that he held them as in 
 the grasp of a vise ; that this man could neither be arrested nor 
 avoided. For all this he has been severely blamed. He ought 
 not to be blamed. He has been called a butcher, which is 
 grossly unjust. He loved peace; he hated bloodshed; his 
 heart was generous and kind. His orders were to save lives, to 
 save treasure, but at all costs to save his country — and he did 
 save his country. His army cheerfully accepted the sacrifice, 
 wrote its farewells, buckled its belts, and stood ready. The 
 struggle was not for victory ; it was for existence. It was not 
 for glory ; it was for life and death. Grant had not only to de- 
 feat armies, but to annihilate their forces ; to leave no choice 
 but destruction or submission. He saw that the brief ravage of 
 the hurricane is infinitely less ruinous than the interminable 
 malignity of the pestilence, and in the colossal struggle, vic- 
 tory, swift, decisive, overwhelming, was the truest mercy. In
 
 FUNERAL ORATION ON GENERAL GRANT 3S7 
 
 silence and with determination, and with clearness of insight, 
 he was like your Washington and our Wellington. He was 
 like them also in this, that the word " cannot " did not exist in 
 a soldier's dictionary, and what he achieved was achieved with- 
 out bluster. In the hottest fury of all his battles, his speech 
 was never known to be more than " yea, yea," and " nay, nay." 
 He met General Lee at Appomattox. He received his sur- 
 render with faultless delicacy. He immediately issued an order 
 that the Confederates should be supplied with rations. Im- 
 mediately his enemies surrendered, he gave them terms as 
 simple and as generous as a brother could have given them — 
 terms which healed differences ; terms of which they freely ac- 
 knowledged the magnanimity. Not even entering the capital, 
 avoiding all ostentation, undated by triumph, as unruffled by 
 adversity, he hurried back to stop recruits and to curtail the 
 vast expenses of the country. After the surrender at Appomat- 
 tox Court House the war was over. He had put his hand to 
 the plough and had looked not back. He had made blow after 
 blow, each following where the last had struck ; he had wield- 
 ed like a hammer the gigantic forces at his disposal, and had 
 smitten opposition into the dust. It was a mighty work, and 
 he had done it well. Surely history has shown that for the 
 future destinies of a mighty nation it was a necessary and 
 blessed work ! The Church utters her most indignant an- 
 athema at an unrighteous war, but she has never refused to 
 honor the faithful soldiers who fight in the cause of their coun- 
 try and God. The gentlest and most Christian of modern poets 
 has used tremendous thought : 
 
 " God's most dreaded instrument 
 In working out a pure intent 
 Is man arrayed for mutual slaughter, 
 Yea, carnage is his daughter ! " 
 
 We shudder even as we quote the words, but yet the cause 
 for which General Grant fought — the honor of a great people, 
 and the freedom of a whole race of mankind — was a great and 
 noble cause. And the South has accepted that desperate and 
 bloody arbitrament. Two of the Southern generals, we rejoice 
 to hear, will bear General Grant's funeral pall. The rancor 
 and ill-feeling of the past are buried in oblivion ; true friends
 
 3 88 CANON FARRAR 
 
 had been made out of brave foemen. Americans are no longer 
 Northerners and Southerners, Federals and Confederates, but 
 they are Americans. " Do not teach your children to hate," 
 said General Lee, to an American lady ; " teach them that they 
 are Americans. I thought that we were better off as one nation 
 than as two, and I think so now." " The war is over," said 
 Grant, " and the best sign of rejoicing after victory will be to 
 abstain from all demonstrations in the field." " Let us have 
 peace," were the memorable words with which he ended his 
 inaugural address as President. On the rest of the great sol- 
 dier's life, we will only touch in very few words. As Wellington 
 became Prime Minister of England, and lived to be hooted in 
 the streets of London, so Grant, more than half against his will, 
 became President, and for a time lost much of his popularity. 
 He foresaw it all, but it is not for a man to choose ; it is for a man 
 to accept his destiny. What verdict history may pronounce on 
 him as a politician I know not ; but here, and now, the voice 
 of censure, deserved or undeserved, is silent. When the great 
 Duke of Marlborough died and one began to speak of his 
 avarice, " He was so great a man," said Bolingbroke, " I have 
 forgotten that he had that fault." 
 
 It was a fine and delicate rebuke, ana we do not intend to 
 rake up a man's faults and errors. Those errors, whatever they 
 may have been, we leave to the mercy of the Merciful, and the 
 atoning blood of his Saviour. Beside the open grave, we speak 
 only in gratitude of his great achievements. Let us record his 
 virtue in brass, for men's example ; but let his faults, whatever 
 they may have been, be writ in water. Some may think that 
 it would have been well for Grant if he had died in 1865, when 
 steeples clanged and cities were illuminated and congregations 
 rose in his honor. Many and dark clouds overshadowed the 
 last of his days — the blow of financial ruin ; the dread that men 
 should suppose that he had a tarnished reputation ; the terrible 
 agony of an incurable disease. But God's ways are not our 
 ways. To bear that sudden ruin, that speechless agony, re- 
 quired a courage nobler and greater than that of the battle- 
 field, and human courage grows magnificently to the height of 
 human need. " I am a man," said Frederick the Great, " and 
 therefore born to suffer." On the long agonizing death-bed, 
 Grant showed himself every inch a hero, bearing his agonies
 
 FUNERAL ORATION ON GENERAL GRANT 389 
 
 and trials without a murmur, with rugged stoicism, in un- 
 flinching fortitude ; yes, and we believe in a Christian's pa- 
 tience and a Christian's prayers. Which of us can tell whether 
 those hours of torture and misery may not have been blessings 
 in disguise ; whether God may not have been refining the gold 
 from the brass, and the strong man had been truly purified by 
 the strong agony? We are gathered here in England to do 
 honor to his memory and to show our sympathy with the sor- 
 row of a great sister nation. Could we be gathered in a more 
 fitting place ? We do not lack here memorials to recall the his- 
 tory of your country. There is the grave of Andre ; there is the 
 monument raised by grateful Massachusetts to the gallant 
 Howe ; there is a temporary resting-place of George Peabody ; 
 there is the bust of Longfellow ; over the dean's there is the 
 faint semblance of Boston Harbor. We add another memory 
 to-day. Whatever there may have been between the two na- 
 tions to forget and forgive, it is forgotten and forgiven. " I 
 will not speak of them as two peoples," said General Grant at 
 Newcastle in 1877, " because, in fact, we are one people, with 
 a common destiny, and that destiny will be brilliant in pro- 
 portion to the friendship and cooperation of the brethren 
 dwelling on each side of the Atlantic," Oh ! if the two peoples, 
 which are one people, be true to their duty, and true to their 
 God, who can doubt that in their hands are the destinies of the 
 world ? Can anything short of dementation ever thwart a des- 
 tiny so manifest? Your founders were our sons; it was from 
 our past that your present grew. The monument of Sir Walter 
 Raleigh is not that nameless grave in St. Margaret's ; it is the 
 State of Virginia. Yours and ours alike are the memories of 
 Captain John Smith and of the Pilgrim Fathers, of General 
 Oglethorpe's strong benevolence of soul, of the apostolic holi- 
 ness of Berkeley, and the burning zeal of Wesley and White- 
 field. Yours and ours alike are the plays of Shakespeare and 
 the poems of Milton ; ours and yours alike are all that you 
 have accomplished in literature or in history — the songs of 
 Longfellow and Bryant, the genius of Hawthorne and of Irving, 
 the fame of Washington, Lee, and Grant. But great memories 
 imply great responsibilities. 
 
 It was not for nothing that God has made England what she 
 is ; not for nothing that the free individualism of a busy multi-
 
 39° 
 
 CANON FARRAR 
 
 tude, the humble traders of a fugitive people, snatching the New 
 World from feudalism and bigotry, from Philip II and Louis 
 XIV, from Menendez and Montcalm, from the Jesuit and the 
 Inquisition, from Torquemada, and from Richelieu, to make 
 it the land of the Reformation and the republic of Christianity 
 and of peace. " Let us auspicate all our proceedings in Amer- 
 ica," said Edmund Burke, " with the old Church cry, Sursum 
 corda." But it is for America to live up to this spirit of such 
 words, not merely to quote them with proud enthusiasm. We 
 have heard of — 
 
 " New times, new climes, new lands, new men, but still 
 The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill." 
 
 It is for America to falsify the cynical foreboding. Let her 
 take her place side by side with England in the very van of 
 freedom and of progress, united by a common language, by 
 common blood, by common measures, by common interest, by 
 a common history, by common hopes ; united by the common 
 glory of great men, of which this great temple of silence and 
 reconciliation is the richest shrine. Be it the steadfast pur- 
 pose of the true peoples who are one people to show all the 
 world not only the magnificent spectacle of human happiness, 
 but the still more magnificent spectacle of two peoples which 
 are one people, loving righteousness and hating iniquity, inflexi- 
 bly faithful to the principles of eternal justice which are the 
 unchanging laws of God.
 
 THE SUBSTANCE OF SERMONS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
 
 CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON 
 
 1834— 1892 
 
 Spurgeon was one of the great natural orators of the pulpit: a phe- 
 nomenon hardly explicable upon any scientific theory ; for there was 
 nothing in the antecedents, or in the early personal experience of the 
 humble usher in a Cambridge private school that can serve to explain 
 the mighty preacher who, when hardly twenty years of age, was already 
 drawing vast and excited audiences to listen to what he might have 
 to say on the relations between God and man. What should the homely, 
 coarse-looking, crude Essex country boy know of those rejations? By 
 what charter was he entitled to counsel and exhort his generation on 
 the highest of human duties, and to interpret to them the profound and 
 eternal wisdom conveyed in the Book of God's Word ? His figure was 
 squat and awkward, his face fat and clumsy, with heavy mouth, snub 
 nose, and pale eyes ; there was in him no form nor comeliness. Even 
 his voice had none of the exquisite modulations, the tones of pathos and 
 spiritual exaltation, which might rouse a drugged soul or spur self- 
 complacent ungodliness to purge itself of sin. And yet Charles Haddon 
 Spurgeon was heard, during his ministry, by millions of men and women, 
 who found in him the chief incitement of their lives to virtue and char- 
 ity, to the patient endurance of pain, and to steadfast faith in God and 
 immortality. The words he uttered week after week in that Newington 
 Tabernacle, built especially to seat the large and enthusiastic crowds 
 that flocked each Sabbath to hear him, were taken down, and printed, 
 and scattered broadcast over the English-speaking world, to serve as 
 moral and religious nourishment to countless homes in England and 
 America. 
 
 The biographical facts of his career are few and simple. He was born 
 at Kelvedon, Essex, June 19, 1834. After a school education at Col- 
 chester and Maidstone, he became usher of a private school in Cam- 
 bridge, and in 1851 pastor of a Baptist church near Cambridge; whence 
 he removed with his congregation to Southwark in 1853, and to the 
 Tabernacle in 1861. During his ministration he found time to found 
 an orphanage, a college for pastors, and various schools and alms- 
 houses. He edited a magazine, " The Sword and Trowel," and wrote 
 numerous books of religious exhortation and counsel. He died, worn 
 out in body, but full of spiritual vitality to the last, in 1892, at the 
 age of fifty-eight. The " Substance of Sermons," given here, is filled 
 with advice to young ministers. It is characteristic of Spurgeon's best 
 style, being concise, thoughtful, and penetrating to the heart of the 
 subject. 
 
 392
 
 THE SUBSTANCE OF SERMONS 
 
 WE must throw all our strength of judgment, memory, 
 imagination, and eloquence, into the delivery of the 
 gospel ; and not give to the preaching of the cross our 
 random thoughts while wayside topics engross our deeper medi- 
 tations. Depend upon it, if we brought the intellect of a Locke 
 or a Newton, and the eloquence of a Cicero, to bear upon the 
 simple doctrine of "believe and live," we should find no sur- 
 plus strength. Brethren, first and above all things, keep to 
 plain evangelical doctrines ; whatever else you do or do not 
 preach, be sure incessantly to bring forth the soul-saving truth 
 of Christ and Him crucified. I know a minister whose shoe-lat- 
 chet I am unworthy to unloose, whose preaching is often little 
 better than sacred miniature painting — I might also say holy 
 trifling. He is great upon the ten toes of the beast, the four 
 faces of the cherubim, the mystical meaning of badgers' skins, 
 and the typical bearings of the staves of the ark, and the win- 
 dows of Solomon's temple ; but the sins of business men, the 
 temptations of the times, and the needs of the age, he scarcely 
 ever touches upon. Such preaching reminds me of a lion en- 
 gaged in mouse hunting, or a man-of-war cruising after a lost 
 water-butt. Topics scarcely in importance equal to what Peter 
 calls " old wives' fables," are made great matters of by those 
 microscopic divines to whom the nicety of a point is more at- 
 tractive than the saving of souls. You will have read in Todd's 
 " Student's Manual " that Harcatius, King of Persia, was a 
 notable mole-catcher; and Briantes, King of Lydia, was equally 
 au fait at filing needles ; but these trivialities by no means prove 
 them to have been great kings ; it is much the same in the min- 
 istry ; there is such a thing as meanness of mental occupation 
 unbecoming the rank of an ambassador of heaven. 
 
 Among a certain order of minds at this time the Athenian 
 desire of telling or hearing some new thing appears to be pre- 
 
 393
 
 394 
 
 SPURGEON 
 
 dominant. They boast of new light, and claim a species of in- 
 spiration which warrants them in condemning all who are out 
 of their brotherhood, and yet their grand revelation relates to 
 a mere circumstantial of worship, or to an obscure interpreta- 
 tion of prophecy ; so that, at sight of their great fuss and loud 
 cry concerning so little, we are reminded of 
 
 " Ocean into tempest tossed 
 To waft a feather or to drown a fly." 
 
 Worse still are those who waste time in insinuating doubts con- 
 cerning the authenticity of texts, or the correctness of Biblical 
 statements concerning natural phenomena. Painfully do I call 
 to mind hearing one Sabbath evening a deliverance called a 
 sermon, of which the theme was a clever inquiry as to whether 
 an angel did actually descend and stir the pool at Bethesda, or 
 whether it was an intermitting spring, concerning which Jew- 
 ish superstition had invented a legend. Dying men and women 
 were assembled to hear the way of salvation, and they were put 
 off with such vanity as this! They came for bread, and re- 
 ceived a stone ; the sheep looked up to the shepherd, and were 
 not fed. Seldom do I hear a sermon, and when I do I am 
 grievously unfortunate, for one of the last I was entertained 
 with was intended to be a justification of Joshua for destroying 
 the Canaanites, and another went to prove that it was not 
 good for man to be alone. How many souls were converted in 
 answer to the prayers before the sermons I have never been able 
 to ascertain, but I shrewdly suspect that no unusual rejoicing 
 disturbed the serenity of the golden streets. 
 
 Believing my next remark to be almost universally unneeded, 
 I bring it forward with diffidence — do not overload a sermon 
 with too much matter. All truth is not to be comprised in one 
 discourse. Sermons are not to be bodies of divinity. There 
 is such a thing as having too much to say, and saying it till hear- 
 ers are sent home loathing rather than longing. An old minis- 
 ter walking with a young preacher pointed to a cornfield and 
 observed, " Your last sermon had too much in it, and it was not 
 clear enough, or sufficiently well arranged ; it was like that 
 field of wheat, it contained much crude food, but none fit for 
 use. You should make your sermons like a loaf of bread, fit 
 for eating, and in convenient form." It is to be feared that
 
 THE SUBSTANCE OF SERMONS ^ 5 
 
 human heads (speaking phrenologically) are not so capacious 
 for theology as they once were, for our forefathers rejoiced in 
 sixteen ounces of divinity, undiluted and unadorned, and could 
 continue receiving it for three or four hours at a stretch, but 
 our more degenerate, or perhaps more busy, generation re- 
 quires about an ounce of doctrine at a time, and that must be 
 the concentrated extract or essential oil, rather than the entire 
 substance of divinity. We must in these times say a great 
 deal in a few words, but not too much, nor with too much am- 
 plification. One thought fixed on the mind will be better than 
 fifty thoughts made to flit across the ear. One tenpenny nail 
 driven home and clenched will be more useful than a score 
 of tin-tacks loosely fixed, to be pulled out again in an hour. 
 
 Our matter should be well arranged according to the true 
 rules of mental architecture. Not practical inferences at the 
 basis and doctrines as the topstones ; not metaphors in the foun- 
 dations, and propositions at the summit ; not the more impor- 
 tant truths first and the minor teachings last, after the manner 
 of an anti-climax ; but the thought must climb and ascend ; 
 one stair of teaching leading to another ; one door of reason- 
 ing conducting to another, and the whole elevating the hearer 
 to a chamber from whose windows truth is seen gleaming in 
 the light of God. In preaching, have a place for everything, 
 and everything in its place. Never suffer truths to fall from 
 you pell-mell. Do not let your thoughts rush as a mob, but 
 make them march as a troop of soldiery. Order, which is 
 heaven's first law, must not be neglected by heaven's ambassa- 
 dors. 
 
 Your doctrinal teaching should be clear and unmistakable. 
 To be so it must first of all be clear to yourself. Some men 
 think in smoke and preach in a cloud. Your people do not 
 want a luminous haze, but the solid terra Hrrna of truth. Philo- 
 sophical speculations put certain minds into a semi-intoxicated 
 condition, in which they either see everything double, or see 
 nothing at all. The head of a certain college in Oxford was 
 years ago asked by a stranger what was the motto of the arms 
 of that university. He told him that it was "Dominus ittuminatio 
 mea." But he also candidly informed the stranger that, in his 
 private opinion, a motto more appropriate might be, " Aris- 
 toteles tenebrce mecu." Sensational writers have half crazed
 
 396 SPURGEON 
 
 many honest men who have conscientiously read their lucubra- 
 tions out of a notion that they ought to be abreast of the age, as 
 if such a necessity might not also require us to attend the 
 theatres in order to be able to judge the new plays, or frequent 
 the turf that we might not be too bigoted in our opinions upon 
 racing and gambling. For my part, I believe that the chief 
 readers of heterodox books are ministers, and that if they 
 would not notice them they would fall still-born from the press. 
 Let a minister keep clear of mystifying himself, and then he is 
 on the road to becoming intelligible to his people. No man 
 can hope to be felt who cannot make himself understood. If 
 we give our people refined truth, pure scriptural doctrine, and 
 all so worded as to have no needless obscurity about it, we shall 
 be true shepherds of the sheep, and the profiting of our people 
 will soon be apparent. 
 
 Endeavor to keep the matter of your sermonizing as fresh as 
 you can. Do not rehearse five or six doctrines with unvarying 
 monotony of repetition. Buy a theological barrel-organ, breth- 
 ren, with five tunes accurately adjusted, and you will be 
 qualified to practise as an ultra-Calvinistic preacher at Zoar and 
 Jireh, if you also purchase at some vinegar factory a good sup- 
 ply of bitter, acrid abuse of Arminians, and duty-faith men. 
 Brains and grace are optional, but the organ and the worm- 
 wood are indispensable. It is ours to perceive and rejoice in 
 a wider range of truth. All that these good men hold of grace 
 and sovereignty we maintain as firmly and boldly as they ; but 
 we dare not shut our eyes to other teachings of the Word, and 
 we feel bound to make full proof of our ministry, by declaring 
 the whole counsel of God. With abundant themes diligently 
 illustrated by fresh metaphors and experiences, we shall not 
 weary, but, under God's hand, shall win our hearers' ears and 
 hearts. 
 
 Let your teachings grow and advance ; let them deepen with 
 your experience, and rise with your soul-progress. I do not 
 mean preach new truths ; for, on the contrary, I hold that man 
 happy who is so well taught from the first that, after fifty years 
 of ministry, he has never had to recant a doctrine or to mourn 
 an important omission ; but I mean let our depth and insight 
 continually increase, and where there is spiritual advance it will 
 be so. Timothy could not preach like Paul. Our earlier pro-
 
 THE SUBSTANCE OF SERMONS 
 
 397 
 
 ductions must be surpassed by those of our riper years ; we 
 must never make these our models ; they will be best burned, 
 or only preserved to be mourned over because of their superfi- 
 cial character. It were ill, indeed, if we knew no more, after 
 being many years in Christ's school ; our progress may be 
 slow, but progress there must be, or there will be cause to sus- 
 pect that the inner life is lacking or sadly unhealthy. Set it 
 before you as most certain that you have not yet attained, and 
 may grace be given you to press forward towards that which 
 is yet beyond. May you all become able ministers of the New 
 Testament, and not a whit behind the very chief of preachers, 
 though in yourselves you will still be nothing. 
 
 The word " sermon " is said to signify a thrust, and, there- 
 fore, in sermonizing it must be our aim to use the subject in 
 hand with energy and effect, and the subject must be capable 
 of such employment. To choose mere moral themes will be 
 to use a wooden dagger ; but the great truths of revelation are 
 as sharp swords. Keep to doctrines which stir the conscience 
 and the heart. Remain unwaveringly the champions of a soul- 
 winning gospel. God's truth is adapted to man, and God's 
 grace adapts man to it. There is a key which, under God, can 
 wind up the musical box of man's nature ; get it, and use it 
 daily. Hence I urge you to keep to the old-fashioned gospel, 
 and to that only, for assuredly it is the power of God unto sal- 
 vation. 
 
 Of all I would wish to say this is the sum ; my brethren, 
 preach Christ, always and evermore. He is the whole gospel. 
 His person, offices, and work must be our one great, all-com- 
 prehending theme. The world needs still to be told of its 
 Saviour, and the way to reach Him. Justification by faith 
 should be far more than it is the daily testimony of Protestant 
 pulpits ; and if with this master truth there should be more 
 generally associated the other great doctrines of grace, the bet- 
 ter for our churches and our age. If with the zeal of Method- 
 ists we can preach the doctrine of Puritans a great future is 
 before us. The fire of Wesley, and the fuel of Whitefield, will 
 cause a burning which shall set the forests of error on fire, and 
 warm the very soul of this cold earth. We are not called to 
 proclaim philosophy and metaphysics, but the simple gospel. 
 Man's fall, his need of a new birth, forgiveness through an
 
 39§ 
 
 SPURGEON 
 
 atonement, and salvation as the result of faith, these are our 
 battle-axe and weapons of war. We have enough to do to 
 learn and teach these great truths, and accursed be that learn- 
 ing which shall divert us from our mission, or that wilful 
 ignorance which shall cripple us in its pursuit. More and 
 more am I jealous lest any views upon prophecy, church gov- 
 ernment, politics, or even systematic theology, should withdraw 
 one of us from glorying in the cross of Christ. Salvation is a 
 theme for which I would fain enlist every holy tongue. I am 
 greedy after witnesses for the glorious gospel of the blessed 
 God. O that Christ crucified were the universal burden of men 
 of God. Your guess at the number of the beast, your Napo- 
 leonic speculations, your conjectures concerning a personal 
 Antichrist — forgive me, I count them but mere bones for dogs ; 
 while men are dying, and hell is filling, it seems to me the ver- 
 iest drivel to be muttering about an Armageddon at Sebastopol 
 or Sadowa or Sedan, and peeping between the folded leaves of 
 destiny to discover the fate of Germany. Blessed are they who 
 read and hear the words of the prophecy of the Revelation, but 
 the like blessing has evidently not fallen on those who pretend 
 to expound it, for generation after generation of them have 
 been proved to be in error by the mere lapse of time, and the 
 present race will follow to the same inglorious sepulchre. I 
 would sooner pluck one single brand from the burning than ex- 
 plain all mysteries. To win a soul from going down into the 
 pit is a more glorious achievement than to be crowned in the 
 arena of theological controversy as Doctor Sufficientissimus ; to 
 have faithfully unveiled the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
 Christ will be in the final judgment accounted worthier service 
 than to have solved the problems of the religious Sphinx, or 
 to have cut the Gordian knot of apocalyptic difficulty. Blessed 
 is that ministry of which Christ is all.
 
 THE FUTURE OF THE BRITISH 
 
 EMPIRE 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN
 
 JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN 
 
 Joseph Chamberlain was born in London in July, 1836. He was edu- 
 cated at University College, and in early life became a member of a 
 manufacturing firm in Birmingham which his father had founded in 
 1854. He retired from this firm early in the seventies with independent 
 means. Mr. Chamberlain had by this time gained a considerable local 
 reputation on account of his radical opinions and a fluency of speech with 
 which he expounded his views in public. In 1868 he had been appointed 
 chairman of the first executive committee of the Education League, 
 and in this capacity he conducted a movement that led to the passing of 
 the Elementary Education Act in 1870. In 1873 he became chairman 
 of the Birmingham school board, to which he had been elected three 
 years before. The transfer to the city authorities of the gas and water 
 works was largely due to his energy. 
 
 During this time Chamberlain, a liberal in politics, became widely 
 known as an advocate of ultra-radical measures, and gained great 
 popularity with the masses. As the motto for his party he would have : 
 Free church, free land, free schools, and free labor. Elected alderman 
 in 1873, he was three times in succession elected mayor of Birming- 
 ham. He was defeated as a candidate for Parliament from Sheffield 
 at the general election in 1874, but was returned unopposed for Bir- 
 mingham two years later. In 1880, when the Liberals returned to power. 
 Chamberlain was nominated President of the Board of Trade and 
 admitted to a seat in the Cabinet. His influence within and without 
 Parliament had been steadily increasing in the mean time, and he now 
 came to be regarded as the leader of the radical wing of the Liberal 
 party. 
 
 He became President of the Local Government Board after the elec- 
 tion of 1886, but resigned in March of the same year, owing to his strong 
 objection to Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. From this time dates the 
 formation of the Liberal-Unionist party, henceforth closely allied with 
 the Conservatives, of which Chamberlain became the leader in the House 
 of Commons. Chamberlain's hostile attitude to Gladstone, his seces- 
 sion from his old party, and his affiliation with the Conservative inter- 
 ests brought upon him much unfavorable criticism. 
 
 When the Conservatives returned to power in 1895 Chamberlain took 
 the portfolio of Colonial Secretary. The so-called Ashantee War was 
 an incident of his first year's tenure of that office. He effectually 
 cleared himself before a Parliamentary committee of any implication 
 imputed to him in the Jameson raid in 1896. His management of the 
 Transvaal affair, especially the manner in which he conducted the ne- 
 gotiations that led to the war with the two South African republics, is 
 a matter of contemporaneous history. He was elected lord rector of 
 Glasgow University in 1896. 
 
 400
 
 THE FUTURE OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 
 
 Delivered at a dinner given to celebrate the completion of 
 the Natal Railzvay, London, November 6, 1895* 
 
 I THANK you sincerely for the hearty reception you have 
 given to this toast. I appreciate very much the warmth 
 of your welcome, and I see in it confirmation of the evi- 
 dence which is afforded by the cordial and graceful telegram 
 from the premier of Natal, which has been read by your chair- 
 man, and by other public and private communications that I 
 have received, that any man who makes it his first duty, as I 
 did, to draw closer together the different portions of the British 
 Empire will meet with hearty sympathy, encouragement, and 
 support. I thank my old friend and colleague, Sir Charles Tup- 
 per, for the kind manner in which he has spoken of me. He has 
 said much, no doubt, that transcends my merits, but that is a 
 circumstance so unusual in the life of a politician that I do not 
 feel it in my heart to complain. I remember that Dr. Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes, who was certainly one of the most genial 
 Americans who ever visited these shores, said that when he 
 was young he liked his praise in teaspoonfuls, that when he 
 got older he preferred it in tablespoonfuls, and that in advanced 
 years he was content to receive it in ladles. I confess that I am 
 arriving at the period when I sympathize with Dr. Oliver Wen- 
 dell Holmes. 
 
 Gentlemen, the occasion which has brought us together is 
 an extremely interesting one. We are here to congratulate 
 Natal, its government, and its people, and to congratulate our- 
 selves on the completion of a great work of commercial enter- 
 prise and civilization, which one of our colonies, which happens 
 
 ♦This dinner was the first public occa- Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the 
 
 sion on which Mr. Chamberlain appeared Colonies," which was proposed by Sir 
 
 in his official capacity as Secretary of State Charles Tupper, High Commissioner of 
 
 for the Colonies. His speech is in reply to Canada, 
 the toast " The Right Honorable Joseph 
 
 Vol. II.— 26 4 01
 
 402 CHAMBERLAIN 
 
 to be the last to have been included in the great circle of self- 
 governing communities, has brought to a successful conclu- 
 sion, giving once more a proof of the vigor and the resolution 
 which have distinguished all nations that have sprung from 
 the parent British stock. 
 
 This occasion has been honored by the presence of the rep- 
 resentatives of sister colonies, who are here to offer words of 
 sympathy and encouragement ; and, in view of the representa- 
 tive character of the gathering, I think, perhaps, I may be per- 
 mitted, especially as this is the first occasion upon which I have 
 publicly appeared in my capacity as Minister for the Colonies, 
 to offer a few words of a general application. 
 
 I think it will not be disputed that we are approaching a 
 critical state in the history of the relations between ourselves 
 and the self-governing colonies. We are entering upon a chap- 
 ter of our colonial history, the whole of which will probably be 
 written in the next few years, certainly in the lifetime of the 
 next generation, and which will be one of the most important 
 in our colonial annals, since upon the events and policy which 
 it describes will depend the future of the British Empire. That 
 empire, gentlemen, that world-wide dominion to which no Eng- 
 lishman can allude without a thrill of enthusiasm and patriot- 
 ism, which has been the admiration and perhaps the envy of 
 foreign nations, hangs together by a thread so slender that it 
 may well seem that even a breath would sever it. 
 
 There have been periods in our history, not so very far dis- 
 tant, when leading statesmen, despairing of the possibility of 
 maintaining anything in the nature of a permanent union, have 
 looked forward to the time when the vigorous communities to 
 which they rightly entrusted the control of their own destinies 
 would grow strong and independent, would assert their inde- 
 pendence, and would claim entire separation from the parent 
 stem. The time to which they look forward has arrived sooner 
 than they expected. The conditions to which they refer have 
 been more than fulfilled ; and now these great communities, 
 which have within them every element of national life, have 
 taken their rank amongst the nations of the world ; and I do not 
 suppose that anyone would consider the idea of compelling 
 them to remain within the empire as within the region of in- 
 telligent speculation. Yet, although, as I have said, the time
 
 THE FUTURE OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 
 
 403 
 
 has come, and the conditions have been fulfilled, the results 
 which these statesmen anticipated have not followed. They 
 felt, perhaps, overwhelmed by the growing burdens of the vast 
 dominions of the British Crown. They may well have shrunk 
 from the responsibilities and obligations which they involved; 
 and so it happened that some of them looked forward not only 
 without alarm, but with hopeful expectation to a severance of 
 the union which now exists. 
 
 But if such feelings were ever entertained they are enter- 
 tained no longer. As the possibility of separation has become 
 greater, the desire for separation has become less. While we 
 on our part are prepared to take our share of responsibility, 
 and to do all that may fairly be expected from the mother 
 country, and while we should look upon a separation as the 
 greatest calamity that could befall us — our fellow-subjects on 
 their part see to what a great inheritance they have come by 
 mere virtue of their citizenship; and they must feel that no 
 separate existence, however splendid, could compare with that 
 which they enjoy equally with ourselves as joint heirs of all 
 the traditions of the past, and as joint partakers of all the in- 
 fluence, resources, and power of the British Empire. 
 
 I rejoice at the change that has taken place. I rejoice at the 
 wider patriotism, no longer confined to this small island, which 
 embraces the whole of Greater Britain and which has carried 
 to every clime British institutions and the best characteristics 
 of the British race. How could it be otherwise? We have a 
 common origin, we have a common history, a common lan- 
 guage, a common literature, and a common love of liberty and 
 law. We have common principles to assert, we have common 
 interests to maintain. I said it was a slender thread that binds 
 us together. I remember on one occasion having been shown a 
 wire so fine and delicate that a blow might break it ; yet I was 
 told that it was capable of transmitting an electrical energy 
 that would set powerful machinery in motion. May it not be 
 the same with the relations which exist between the colonies 
 and ourselves; and may not that thread of union be capable 
 of carrying a force of sentiment and of sympathy which will 
 yet be a potent factor in the history of the world ? 
 
 There is a word which I am almost afraid to mention, lest 
 at the very outset of my career I should lose my character as
 
 4 o4 CHAMBERLAIN 
 
 a practical statesman. I am told on every hand that imperial 
 federation is a vain and empty dream. I will not contest that 
 judgment, but I will say this: "That man must be blind 
 indeed who does not see that it is a dream which has vividly 
 impressed itself on the mind of the English-speaking race, and 
 who does not admit that dreams of that kind, which have so 
 powerful an influence upon the imagination of men, have some- 
 how or another an unaccountable way of being realized in their 
 own time." If it be a dream, it is a dream that appeals to the 
 highest sentiments of patriotism, as well as to our material 
 interests. It is a dream which is calculated to stimulate and to 
 inspire everyone who cares for the future of the Anglo-Saxon 
 people. I think myself that the spirit of the time is, at all 
 events, in the direction of such a movement. How far it will 
 carry us no man can tell, but, believe me, upon the temper and 
 the tone in which we approached the solution of the problems 
 which are now coming upon us depend the security and the 
 maintenance of that world-wide dominion, that edifice of im- 
 perial rule which has been so ably built for us by those who 
 have gone before. 
 
 Gentlemen, I admit that I have strayed somewhat widely 
 from the toast which your chairman has committed to my 
 charge. The toast is " The Prosperity of South Africa and the 
 Natal and Transvaal Railway." As to South Africa, there can 
 be no doubt as to its prosperity. We have witnessed in our own 
 time a development of natural and mineral wealth in that 
 country altogether beyond precedent or human knowledge ; and 
 what we have seen in the past, and what we see in the present, 
 is bound to be far surpassed in the near future. The product of 
 the mines, great as it is at present, is certain to be multiplied 
 many fold, and before many years are over the mines of the 
 Transvaal may be rivalled by the mines of Mashonaland or 
 Matabeleland ; and in the train of this great, exceptional, and 
 wonderful prosperity, in the train of the diamond-digger and of 
 the miner, will come a demand for labor which no man can 
 measure — a demand for all the products of agriculture and 
 of manufacture, in which not South Africa alone, but all the 
 colonies and the mother-country itself must have a share. 
 
 The climate and soil leave nothing to be desired, and there is 
 only one thing wanted — that is, a complete union and identity
 
 THE FUTURE OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 
 
 405 
 
 of sentiment and interest between the different States existing 
 in South Africa. Gentlemen, I have no doubt that that union 
 will be forthcoming — although it may not be immediately es- 
 tablished. I do not shut my eyes to differences amongst friends 
 which have unfortunately already arisen and which have not 
 yet been arranged. I think these differences, if you look below 
 the surface, will be found to be due principally to the fact that 
 we have not yet achieved in South Africa that local federation 
 which is the necessary preface to any serious consideration of 
 the question of imperial federation. But, gentlemen, in these 
 differences, my position, of course, renders it absolutely neces- 
 sary that I should take no side. I pronounce no opinion, and it 
 would not become me to offer any advice ; although, if the good 
 offices of my department were at any time invoked by those 
 who are now separated, all I can say is that they would be 
 heartily placed at their service. 
 
 Gentlemen, I wish success to the Natal Railway, and to every 
 railway in South Africa. There is room for all. There is pros- 
 perity for all — enough to make the mouth of an English 
 director positively water. There is success for all, if only they 
 will not waste their resources in internecine conflict. I have 
 seen with pleasure that a conference is being held in order to 
 discuss, and I hope to settle, these differences. I trust that they 
 may be satisfactorily arranged. In the mean time I congratulate 
 our chairman, as representing this prosperous colony, upon the 
 enterprise they have displayed, upon the difficulties they have 
 surmounted, and on the success they have already achieved. 
 And I hope for them — confidently hope — the fullest share in 
 that prosperity which I predict without hesitation for the whole 
 of South Africa.

 
 ORATION ON ROBERT BURNS 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD ROSEBERY 
 
 (Archibald Philip Primrose)
 
 ARCHIBALD PHILIP PRIMROSE, LORD ROSEBERY 
 
 Archibald Philip Primrose, Earl of Rosebery, was born in London 
 May 7, 1847, and succeeded to the title on the death of his grandfather 
 in 1868. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford. 
 He made his first speech in Parliament in 1870, when Gladstone se- 
 lected him to second the address to the speech from the throne. The 
 first ten years of his public career are devoid of any notable incidents, 
 though he took during all this time an active interest in the movements 
 for social and educational reforms. He was elected Lord Rector of the 
 University of Aberdeen in 1880. Lord Rosebery' s public career as a 
 Liberal statesman begins with his appointment as Under-Secretary of 
 State for the Home Department in August, 1881. He became First 
 Commissioner of Works in November, 1884. In Gladstone's next ad- 
 ministration Rosebery was assigned the important post of Secretary 
 of State for Foreign Affairs and won general approval for the tact and 
 skill he displayed in settling the difficulties growing out of the Servo- 
 Bulgarian war and the Greek claims for territorial indemnity. 
 
 Lord Rosebery remained a firm supporter of his chief when Glad- 
 stone brought forward his first Home Rule for Ireland Bill, when many 
 political followers deserted their chief and the Liberal party. On Glad- 
 stone's return to power Lord Rosebery was appointed Foreign Min- 
 ister a second time, and on the former's retirement from public life he 
 was offered the Premiership by the Queen. The passing by of some 
 of the older leaders of the Liberal party caused for a time a good deal 
 of dissatisfaction and lack of support in the party. Rosebery was 
 obliged to work with a small majority and had the misfortune to fol- 
 low a leader of such great prestige as Mr. Gladstone. The Liberal 
 majority gradually dwindled down and Lord Rosebery placed his resig- 
 nation in the hands of the Queen. 
 
 Lord Rosebery has long been and remains one of the most popular 
 of the public men of England. He is a man of broad views and is 
 ever interested in movements to promote the betterment of the condition 
 of the laboring classes. As a public speaker he is in great demand and 
 his public utterances are always received with consideration and respect. 
 He is the author of the well-known monograph on the younger Pitt and 
 a recognized authority on Robert Burns. His oration on the Scotch 
 poet is given here. 
 
 408
 
 ORATION ON ROBERT BURNS 
 
 Delivered before the tomb of Robert Burns, at Dumfries, Scot- 
 land, July 21, 1896. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I come here as a loyal 
 burgess of Dumfries, to do honor to the greatest bur- 
 gess of Dumfries. You, Mr. Provost, have laid upon 
 me a great distinction but a great burden. Your most illus- 
 trious burgess obtained privileges for his children in re- 
 spect of his burgess-ship, but you impose on your youngest 
 burgess an honor that might well break anybody's back — that 
 of attempting to do justice in any shape or fashion to the hero 
 of to-day's ceremony. But we citizens of Dumfries have a spe- 
 cial claim to be considered on this day. We are surrounded 
 by the choicest and the most sacred haunts of the poet. You 
 have in this town the house in which he died, the "Globe " 
 where we could have wished that some phonograph had then 
 existed which could have communicated to us some of his wise 
 and witty and wayward talk. You have the street commem- 
 orated in M'Culloch's tragic anecdote when Burns was 
 shunned by his former friends, and you have the paths by the 
 Nith which are associated with some of his greatest work. You 
 have near you the room in which the whistle was contended for, 
 and in which, if mere legend is to be trusted, the immortal Dr. 
 Gregory was summoned to administer his first powders to the 
 survivors of that memorable debauch. You have the stack- 
 yard in which, lying on his back and contemplating — 
 
 " Thou lingering star, with lessening ray, 
 That Iov'st to greet the early morn," 
 
 he wrote the lines " To Mary in Heaven " — perhaps the most 
 pathetic of his poems. You have near you the walk to the 
 river, where, in this transport, he passed his wife and children 
 
 409
 
 4 io LORD ROSEBERY 
 
 without seeing them, " his brow flushed and his eyes shining " 
 with the lustre of " Tam o' Shanter." " I wish you had but 
 seen him," said his wife ; " he was in such ecstasy that the 
 tears were happing down his cheeks." That is why we are 
 in Dumfries to-day. We come to honor Burns among these 
 immortal haunts of his. 
 
 But it is not to Dumfries alone that he is commemorated 
 to-day ; for all Scotland will pay her tribute. And this, surely, 
 is but right. Mankind owes him a general debt. But the debt 
 of Scotland is special. For Burns exalted our race, he hal- 
 lowed Scotland and the Scottish tongue. Before his time we 
 had for a long period been scarcely recognized ; we had been 
 falling out of the recollection of the world. From the time of 
 the union of the crowns, and still more from the time of the 
 legislative union, Scotland had lapsed into obscurity. Except 
 for an occasional riot or a Jacobite rising, her existence was 
 almost forgotten. She had, indeed, her Robertsons and her 
 Humes writing history to general admiration, but no trace of 
 Scottish authorship was discoverable in their works ; indeed, 
 every flavor of national idiom was carefully excluded. The 
 Scottish dialect, as Burns called it, was in danger of perishing. 
 Burns seemed at this juncture to start to his feet and reassert 
 Scotland's claim to national existence ; his Scottish notes rang 
 through the world, and he thus preserved the Scottish language 
 forever ; for mankind will never allow to die that idiom in 
 which his songs and poems are enshrined. That is a part of 
 Scotland's debt to Burns. 
 
 But this is much more than a Scottish demonstration ; it is a 
 collection of representatives from all quarters of the globe to 
 own a common allegiance and a common faith. It is not only 
 Scotsmen honoring the greatest of Scotsmen — we stretch far 
 beyond a kingdom or a race — we are rather a sort of poetical 
 Mohammedans gathered at a sort of poetical Mecca. 
 
 And yet we are assembled in our high enthusiasm under cir- 
 cumstances which are somewhat paradoxical. For with all the 
 appearance of joy, we celebrate not a festival, but a tragedy. 
 It is not the sunrise but the sunset that we commemorate. It 
 is not the birth of a new power into the world, the subtle germ 
 of a fame that is to survive and inspire the generations of men ; 
 but it is perhaps more fitting that we celebrate the end and not
 
 ORATION ON ROBERT BURNS 4 n 
 
 the beginning. For the coming of these figures is silent ; it is 
 their disappearance that we know. At this instant that I speak 
 there may be born into the world the equal of a Newton or a 
 Caesar, but half of us would be dead before he had revealed him- 
 self. Their death is different. It may be gloomy and disas- 
 trous ; it may come at a moment of shame or neglect ; but by 
 that time the man has carved his name somewhere on the tem- 
 ple of fame. There are exceptions, of course ; cases where the 
 end comes before the slightest, or any but the slightest, recog- 
 nition — Chatterton choking in his garret, hunger of body and 
 soul all unsatisfied; Millet selling his pictures for a song; nay, 
 Shakespeare himself. But, as a rule, death in the case of genius 
 closes the first act of a public drama; criticism and analysis may 
 then begin their unbiassed work free from jealousy or friend- 
 ship or personal consideration for the living. Then comes the 
 third act, if third act there be. 
 
 No, it is a death, not a birth, that we celebrate. This day a 
 century ago, in poverty, delirium, and distress, there was passing 
 the soul of Robert Burns. To him death comes in clouds and 
 darkness, the end of a long agony of body and soul ; he is har- 
 assed with debt, his bodily constitution is ruined, his spirit is 
 broken, his wife is daily expecting her confinement. He has 
 lost almost all that rendered his life happy — much of friendship, 
 credit, and esteem. Some score years before, one of the most 
 charming of English writers, as he lay dying, was asked if his 
 mind was at ease, and with his last breath Oliver Goldsmith 
 owned that it was not. So it was with Robert Burns. His 
 delirium dwelt on the horrors of a jail ; he uttered curses on the 
 tradesman who was pursuing him for debt. " What business," 
 said he to his physician in a moment of consciousness, " what 
 business has a physician to waste his time upon me? I am a 
 poor pigeon not worth plucking. Alas ! I have not feathers 
 enough to carry me to my grave." For a year or more his 
 health had been failing. He had a poet's body as well as a 
 poet's mind ; nervous, feverish, impressionable ; and his consti- 
 tution, which, if nursed and regulated, might have carried him 
 to the limit of life, was unequal to the storm and stress of dissi- 
 pation and a preying mind. In the previous autumn he had 
 been seized with a rheumatic attack ; his digestion had given 
 way ; he was sunk in melancholy and gloom. In his last April
 
 4 i2 LORD ROSEBERY 
 
 he wrote to his friend Thomson, " By Babel's streams I've sate 
 and wept almost ever since I saw you last ; I have only known 
 existence by the pressure of the heavy hand of sickness, and 
 have counted time by the repercussions of pain. Rheumatism, 
 cold, and fever have formed to me a terrible combination. I 
 close my eyes in misery, and open them without hope." It 
 was sought to revive him by sea-bathing, and he went to stay at 
 Brow-well. There he remained three weeks, but was under 
 no delusion as to his state. 
 
 " Well, madam," he said to Mrs. Riddell on arriving, " have 
 you any commands for the other world ?" He sat that evening 
 with his old friend, and spoke manfully of his approaching 
 death, of the fate of his children, and his fame ; sometimes in- 
 dulging in bitter-sweet pleasantry, but never losing the con- 
 sciousness of his condition. In three weeks he wearied of the 
 fruitless hunt for health, and he returned home to die. He 
 was only just in time. When he re-entered his home on the 
 eighteenth he could no longer stand ; he was soon delirious ; 
 in three days he was dead. " On the fourth day," we are told, 
 " when his attendant held a cordial to his lips, he swallowed it 
 eagerly, rose almost wholly up, spread out his hands, sprang 
 forward nigh the whole length of the bed, fell on his face, and 
 expired." 
 
 I suppose there are many who can read the account of 
 these last months with composure. They are more fortunate 
 than I. There is nothing much more melancholy in all biog- 
 raphy. The brilliant poet, the delight of all society, from the 
 highest to the lowest, sits brooding in silence over the drama 
 of his spent life ; the early innocent home, the plough and the 
 savor of fresh-turned earth, the silent communion with nature 
 and his own heart, the brief hour of splendor, the dark 
 hour of neglect, the mad struggle for forgetfulness, the bitter- 
 ness of vanished homage, the gnawing doubt of fame, the dis- 
 tressful future of his wife and children — an endless witch-dance 
 of thought without clew or remedy, all perplexing, all soon to 
 end while he is yet young, as men reckon youth ; though none 
 know so well as he that his youth is gone, his race is run, his 
 message delivered. 
 
 His death revived the flagging interest and pride that had 
 been felt for him. As usual, men began to realize what they
 
 ORATION ON ROBERT BURNS 
 
 413 
 
 had lost when it was too late. When it was known that he was 
 dying the townspeople had shown anxiety and distress. They 
 recalled his fame and forgot his fall. One man was heard to 
 ask, with a touch of quaint simplicity, " Who do you think will 
 be our poet now ? " The district set itself to prepare a public 
 funeral for the poet who died penniless among them. A vast 
 concourse followed him to his grave. The awkward squad, as 
 he had foreseen and deprecated, fired volleys over his coffin. 
 The streets were lined with soldiers, among them one who, 
 within sixteen years, was to be Prime Minister. And while the 
 procession wended its gloomy way as if no element of tragedy 
 were to be wanting, his widow's hour of travail arrived and she 
 gave birth to the hapless child that had caused the father so 
 much misgiving. In this place and on this day it all seems 
 present to us — the house of anguish, the thronged churchyard, 
 the weeping neighbors. We feel ourselves part of the mourn- 
 ing crowd. We hear those dropping volleys and that muffled 
 drum ; we bow our heads as the coffin passes, and acknowledge 
 with tears the inevitable doom. Pass, heavy hearse, with thy 
 weary freight of shattered hopes and exhausted frame ; pass, 
 with thy simple pomp of fatherless brains and sad moralizing 
 friends ; pass, with the sting of death to the victory of the grave ; 
 pass, with the perishable, and leave us the eternal. 
 
 It is rare to be fortunate in life ; it is infinitely rarer to be for- 
 tunate in death. " Happy in the occasion of his death," as 
 Tacitus said of Agricola, is not a common epitaph. It is com- 
 paratively easy to know how to live, but it is beyond all option 
 and choice to compass the more difficult art of knowing when 
 and how to die. We can generally, by looking back, choose a 
 moment in a man's life when he had been fortunate had he 
 dropped down dead. And so the question arises naturally to- 
 day, Was Burns fortunate in his death — that death which we 
 commemorate ? There can, I fancy, be only one answer ; it was 
 well that he died when he did ; it might even been better for 
 himself had he died a little earlier. The terrible letters that he 
 wrote two years before to Mrs. Riddell and Mr. Cunningham 
 betoken a spirit mortally wounded. In those last two years 
 the cloud settles, never to be lifted. " My constitution and 
 frame were ab originc blasted with a deep incurable taint of hy- 
 pochondria which poisons my existence." He found perhaps
 
 4I4 LORD ROSEBERY 
 
 some pleasure in the composition of his songs, some occasional 
 relief in the society of boon companions; but the world was 
 fading before him. 
 
 There is an awful expression in Scotland which one never 
 hears without a pang, " So-and-so is done," meaning that he is 
 physically worn out. Burns was " done." He was struggling 
 on like a wounded deer to his death. He had often faced the 
 end, and not unwillingly. " Can it be possible," he once wrote 
 to Mrs. Dunlop, " that when I resign this frail, feverish being 
 I shall still find myself in conscious existence ? When the last 
 gasp of agony has announced that I am no more to those who 
 know me and the few who love me ; when the cold, unconscious 
 corse is resigned to the earth to be the prey of reptiles and 
 become a trodden clod, shall I be yet warm in life, enjoying or 
 enjoyed ? " Surely that reads as if he foresaw this day and 
 would fain be with us — as indeed he may be. Twelve years 
 before he had faced death in a less morbid spirit : 
 
 " Why [he asked] am I loath to leave this earthly scene ? 
 Have I so found it full of pleasing charms ? 
 Some days of joy, with draughts of ill between, 
 Some gleams of sunshine, 'mid renewing storms." 
 
 He had, perhaps, never enjoyed life so much as is supposed, 
 though he had turned to it a brave, cheerful, unflinching face, 
 and the last years had been years of misery. " God have mercy 
 on me," he wrote years before the end, " a poor damned, incau- 
 tious, duped, unfortunate fool ! The sport, the miserable vic- 
 tim of rebellious pride, hypochondriac imagination, agonizing 
 sensibility, and bedlam passions." There was truth in this out- 
 burst. At any rate, his most devoted friends — and to be an ad- 
 mirer of Burns is to be his friend — may wish that he had not 
 lived to write the letter to Mr. Clark, piteously pleading that a 
 harmless toast may not be visited hardly upon him ; or that to 
 Mrs. Riddell, beginning — " I write you from the regions of 
 hell and the horrors of the damned " ; or to be harried by his 
 official superiors as a political suspect ; shunned by his fashion- 
 able friends for the same reason ; wandering like a neglected 
 ghost in Dumfries, avoided and ignored. ' That's all over 
 now, my young friend," he said, speaking of his reign in soci- 
 ety, " and werena my heart licht I wad dee." All this was in
 
 ORATION ON ROBERT BURNS 415 
 
 1794. Had he died before then, it might have been happier 
 for himself, and we should have lost some parts of his life 
 which we would rather forget; but posterity could not have 
 spared him ; we could not have lost the exquisite songs which 
 we owe to those years ; but, above all, the supreme creed and 
 comfort which he bequeathed to the world — 
 
 " A man's a man for a' that," 
 
 would have remained undelivered. 
 
 One may, perhaps, go further and say that poets — or those 
 whom the gods love — should die young. This is a hard saying, 
 but it will not greatly affect the bills of mortality. And it ap- 
 plies only to poets of the first rank ; while even here it has its 
 exceptions, and illustrious exceptions they are. But surely 
 the best poetry is produced before middle age, before the morn- 
 ing and its illusions have faded, before the heaviness of noon 
 and the baleful cool of evening. Few men, too, can bear the 
 strain of a poet's temperament through many years. At any 
 rate, we may feel sure of this, that Burns had produced his best, 
 that he would never again have produced a " Tarn o' Shanter," 
 or a " Cottar's Saturday Night," or a " Jolly Beggars " ; and 
 that long before his death, though he could still write lines afflu- 
 ent with tenderness and grace, " the hand of pain and sorrow 
 and care," to use his own words, " had lain heavy upon " him. 
 
 And this leads to another point. To-day is not merely the 
 melancholy anniversary of death, but the rich and incompara- 
 ble fulfilment of prophecy. For this is the moment to which 
 Burns looked when he said to his wife, " Don't be afraid ; I'll 
 be more respected a hundred years after I am dead than I am 
 at present ! " To-day the hundred years are completed, and we 
 can judge of the prediction. On that point we must all be 
 unanimous. Burns had honor in his lifetime, but his fame has 
 rolled like a snowball since his death, and it rolls on. There 
 is, indeed, no parallel to it in the world ; it sets the calculations 
 of compound interest at defiance. He is not merely the watch- 
 word of a nation that carries and implants Burns-worship all 
 over the globe as birds carry seeds, but he has become the 
 champion and patron saint of democracy. He bears the ban- 
 ner of the essential equality of man. His birthday is celebrated 
 — 137 years after its occurrence — more universally than that
 
 416 
 
 LORD ROSEBERY 
 
 of any human being. He reigns over a greater dominion than 
 any empire that the world has ever seen. Nor does the ardor of 
 his devotees decrease. Ayr and Ellisland, Mauchline and 
 Dumfries, are the shrines of countless pilgrims. Burns statues 
 are a hardy annual. The production of Burns manuscripts 
 was a lucrative branch of industry until it was checked by un- 
 timely intervention. The editions of Burns are as the sands 
 of the sea. No canonized name in the calendar excites so 
 blind and enthusiastic a worship. Whatever Burns may have 
 contemplated in his prediction, whatever dream he may have 
 fondled in the wildest moments of elation, must have fallen 
 utterly short of the reality. And it is all spontaneous. There 
 is no puff, no advertisement, no manipulation. Intellectual 
 cosmetics of that kind are frail and fugitive ; they rarely survive 
 their subject ; they would not have availed here. Not was 
 there any glamour attached to the poet ; rather the reverse. He 
 has stood by himself ; he has grown by himself. It is himself 
 and no other that we honor. 
 
 But what had Burns in his mind when he made this predic- 
 tion? It might be whimsically urged that he was conscious 
 that the world had not yet seen his masterpiece, for the " Jolly 
 Beggars " was not published till some time after his death. 
 But that would not be sufficient, for he had probably forgotten 
 its existence. Nor do I think he spoke at haphazard. What 
 were perhaps present to his mind were the fickleness of his 
 contemporaries towards him, his conviction of the essential 
 splendor of his work, the consciousness that the incidents 
 of his later years had unjustly obscured him, and that his true 
 figure would be perceived as these fell away into forgetfulness 
 or were measured at their true value. If so, he was right in his 
 judgment, for his true life began with his death ; with the body 
 passed all that was gross and impure; the clear spirit stood 
 revealed, and soared at once to its accepted place among the 
 fixed stars, in the firmament of the rare immortals.
 
 THE DESERTION OF GENERAL GORDON 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD CHURCHILL 
 
 (Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill)
 
 RANDOLPH HENRY SPENCER CHURCHILL, 
 LORD CHURCHILL 
 
 1849— 1895 
 
 Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill, Lord Churchill, was the second 
 son of the sixth Duke of Marlborough, and was born February 13, 1849. 
 He was educated at Merton's College, Oxford. In 1874 Churchill was 
 returned to Parliament for Woodstock, which seat he held till 1885. 
 The same year he married a daughter of Leonard Jerome, of New York. 
 
 Little was heard of Lord Churchill during the first years of his par- 
 liamentary career. From 1880 onward he became conspicuous both in 
 the House of Commons and on public platforms for the violence with 
 which he attacked the Liberal party. He was, for some time during 
 this period, the leader of the so-called fourth party, consisting of a 
 coterie of ultra-conservative members in the House. 
 
 On the accession of the Conservatives to power in 1885 he filled the 
 office of Secretary of State for India, where his short tenure of office 
 was marked by the annexation of Upper Burmah. It was during this 
 time that Churchill's career gave the brightest promise for the future. 
 He was beginning to be regarded as the Tory leader, and it was com- 
 monly said that the mantle of Lord Beaconsfield had fallen on the young, 
 able and untiring chief of the Tory democracy. 
 
 After the defeat of the Conservatives in 1885 and their return to power 
 after six months, in the same year, Lord Churchill filled the office of 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer and became leader of his party in the House 
 of Commons. His resignation in the same year was a surprise to both 
 his political followers as well as his opponents; but it is not unlikely that 
 ill-health, brought on by over-exertion, was responsible for this step. 
 In a letter conveying his resignation he wrote to Lord Salisbury that 
 he was resolved to sacrifice himself on the altar of thrift and economy. 
 His attacks on the disbursing departments of the government were 
 henceforth sharp and incisive, but he spoke and voted steadfastly on 
 the side of the Conservatives. His speech on the " Desertion of Gen- 
 eral Gordon " made a great sensation at the time of its delivery. Lord 
 Churchill died in 1895. 
 
 418
 
 THE DESERTION OF GENERAL GORDON 
 
 Delivered in the House of Commons, May 13, 1884 
 
 I DO not think that it is necessary to debate this question 
 with any great amount of heat, or with set oratorical 
 phrases, or with great warmth of invective or vitupera- 
 tion. The question itself is as simple a question as ever pre- 
 sented itself to Parliament. The motion before the House is 
 couched in terms of extreme moderation. The Prime Minis- 
 ter said that it was not a manly or courageous motion ; I doubt 
 whether the Prime Minister or any one of his colleagues is a 
 judge of what is manly or courageous. Those adjectives rep- 
 resent qualities in which Her Majesty's Government have 
 proved themselves conspicuously deficient. But I think that it 
 was a strange criticism on the part of the Prime Minister. 
 What is the motion of the right honorable baronet? It is a 
 motion expressing regret that the efforts of General Gordon 
 have not been properly seconded by the acts of the Government 
 at home, and expressing a determination to provide now for the 
 safety of General Gordon. I myself can see nothing unmanly or 
 wanting in courage in such a motion as that; but I am bound to 
 say that I can see a great deal that is wanting in courage in the 
 Prime Minister's speech last night. I wonder whether the 
 Prime Minister recollects an incident which took place in 1830. 
 The right honorable gentleman would have been about twenty 
 years of age, and I have no doubt was well acquainted with the 
 political incidents of that day. The Duke of Wellington made 
 a speech on the subject of parliamentary reform. When he sat 
 down there were buzzings and whisperings and evident con- 
 sternation on his own side ; so much so that the Duke asked 
 what was the cause of it, and the reply was, " Your Grace has 
 announced the fall of your Government, that is all." If the 
 Prime Minister had had the advantage of occupying the posi- 
 
 419
 
 420 LORD CHURCHILL 
 
 tion which I occupy, and had been able to see the deepening 
 gloom which settled down on his followers as he proceeded with 
 his remarks, and the blank dismay that overspread their faces, 
 and if he had heard the buzzings and whisperings and conster- 
 nation in the lobby, and had asked the noble lord, the member 
 for Flintshire, what was the cause of it, if the noble lord, the 
 member for Flintshire, was an intelligent and able noble lord, 
 he would have replied, " Sir, you have annnounced the fall of 
 your Government." 
 
 What was that speech? It was an announcement in the 
 most solemn manner on the part of Her Majesty's Government, 
 by their chief representative, of the final and definite abandon- 
 ment of General Gordon. Of that there can be absolutely no 
 doubt whatever in the mind of anyone who listened to him or 
 who has read the report of his speech. That speech reminded 
 me of the conduct of a Roman governor of eighteen hundred 
 years ago, who washed his hands in the face of the multitude. 
 That speech announced in the most open and unmistakable 
 manner the abandonment of General Gordon. This is a course 
 which I am certain the country is not prepared to ratify, and 
 which I think Parliament is not prepared to adopt. 
 
 What was the mission of General Gordon? What was its 
 nature? The mission, to my mind, was in theory and in- 
 tention one of the noblest ever undertaken. The object of the 
 mission was twofold. It was to rescue the garrisons in the 
 Soudan, numbering something like 30,000, exclusive of women 
 and children, and it was to restore freedom and tranquillity to 
 harassed and oppressed tribes. The whole nation acquiesced 
 in that mission, as, I believe, it acquiesced in the abandonment 
 of the Soudan. I do not think it could be asserted for one mo- 
 ment that any person on the Opposition side of the House has 
 ever advocated the re-conquest of the Soudan, and I may say 
 that I have never heard anybody who is responsible on this side 
 of the House censure the abandonment of the Soudan. But, al- 
 though the nation and the Opposition acquiesced in the aban- 
 donment of the Soudan, the nation felt deeply the solemn and 
 high duties which that abandonment imposed upon them, and 
 the nation hailed with pleasure, and I may almost say with rap- 
 ture, the mission of General Gordon, and was prepared to con- 
 done many an error because the Government had entrusted
 
 THE DESERTION OF GENERAL GORDON 42 i 
 
 those duties to be discharged by so generous, so gallant, and so 
 noble an officer as General Gordon. I do not believe that any 
 mission which ever left this country had ever created so much 
 interest; but the very intensity of the interest excited is the 
 measure of the responsibility imposed upon the Government 
 to do their part in assisting General Gordon to carry his 
 dangerous mission to a successful conclusion. The Prime 
 Minister said last night that the Government had dis- 
 charged their responsibility to the utmost. I take leave to 
 traverse the right honorable gentleman's statement, and say 
 that the Government have not discharged one bit of that 
 responsibility. I assert that, as it was the duty of the Gov- 
 ernment to have seconded to the very utmost the mis- 
 sion of General Gordon, they ought, at the outset, to have 
 considerably increased their force in Egypt, and to have moved 
 British troops up the Nile. The first appearance of General 
 Gordon in Upper Egypt prevented disturbances. He found a 
 state of semi-order, and he pacified it completely. There can 
 be no doubt that if it had been known that the British force had 
 been increased, and that British troops had been moved up 
 the Nile, the first effect of the mission, instead of being tran- 
 sient, would have been permanent. More than that, the season 
 was exceptionally favorable for the movement of troops, and 
 that movement would have been perfectly consistent with the 
 pacific character of the mission of General Gordon. Material 
 support is not out of character with a mission which is essen- 
 tially pacific ; and if any supporter or member of the Govern- 
 ment should deny that assertion, I have only to point to the 
 conduct of the Government with respect to Suakin completely 
 to make out my case. The conduct of the Government in that 
 case was to give material support to the efforts to restore order 
 in that part of the Soudan — and why should material support 
 have been limited to Suakin ? I submit that that was the first 
 failure of the Government to recognize their responsibility to 
 General Gordon. Then the Government had another warning. 
 Soon after General Gordon arrived at Khartoum he made an 
 urgent appeal to the Government to send him Zebehr Pacha. 
 I have never been one of those who have been disposed to blame 
 the Government for not acceding to that request. I think not 
 only that Zebehr is a man with whom no British Government
 
 422 LORD CHURCHILL 
 
 ought to have any connection, but I believe that he would have 
 done his best to assassinate General Gordon when he got to 
 Khartoum. But the Prime Minister, curiously enough, told 
 the House last night that he thought General Gordon was right 
 in asking for Zebehr, and said he had been disposed to go al- 
 most any length to meet the request, and gave an extraordinary 
 reason for not doing what he said was right, and what he was 
 prepared to go almost any length to do. He said, " I did not 
 do what I thought I should do, because I feared I might be 
 placed in a minority." 
 
 [Mr. Gladstone: The noble lord has represented what I said with 
 perfect inaccuracy. I did not say that I should in any case have sent 
 Zebehr, but I said that, whereas the arguments for sending Zebehr 
 might have been very nearly balanced, and, in the minds of some, 
 might have preponderated, the one argument that was conclusive against 
 it was not that the Government would have been placed in a minority, 
 but that the sending of Zebehr would have been stopped by a vote in 
 the House of Commons.] 
 
 Lord Churchill : That is exactly the same thing. If the 
 Prime Minister had come down to the House and proposed 
 to send Zebehr, and a vote had been taken against him, does 
 anyone think that he would have retained office? It would 
 have been a vote of censure on the Government. My conten- 
 tion, therefore was right. I feel that that is a fair construc- 
 tion to put upon the words of the Prime Minister. It is in 
 accordance with former acts of the right honorable gentleman, 
 because I recollect that he once said he did not restore order 
 in Ireland when he might have done so, because he was 
 not certain whether at that time he should have obtained 
 a majority of the House of Commons. But what I wonder 
 at is, that the Government, knowing the character of Gen- 
 eral Gordon, his love of the Soudanese, and his low opinion 
 of this abandoned ruffian Zebehr, and seeing that General Gor- 
 don had made an appeal for him to be sent to his assistance, did 
 not have their eyes opened to the fact that General Gordon's po- 
 sition at Khartoum had become untenable, that his mission was 
 far more desperate than had been imagined, and that his posi- 
 tion was one of imminent peril. I wonder, and shall wonder 
 forever, that the Government at that time did not take meas-
 
 THE DESERTION OF GENERAL GORDON 423 
 
 ures to provide for the safety of General Gordon — to increase 
 the British forces at Cairo, and to move British troops up the 
 Nile. It was on February 27th that the Government refused 
 to allow Zebehr to go to Khartoum, and certainly at that time 
 a movement of troops might have been carried on without the 
 slightest risk. That is the second conspicuous, undeniable fail- 
 ure of the Government to provide for the relief of General Gor- 
 don. The Prime Minister taunted the Opposition because 
 they cheered him when he announced the expedition to Suakin. 
 We cheered that announcement, not because we were in love 
 with the dangers of the expedition, and not because we did not 
 see them, but because it occurred to us that the dangers were 
 far outweighed by the advantages which would obviously re- 
 sult from the expedition. The object of that expedition was 
 threefold. It was to preserve the safety of the ports of the 
 Red Sea, to relieve Tokar, and to open up a route to Berber. 
 On those grounds alone did we cheer the announcement of the 
 Government; but when we found, to our disgust and dismay, 
 that not one of those objects had been in any part obtained, we 
 lost no time in condemning the expedition to Suakin, and sup- 
 porting the motion of the honorable member for Northampton. 
 That was a clear and consistent course of conduct. General 
 Gordon was not in favor of that expedition ; but I can quite 
 understand that, under the circumstances in which he was 
 placed, he would not like to put an absolute negative upon it. 
 General Gordon, however, did not imagine that the Govern- 
 ment would have allowed the troops to fight two bloody and 
 unprovoked battles, and then sail away without having effected 
 anything. 
 
 Let me compare the Government's treatment of Suakin with 
 their treatment of General Gordon. What is Suakin? Suakin 
 is a dirty, wretched, plague-stricken port on the Red Sea, of 
 no value to Egypt, or to anyone but the Soudanese tribes. 
 What is General Gordon? The Prime Minister told us last 
 night that General Gordon is " a great personality " ; more than 
 that, he is the envoy of the Queen ; more than that, Gordon's 
 life is invaluable to his country, because a nation does not turn 
 out Gordons by the dozen every clay. The Prime Minister was 
 angry with the right honorable gentleman last night because 
 he said that the Government ought to have given material sup-
 
 424 LORD CHURCHILL 
 
 port to General Gordon. But why was it wrong to do that for 
 General Gordon, a great personality, the envoy of the Queen, 
 a man invaluable to his country, which you did so lavishly and 
 so uselessly for this dirty port on the Red Sea? For this port 
 the Government shed blood in torrents, they poured out money 
 like water ; but for Gordon they refused to advance one British 
 soldier one single step, or to provide him with one single half- 
 penny of money. In comparing the treatment of Suakin by the 
 Government with the treatment of General Gordon, the logic 
 of facts is hopelessly fatal to their position. As I listened to 
 the Prime Minister last night a curious idea came into my head. 
 I thought of the singularly different — the inexplicably different 
 — manner in which different individuals appeal to his sympa- 
 thies. I compared his efforts in the cause of General Gordon 
 with his efforts in the cause of Mr. Bradlaugh. I remem- 
 bered the courage, the perseverance, the eloquence, he dis- 
 played and the amount of time of the House of Commons which 
 was consumed by the Government in their desperate adherence 
 to that man. If the hundredth part of those invaluable moral 
 qualities bestowed upon Mr. Bradlaugh had been given to the 
 support of a Christian hero, the success of General Gordon's 
 mission would have been at this time assured. And this struck 
 me as most remarkable when the Prime Minister sat down — 
 that the finest speech he ever delivered in the House of Com- 
 mons was in support of Mr. Bradlaugh, and the worst speech 
 he ever delivered, was, by common consent, in the cause of the 
 Christian hero. That is an instructive historical contrast. 
 The Prime Minister made a most extraordinary remark last 
 night which reveals the incapacity of the present Government 
 for dealing with those difficult commotions abroad. He said, 
 in reply to the right honorable gentleman who questioned the 
 wisdom of the Government in not sending troops to Berber, 
 "What would be the use of sending a few British troops?" 
 Well, for fifty years the Prime Minister has been more or less 
 in the service of the Crown, and has been identified with some 
 of the most glorious exploits of British valor, and after all that 
 experience he gets up and asks the House of Commons what 
 would be the value of a few hundred British soldiers ? Surely, 
 when he asked this question he must have been thinking, not 
 of the early and military glories with which he was connected,
 
 THE DESERTION OF GENERAL GORDON 425 
 
 but of the unfortunate events of Laing's Nek and Majuba Hill. 
 For my part, I think the value of a few hundred soldiers at Ber- 
 ber would have been great. They would in the first place have 
 opened up the road across the desert. Their very passing 
 across the desert would have produced an effect ; it would have 
 confirmed the wavering, given hope to the fugitives, and saved 
 the garrisons. It would have been very apparent to every- 
 one in that part of the world that those British troops were 
 merely the precursors of others, and it would have prevented 
 the present isolation of General Gordon. The troops were 
 ready and anxious to go ; General Graham was anxious to go. 
 I do not know whether the Prime Minister is aware of it, be- 
 cause in his exalted position he may be denied the knowledge 
 open to humbler men — but the feeling of the troops coming 
 away from Suakin was one of utter and intense disgust. Be- 
 cause those brave men, who whenever they perform deeds of 
 fame are exposed to the jeers and jibes of honorable gentlemen 
 opposite — these brave men were filled with the conviction that 
 all their bravery had gone for nothing, and, more than that, 
 that they had slaughtered brave and gallant foes for no purpose 
 whatever. The whole of that force was only too anxious, too 
 desirous, by opening up the road to Berber, to place something 
 tangible on record as the result of their exertions. The Prime 
 Minister argued in a most extraordinary manner that he and his 
 colleagues had no longer any duties to perform toward the 
 Soudan garrison. He sent General Gordon to get the garri- 
 sons out ; General Gordon had failed ; and, really, he and his 
 colleagues cannot any further be bothered with the matter. 
 That was the whole drift of his speech, because the House no- 
 ticed how he descended upon the right honorable baronet, and 
 asked which garrisons were to be rescued — that of Gondola, 
 Bahr Gazelle, or what others ? Your duty is to recognize the 
 claims of every one of them. They were recognized by a unani- 
 mous House of Commons when General Gordon was sent out. 
 I adhere to that assertion. It was the duty of General Gordon 
 to rescue them when you sent him out, and the duty of rescuing 
 them lies heavily upon this country, that placed them in peril by 
 abandoning the Soudan. At any rate, there is one duty, and 
 that is the duty of England to support her envoy. The position 
 of an envoy is sacred not so much to the country to which he is
 
 426 LORD CHURCHILL 
 
 sent, because that may be an uncivilized country, but sacred to 
 the country which sends him out, and essentially sacred when 
 that envoy is placed in a position of peril in a distant land. The 
 fear to go to war in support of an envoy is a certain indication 
 of a decaying empire, and the abandonment of an envoy by 
 a British Government, with the sanction of a British Parlia- 
 ment, is the sure sign of a falling state. 
 
 The right honorable gentleman says that in October he 
 would consider this question again — a very reasonable allow- 
 ance of time to procure the information of which the Govern- 
 ment stands in need ; and he imagines that by October, having 
 obtained that information, the Government will be able to de- 
 vote their attention to the rescue of General Gordon. Does 
 he think that England will wait till October to hear what he is 
 going to do ? If so, how low an estimate must the Prime Min- 
 ister have formed of the countrymen who so long have wor- 
 shipped and put their trust in him ! Such is their reward for 
 the devotion of many years ! If the Prime Minister thinks that 
 the British people will wait till the month of October, does he 
 think that the Mahdi will wait till then ? Because, whatever 
 may be the qualities of the British people, the Mahdi has shown 
 qualities which will enable us to calculate the rate of his ad- 
 vance. Does not the right honorable gentleman propose to 
 take any steps to guard the inhabitants of Lower Egypt against 
 the incursion of the Mahdi until the time when he says climatic 
 influences will not endanger the health of the troops? If the 
 right honorable gentleman does not propose to take any steps 
 for that purpose, I cannot believe that the decision of the Gov- 
 ernment will be indorsed by the House of Commons. Very 
 little would be necessary now to arrest the Madhi — a slight 
 movement of troops, a slight movement of ships, a little more 
 energy, a little more common-sense, a little more consistency 
 in your foreign despatches, and the thing would be done. But 
 now the Prime Minister is going to meet the powers of Europe 
 in conference. He is going to meet after this debate — if he 
 survives it — he is going to meet in conference on the Egyptian 
 question powers represented by standing armies numbering 
 millions of men. I like conferences, and advocate them under 
 certain conditions. But I will illustrate my meaning. Com- 
 pare the position which Lord Beaconsfield occupied at the Con-
 
 THE DESERTION OF GENERAL GORDON 42? 
 
 gress of Berlin with the position which the Prime Minister will 
 occupy at the conference which is now to take place. The one, 
 by a mere movement of the fleet, and by movement of troops, 
 had arrested the advance of the Russian army at the very 
 threshold of the goal to which for a century they had been ap- 
 proaching; the other appears before the conference as having 
 been afraid, and as having stated his fear in this House, to ar- 
 rest the march of a barbarian and to rescue an English envoy. 
 I should like to know whether the Government can appear on 
 terms of equality with the other powers in such circumstances 
 as these. The Government go to the conference having done 
 a dishonorable act. The conference will not be so much a 
 conference for the consideration of European affairs, of powers 
 meeting on terms of equality, as a tribunal called together to 
 pronounce judgment on the crimes of a delinquent and recreant 
 nation. The Government denounce the motives of those who 
 bring forward this vote of censure, and say that it is dictated 
 not by a love of country, but by a spirit of party. The Prime 
 Minister has had fifty years of parliamentary experience, and 
 I ask him to tell us, from motives of intelligent curiosity, 
 whether he ever knew a vote of censure which had not for its 
 object and for its end a transference of power, and, if that is the 
 general character of a vote of censure, why is the particular 
 vote of censure which has been moved by the right honorable 
 gentleman on the front Opposition bench so vile? The right 
 honorable gentleman says that the Opposition is ambitious and 
 unjust. I should like to know, when the Prime Minister con- 
 ducted in 1877 that agitation which electrified the country, 
 whether he was not ambitious and whether he was not unjust? 
 Were not these adjectives applicable to him when he boasted at 
 Oxford that for a considerable time he had rested neither night 
 nor day in his endeavors to thwart the policy of the Government 
 of that time? What does this transference of power mean 
 which the Prime Minister says is so mischievous and perni- 
 cious? So far as I can make out, it means the immediate res- 
 cue of Gordon, as opposed to the autumnal and uncertain res- 
 cue of Gordon in six months' time ; it means the restoration 
 of order in Egypt, as opposed to the continuance of anarchy ; 
 it means the repulse of the Mahdi, as opposed to a general 
 Mahommedan rising; it means, I believe, taking Egypt under
 
 428 LORD CHURCHILL 
 
 English protection, and extending the might of Britain over 
 that disturbed land for a time. That is what I believe the trans- 
 ference of power means in regard to Egypt. May I ask what 
 it means at home ? For the Whigs it means a cessation of vot- 
 ing day after day that black is white. What does it mean to 
 the Radical party? It means that, after abandoning for four 
 years every principle on which they came into power, they 
 will at length be able to reconcile their principles with their 
 votes. But we are told that there must not be a transference of 
 power because it is necessary to pass the reform bill. Well, 
 reform is no longer a party question, and a treatment of the 
 question by the Opposition proves that it would be dealt with 
 by than on a more complete and larger basis. The object of 
 this vote of censure is a transference of power, and the sooner 
 that comes the better for the country. The Government, when 
 they went to Egypt, abandoned every atom of principle which 
 they possessed, and Egypt has been their Nemesis, and I be- 
 lieve will be their ruin. But the whole question is at last, 
 thank God, presented to us in an intelligible form: Will you 
 or will you not rescue Gordon now? Answer, " Ay " or " No." 
 The people of England and Scotland and of Ireland also say 
 " Ay." The Prime Minister and a few Radical fanatics alone 
 say " No " ; but, great as is the Prime Minister's power, long 
 as has been his career, dazzling as is his eloquence, and un- 
 doubtedly glorious as is his name, on a question such as this 
 the odds are so overwhelmingly great that even the Prime 
 Minister himself must either submit or resign.
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE 
 
 WORLD 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY DRUMMOND
 
 HENRY DRUMMOND 
 1851— 1897 
 
 Henry Drummond was especially the product of an era in which the 
 most extreme doctrines of scientific agnosticism had become popularized, 
 and by being popularized had often been misunderstood to a degree 
 that was in danger of destroying faith in Christianity, if not in all re- 
 ligious theories, commonly so called. He was born in Stirling, Scot- 
 land, in 18.51,, and was educated for the ministry, taking university 
 courses at Edinburgh and Tubingen, and subsequently passing through 
 the Free Church Divinity Hall. On his ordination to the ministry, his 
 mind was widened during his incumbency of a Presbyterian mission in 
 the island of Malta. He became lecturer and afterwards Professor of 
 Biology in the Free Church College at Glasgow, in 1878, and subse- 
 quently travelled through the United States, Africa, and Australia, lect- 
 uring on the sociological, scientific, and moral aspects of Christian re- 
 ligion. His religious enthusiasm and charming personality made many 
 friends and admirers, and his influence among young and earnest men 
 was remarkable. 
 
 His study of biology had naturally made him fully acquainted with 
 the theories of Darwin and Huxley, and his wish to reconcile evolution 
 with a notion of psychology that would not militate against the assump- 
 tions of Christianity prompted his work, " Natural Law in the Spiritual 
 World," which, while it did not meet with the assent of the scientific 
 world, was undoubtedly of much use in strengthening in their religious 
 belief many of the readers to whom the volume was addressed. The 
 popularity of this treatise is proved by the fact that it has been trans- 
 lated, after passing through many English editions, into French, Ger- 
 man, Dutch, and Norwegian. There can, however, be no doubt that 
 Drummond was on much safer ground when he produced his inimitable 
 treatise, " The Greatest Thing in the World." This work is a most 
 acute and practical enlargement of St. Paul's celebrated chapter on 
 charity, or rather love. Clearness and simplicity of style, glowing de- 
 votion, and a certain strain of intense enthusiasm, which sometimes 
 rises into eloquence, characterize this essay or address, which appeals 
 to mankind at large, without distinction of nationality, intellectual pre- 
 possession, or religious sect. It is a work which must be accepted 
 without challenge as a clear and vivid expression of humanitarian sen- 
 timent, perfectly in harmony with the highest Christian idealism. 
 
 Drummond had early associated himself with the evangelists, Moody 
 and Sankey, who induced him to accompany them from time to time on 
 their preaching circuits. While he lectured on strictly scientific sub- 
 jects during the week, he addressed large audiences, principally of work- 
 ingmen, on Sundays, when he dealt with themes undoubtedly nearer 
 to his heart. One fruit of his travels was his volume " Tropical Africa," 
 but he returned to his religio-scientific line of thought in his " Ascent 
 of Man." His last work was " Pax Vobiscum." He died in 1897, in his 
 forty-sixth year, of consumption. His early death, due doubtless, in 
 some measure, to his indefatigable labors, was deeply deplored through 
 the length and breadth of Christendom. 
 
 430
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 
 
 EVERYONE has asked himself the great question of an- 
 tiquity as of the modern world : What is the summum 
 bonum — the supreme good? You have life before you. 
 Once only you can live it. What is the noblest object of desire, 
 the supreme gift to covet? 
 
 We have been accustomed to be told that the greatest thing 
 in the religious world is faith. That great word has been the 
 keynote for centuries of the popular religion ; and we have 
 easily learned to look upon it as the greatest thing in the world. 
 Well, we are wrong. If we have been told that, we may miss 
 the mark. I have taken you, in the chapter which I have just 
 read, to Christianity at its source ; and there we have seen, " The 
 greatest of these is love." It is not an oversight. Paul was 
 speaking of faith just a moment before. He says, " If I have 
 all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not love, 
 I am nothing." So far from forgetting, he deliberately con- 
 trasts them, " Now abideth faith, hope, love," and without a 
 moment's hesitation the decision falls, " The greatest of these 
 is love." 
 
 And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend to others 
 his own strong point. Love was not Paul's strong point. The 
 observing student can detect a beautiful tenderness growing 
 and ripening all through his character as Paul gets old ; but 
 the hand that wrote, " The greatest of these is love," when we 
 meet it first, is stained with blood. 
 
 Nor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar in singling out 
 love as the summum bonum. The masterpieces of Christianity 
 are agreed about it. Peter says, " Above all things have fervent 
 love among yourselves." Above all things. And John goes 
 further, " God is love." And you remember the profound re- 
 mark which Paul makes elsewhere, " Love is the fulfilling of 
 the law." Did you ever think what he meant by that? In 
 
 43i
 
 43* 
 
 DRUMMOND 
 
 those days men were working their passage to heaven by keep- 
 ing the Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other 
 commandments which they had manufactured out of them. 
 Christ said, I will show you a more simple way. If you do one 
 thing, you will do these hundred and ten things, without ever 
 thinking about them. If you love, you will unconsciously ful- 
 fil the whole law. And you can readily see for yourselves how 
 that must be so. Take any of the commandments. " Thou 
 shalt have no other gods before Me." If a man love God, you 
 will not require to tell him that. Love is the fulfilling of that 
 law. " Take not His name in vain." Would he ever dream of 
 taking His name in vain if he loved Him? "Remember the 
 Sabbath day to keep it holy." Would he not be too glad to have 
 one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of 
 his affection ? Love would fulfil all these laws regarding God. 
 And so, if he loved man, you would never think of telling him 
 to honor his father and mother. He could not do anything else. 
 It would be preposterous to tell him not to kill. You could only 
 insult him if you suggested that he should not steal — how could 
 he steal from those he loved ? It would be superfluous to beg 
 him not to bear false witness against his neighbor. If he loved 
 him it would be the last thing he would do. And you would 
 never dream of urging him not to covet what his neighbors had. 
 He would rather they possessed it than himself. In this way 
 " Love is the fulfilling of the law." 
 
 It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, the new commandment 
 for keeping all the old commandments, Christ's one secret of 
 the Christian life. 
 
 Now Paul had learned that ; and in this noble eulogy he has 
 given us the most wonderful and original account extant of 
 the summum bonum. We may divide it into three parts. In 
 the beginning of the short chapter, we have love constrasted ; 
 in the heart of it we have love analyzed ; towards the end, we 
 have love defended as the supreme gift. 
 
 The Contrast. — Paul begins by contrasting love with other 
 things that men in those days thought much of. I shall not 
 attempt to go over those things in detail. Their inferiority is 
 already obvious. 
 
 He contrasts it with eloquence. And what a noble gift it is, 
 the power of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 433 
 
 rousing them to lofty purposes and holy deeds. Paul says, 
 " If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have 
 not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cym- 
 bal." And we all know why. We have all felt the brazenness 
 of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable 
 unpersuasiveness of eloquence behind which lies no love. 
 
 He contrasts it with prophecy. He contrasts it with mys- 
 teries. He contrasts it with faith. He contrasts it with charity. 
 Why is love greater than faith ? Because the end is greater than 
 the means. And why is it greater than charity? Because the 
 whole is greater than the part. Love is greater than faith, be- 
 cause the end is greater than the means. What is the use of 
 having faith? It is to connect the soul with God. And what 
 is the object of connecting man with God? That he may be- 
 come like God. But God is love. Hence faith, the means, is 
 , in order to love, the end. Love, therefore, obviously is greater 
 than faith. It is greater than charity, again, because the whole 
 is greater than a part. Charity is only a little bit of love, one of 
 the innumerable avenues of love, and there may even be, and 
 there is, a great deal of charity without love. It is a very easy 
 thing to toss a copper to a beggar on the street ; it is generally 
 an easier thing than not to do it. Yet love is just as often in the 
 withholding. 
 
 We purchase relief from the sympathetic feelings roused by 
 the spectacle of misery, at the copper's cost. It is too cheap 
 for us, and often too dear for the beggar. If we really loved 
 him we would either do more for him, or less. 
 
 Then Paul contrasts it with sacrifice and martyrdom. And 
 I beg the little band of would-be missionaries — and I have the 
 honor to call some of you by this name for the first time — to 
 remember that though you give your bodies to be burned, and 
 have not love, it profits nothing ! You can take nothing greater 
 to the heathen world than the impress and reflection of the love 
 of God upon your own character. That is the universal lan- 
 guage. It will take you years to speak in Chinese, or in the 
 dialects of India. From the day you land, that language of 
 love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious el- 
 oquence. It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words. 
 His character is his message. In the heart of Africa, among 
 
 the great lakes, I have come across black men and women who 
 Vol. II.— 28
 
 434 DRUMMOND 
 
 remembered the only white man they ever saw before — David 
 Livingstone ; and as you cross his footsteps in that dark con- 
 tinent, men's faces light up as they speak of the kind doctor who 
 passed there years ago. They could not understand him ; but 
 they felt the love that beat in his heart. Take into your new 
 sphere of labor, where you also mean to lay down your life, that 
 simple charm, and your lifework must succeed. You can take 
 nothing greater, you need take nothing less. It is not worth 
 while going if you take anything else. You may take every 
 accomplishment ; you may be braced for every sacrifice ; but if 
 you give your body to be burned, and have not love, it will profit 
 you and the cause of Christ nothing. 
 
 The Analysis. — After contrasting love with these things, 
 Paul, in three verses, very short, gives us an amazing analysis of 
 what this supreme thing is. I ask you to look at it. It is a 
 compound thing, he tells us. It is like light. As you have 
 seen a man of science take a beam of light and pass it throug'h 
 a crystal prism, as you have seen it come out on the other side 
 of the prism broken up into its component colors — red, and 
 blue, and yellow, and violet, and orange, and all the colors of the 
 rainbow — so Paul passes this thing, love, through the magnifi- 
 cent prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the 
 other side broken up into its elements. And in these few words 
 we have what one might call the spectrum of love, the analysis 
 of love. Will you observe what its elements are? Will you no- 
 tice that they have common names ; that they are virtues which 
 we hear about every day ; that they are things which can be 
 practised by every man in every place in life, and how, by a 
 multitude of small things and ordinary virtues, the supreme 
 things, the snmmum bonam, is made up? The spectrum of 
 love has nine ingredients : 
 
 Patience — " Love suffereth long." 
 
 Kindness — " And is kind." 
 
 Generosity — " Love envieth not." 
 
 Humility — " Love vaunteth not itself, and is not puffed up." 
 
 Courtesy — " Doth not behave itself unseemly." 
 
 Unselfishness — " Seeketh not her own." 
 
 Good Temper — " Is not easily provoked." 
 
 Guilelessness — " Thinketh no evil."
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 435 
 
 Sincerity — " Rcjoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the 
 truth." 
 
 Patience ; kindness ; generosity ; humility ; courtesy ; unself- 
 ishness ; good temper ; guilelessness ; sincerity — these make 
 up the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man. You will 
 observe that all are in relation to men, in relation to life, in rela- 
 tion to the known to-day and the near to-morrow, and not to the 
 unknown eternity. We hear much of love to God ; Christ 
 spoke much of love to man. We make a great deal of peace with 
 heaven ; Christ made much of peace on earth. Religion is not a 
 strange or added thing, but the inspiration of the secular life, 
 the breathing of an eternal spirit through this temporal world. 
 The supreme thing, in short, is not a thing at all, but the giving 
 of a further finish to the multitudinous words and acts which 
 make up the sum of every common day. 
 
 There is no time to do more than make a passing note upon 
 each of these ingredients. Love is patience. This is the normal 
 attitude of love ; love passive, love waiting to begin ; not in a 
 hurry ; calm ; ready to do its work when the summons comes, 
 but meantime wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. 
 Love suffers long ; beareth all things ; believeth all things ; 
 hopeth all things. For love understands, and therefore waits. 
 
 Kindness. Love active. Have you ever noticed how much 
 of Christ's life was spent in doing kind things — in merely doing 
 kind things? Run over it with that in view, and you will find 
 that He spent a great proportion of His time simply in making 
 people happy, in doing good turns to people. There is only 
 one thing greater than happiness in the world, and that is holi- 
 ness ; and it is not in our keeping ; but what God has put in 
 our power is the happiness of those about us, and that is largely 
 to be secured by our being kind to them. 
 
 " The greatest thing," says some one, " a man can do for his 
 Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of His other children." 
 I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are? 
 How much the world needs it. How easily it is done. How 
 instantaneously it acts. How infallibly it is remembered. How 
 superabundantly it pays itself back — for there is no debtor in 
 the world so honorable, so superbly honorable, as love. " Love 
 never faileth." Love is success, love is happiness, love is life. 
 " Love," I say, with Browning, " is energy of life."
 
 436 DRUMMOND 
 
 " For life, with all it yields of joy or woe 
 And hope and fear, 
 
 Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love — 
 How love might be, hath been indeed, and is." 
 
 Where love is, God is. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in 
 God. God is love. 
 
 Therefore love. Without distinction, without calculating, 
 without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where 
 it is very easy ; especially upon the rich, who often need it 
 most ; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and 
 for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a differ- 
 ence between trying to please and giving pleasure. 
 
 Always give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure. 
 For that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly 
 loving spirit. " I shall pass through this world but once. Any 
 good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can 
 show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer 
 it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." 
 
 Generosity. " Love envieth not." This is love in competi- 
 tion with others. Whenever you attempt a good work you will 
 find other men doing the same kind of work, and probably 
 doing it better. Envy them not. Envy is a feeling of ill-will 
 to those who are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covet- 
 ousness and detraction. How little Christian work even is a 
 protection against un-Christian feeling. That most despicable 
 of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian's soul as- 
 suredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless we . 
 are fortified with this grace of magnanimity. Only one thing 
 tiuly need the Christian envy, the large, rich, generous soul 
 which " envieth not." 
 
 And then, after having learned all that, you have to learn 
 this further thing, Humility — to put a seal upon your lips and 
 forget what you have done. After you have been kind, after 
 love has stolen forth into the world and done its beautiful work, 
 go back into the shade again and say nothing about it. Love 
 hides even from itself. Love waives even self-satisfaction. 
 " Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." 
 
 The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find in this 
 summum bonum: Courtesy. This is love in society, love in 
 relation to etiquette : " Love doth not behave itself unseemly."
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 
 
 437 
 
 Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said 
 to be love in little things. And the one secret of politeness is to 
 love. Love cannot behave itself unseemly. You can put the 
 most untutored persons into the highest society, and if they 
 have a reservoir of love in their heart, they will not behave 
 themselves unseemly. They simply cannot do it. Carlyle said 
 of Robert Burns that there was no truer gentleman in Europe 
 than the ploughman-poet. It was because he loved everything 
 — the mouse, and the daisy, and all the things, great and small, 
 that God had made. So with this simple passport he could 
 mingle with any society, and enter courts and palaces from his 
 little cottage on the banks of the Ayr. You know the meaning 
 of the word " gentleman." It means a gentle man — a man 
 who does things gently with love. And that is the whole art 
 and mystery of it. The gentle man cannot in the nature of 
 things do an ungentle, an ungentlemanly thing. The ungentle 
 soul, the inconsiderate, unsympathetic nature cannot do any- 
 thing else. " Love doth not behave itself unseemly." 
 
 Unselfishness. ' Love seeketh not her own." Observe : 
 Sceketh not even that which is her own. In Britain the Eng- 
 lishman is devoted, and rightly, to his rights. But there come 
 times when a man may exercise even the higher right of giving 
 up his rights. Yet Paul does not summon us to give up our 
 rights. Love strikes much deeper. It would have us not seek 
 them at all, ignore them, eliminate the personal element alto- 
 gether from our calculations. It is not hard to give up our 
 rights. They are often external. The difficult thing is to give 
 up ourselves. The more difficult thing still is not to seek things 
 for ourselves at all. After we have sought them, bought them, 
 won them, deserved them, we have taken the cream off them 
 for ourselves already. Little cross then perhaps to give them 
 up. But not to seek them, to look every man not on his own 
 things, but on the things of others — id opus est. ''' Seekest thou 
 great things for thyself? " said the prophet ; " seek them not." 
 Why ? Because there is no greatness in things. Things cannot 
 be great. The only greatness is unselfish love. Even self-denial 
 in itself is nothing, is almost a mistake. Only a great purpose 
 or a mightier love can justify the waste. It is more difficult, I 
 have said, not to seek our own at all, than having sought it, to 
 give it up. I must take that back. It is only true of a partly
 
 438 DRUMMOND 
 
 selfish heart. Nothing is a hardship to love, and nothing- is 
 hard. I believe that Christ's yoke is easy. Christ's " yoke " is 
 just His way of taking life. And I believe it is an easier way 
 than any other. I believe it is a happier way than any other. 
 The most obvious lesson in Christ's teaching is that there is no 
 happiness in having and getting anything, but only in giving. 
 I repeat, there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only 
 in giving. And half the world is on the wrong scent in the 
 pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in having and 
 getting, and in being served by others. It consists in giving, 
 and in serving others. He that would be great among you, said 
 Christ, let him serve. He that would be happy, let him re- 
 member that there is but one way — it is more blessed, it is more 
 happy, to give than to receive. 
 
 The next ingredient is a very remarkable one : good temper. 
 ' Love is not easily provoked." Nothing could be more strik- 
 ing than to find this here. 
 
 We are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very harmless 
 weakness. We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature, a 
 family failing, a matter of temperament, not a thing to take 
 into very serious account in estimating a man's character. And 
 yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love, it finds a 
 place ; and the Bible again and again returns to condemn it as 
 one of the most destructive elements in human nature. 
 
 The peculiarity of ill-temper is that it is the vice of the virtu- 
 ous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. 
 You know men who are all but perfect, and women who would 
 be entirely perfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or 
 " touchy " disposition. This compatibility of ill-temper with 
 high moral character is one of the strangest and saddest prob- 
 lems of ethics. The truth is, there are to great classes of sin — 
 sins of the body, and sins of the disposition. The " prodigal 
 son " may be taken as a type of the first, the " elder brother " 
 of the second. Now society has no doubt whatever as to which 
 of these is the worse. Its brand falls without a challenge, upon 
 the prodigal. But are we right ? We have no balance to weigh 
 one another's sins, and coarser and finer are but human words ; 
 but faults in the higher nature may be less venial than those in 
 the lower, and to the eye of Him who is love, a sin against love 
 may seem a hundred times more base. No form of vice, not
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 439 
 
 worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does 
 more to un-Christianize society than evil temper. For im- 
 bittering life, for breaking up communities, for destroying the 
 most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for withering 
 up men and women, for taking the bloom off childhood, in 
 short, for sheer gratuitous misery producing power, this in- 
 fluence stands alone. Look at the elder brother, moral, hard- 
 working, patient, dutiful — let him get all credit for his virtues 
 — look at this man, this baby, sulking outside his own father's 
 door. " He was angry," we read, " and would not go in." 
 Look at the effect upon the father, upon the servants, upon the 
 happiness of the guests. Judge of the effect upon the prodigal 
 — and how many prodigals are kept out of the kingdom of God 
 by the unlovely character of those who profess to be inside? 
 Analyze, as a study in temper, the thundercloud itself as it 
 gathers upon the elder brother's brow. What is it made of? 
 Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, 
 touchiness, doggedness, sullenness — these are the ingredients 
 of this dark and loveless soul. In varying proportions, also, 
 these are the ingredients of all ill-temper. Judge if such sins 
 of the disposition are not worse to live in, and for others to live 
 with, than the sins of the body. Did Christ indeed not answer 
 the question Himself when He said, " I say unto you that the 
 publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of heaven be- 
 fore you." There is really no place in heaven for a disposition 
 like this. A man with such a mood could only make heaven 
 miserable for all the people in it. Except, therefore, such a 
 man be born again, he cannot, he simply cannot, enter the king- 
 dom of heaven. For it is perfectly certain — and you will not 
 misunderstand me — that to enter heaven a man must take it 
 with him. 
 
 You will see then why temper is significant. It is not in 
 what it is alone, but in what it reveals. This is why I take 
 the liberty now of speaking of it with such unusual plainness. 
 It is a test for love, a symptom, a revelation of an unloving 
 nature at bottom. It is the intermittent fever which bespeaks 
 unintermittent disease within ; the occasional bubble escaping 
 to the surface which betrays some rottenness underneath ; a 
 sample of the most hidden products of the soul dropped in- 
 voluntarily when off one's guard ; in a word, the lightning
 
 44 o DRUMMOND 
 
 form of a hundred hideous and un-Christian sins. For a want 
 of patience, a want of kindness, a want of generosity, a want 
 of courtesy, a want of unselfishness, are all instantaneously 
 symbolized in one flash of temper. 
 
 Hence it is not enough to deal with the temper. We must 
 go to the source, and change the inmost nature, and the angry 
 humors will die away of themselves. Souls are made sweet not 
 by taking the acid fluids out, but by putting something in — a 
 great love, a new spirit, the spirit of Christ. Christ, the spirit 
 of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms 
 all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a chemical 
 change, renovate and regenerate and rehabilitate the inner man. 
 Will power does not change man. Time does not change man. 
 Christ does. Therefore, " Let that mind be in you which was 
 also in Christ Jesus." .Some of us have not much time to lose. 
 Remember once more, that this is a matter of life or death. I 
 cannot help speaking urgently, for myself, for yourselves. 
 ' Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in 
 me, it were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about 
 his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." 
 That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesus that 
 it is better not to live than not to love. It is better not to live 
 than not to love. 
 
 Guilelessness and sincerity may be dismissed almost with a 
 word. Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people. And 
 the possession of it is the great secret of personal influence. You 
 will find, if you think for a moment, that the people who in- 
 fluence you are people who believe in you. In an atmosphere of 
 suspicion men shrivel up ; but in that atmosphere they expand, 
 and find encouragement and educative fellowship. It is a won- 
 derful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable 
 world there should still be left a few rare souls who think no 
 evil. This is the great unworldliness. Love " thinketh no evil," 
 imputes no motive, sees the bright side, puts the best construc- 
 tion on every action. What a delightful state of mind to live 
 in ! What a stimulus and benediction even to meet with it for 
 a day ! To be trusted is to be saved. And if we try to influence 
 or elevate others r we shall soon see that success is in propor- 
 tion to their belief of our belief in them. For the respect of 
 another is the first restoration of the self-respect a man has lost ;
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 44I 
 
 our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern 
 of what he may become. 
 
 " Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." 
 I have called this sincerity from the words rendered in the Au- 
 thorized Version by " rejoiceth in the truth." And, certainly, 
 were this the real translation, nothing could be more just. For 
 he who loves will love truth not less than men. He will re- 
 joice in the truth — rejoice not in what he has been taught to be- 
 lieve ; not in this church's doctrine or in that ; not in this ism 
 or in that ism ; but " in the truth." He will accept only what 
 is real ; he will strive to get at facts ; he will search for truth 
 with an humble and unbiassed mind, and cherish whatever he 
 finds at any sacrifice. But the more literal translation of the 
 Revised Version calls for just such a sacrifice for truth's sake 
 here. For what Paul really meant is, as we there read, " Re- 
 joiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth," a 
 quality which probably no one English word — and certainly 
 not sincerity — adequately defines. It includes, perhaps more 
 strictly, the self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of 
 others' faults ; the charity which delights not in exposing the 
 weakness of others, but " covereth all things " ; the sincerity of 
 purpose which endeavors to see things as they are, and rejoices 
 to find them better than suspicion feared or calumny denounced. 
 
 So much for the analysis of love. Now the business of our 
 lives is to have these things fitted into our characters. That is 
 the supreme work to which we need to address ourselves in this 
 world, to learn love. Is life not full of opportunities for learn- 
 ing love ? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of 
 them. The world is not a playground ; it is a schoolroom. 
 Life is not a holiday, but an education. And the one eternal 
 lesson for us all is how better we can love. What makes a man 
 a good cricketer ? Practice. What makes a man a good artist, 
 a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What makes a 
 man a good linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What 
 makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is 
 nothing capricious about religion. We do not get the soul in 
 different ways, under different laws, from those in which we 
 get the body and the mind. If a man does not exercise his arm 
 he develops no biceps muscle ; and if a man does not exercise 
 his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of char-
 
 442 
 
 DRUMMOND 
 
 acter, no vigor of moral fibre, nor beauty of spiritual growth. 
 Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, 
 manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian char- 
 acter — the Christ-like nature in its fullest development. And 
 the constituents of this great character are only to be built up 
 by a ceaseless practice. 
 
 What was Christ doing in the carpenter's shop? Practising. 
 Though perfect, we read that He learned obedience, He in- 
 creased in wisdom and in favor with God and man. Do not 
 quarrel, therefore, with your lot in life. Do not complain of 
 its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the vexations you 
 have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live and 
 work with. Above all, do not resent temptation ; do not be 
 perplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more, 
 and ceases neither for effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is 
 the practice which God appoints you ; and it is having its work 
 in making you patient, and humble, and generous, and unselfish, 
 and kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is 
 moulding the still too shapeless image within you. It is grow- 
 ing more beautiful, though you see it not, and every touch of 
 temptation may add to its perfection. Therefore, keep in the 
 midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men, and 
 among things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and ob- 
 stacles. You remember Goethe's words : Es bildet ein Talent 
 sich in der Siille, Dock ein Character in dem Strom der Welt. 
 " Talent develops itself in solitude ; character in the stream of 
 life." 
 
 Talent develops itself in solitude — the talent of prayer, of 
 faith, of meditation, of seeing the unseen; character grows 
 in the stream of the world's life. That chiefly is where men 
 are to learn love. 
 
 How ? Now, how ? To make it easier, I have named a few 
 of the elements of love. But these are only elements. Love 
 itself can never be defined. Light is a something more than the 
 sum of its ingredients — a glowing, dazzling, tremulous ether. 
 And love is something more than all its elements — a palpitating, 
 quivering, sensitive, living thing. By synthesis of all the colors, 
 men can make whiteness, they cannot make light. By synthesis 
 of all the virtues, men can make virtue, they cannot make love. 
 How then are we to have this transcendent living whole con-
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 
 
 443 
 
 veyed into ours souls? We brace our wills to secure it. We 
 try to copy those who have it. We lay down rules about it. We 
 watch. We pray. But these things alone will not bring love 
 into our nature. Love is an effect. And only as we fulfil the 
 right condition can we have the effect produced. Shall I tell 
 you what the cause is ? 
 
 If you turn to the Revised Version of the First Epistle of 
 John you will find these words : " We love because He first 
 loved us." " We love," not " We love Him." That is the way 
 the old version has it, and it is quite wrong. 
 
 " We love — because He first loved us." Look at that word 
 " because." It is the cause of which I have spoken. " Because 
 He first loved us," the effect follows that we love, we love Him, 
 we love all men. We cannot help it. Because He loved us, we 
 love, we love everybody. Our heart is slowly changed. Con- 
 template the love of Christ, and you will love. Stand before 
 that mirror, reflect Christ's character, and you will be changed 
 into the same image from tenderness to tenderness. There is 
 no other way. You cannot love to order. You can only look at 
 the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow into likeness 
 to it. And so look at this perfect character, this perfect life. 
 Look at the great sacrifice as He laid down Himself, all through 
 life, and upon the cross of Calvary ; and you must love Him. 
 And loving Him, you must become like Him. Love begets love. 
 It is a process of induction. Put a piece of iron in the presence 
 of an electrified body, and that piece of iron for a time becomes 
 electrified. It is changed into a temporary magnet, in the pres- 
 ence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leave the two 
 side by side, they are both magnets alike. Remain side by side 
 with Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us, and you too 
 will become a permanent magnet, a permanently attractive 
 force ; and like Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him 
 you will be drawn unto all men. That is the inevitable effect of 
 love. Any man who fulfils that cause must have that effect pro- 
 duced in him. Try to give up the idea that religion comes to us 
 by chance, or by mystery, or by caprice. It comes to us by nat- 
 ural law, or by supernatural law, for all law is divine. Edward 
 Irving went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered the 
 room he just put his hand on the sufferer's head, and said, " My 
 boy, God loves you," and went away. And the boy started
 
 444 DRUMMOND 
 
 from his bed, and called out to the people in the house, " God 
 loves me ! God loves me ! " It changed that boy. The sense 
 that God loved him overpowered him, melted him down, and 
 began the creating of a new heart in him. And that is how the 
 love of God melts down the unlovely heart in man, and begets 
 in him the new creature, who is patient and humble and gentle 
 and unselfish. And there is no other way to get it. There is 
 no mystery about it. We love others, we love everybody, we 
 love our enemies, because He first loved us. 
 
 The Defence. — Now I have a closing sentence or two to add 
 about Paul's reason for singling out love as the supreme pos- 
 session. It is a very remarkable reason. In a single word it is 
 this : it lasts. " Love," urges Paul, " never faileth." Then he 
 begins again one of his marvellous lists of the great things of 
 the day, and exposes them one by one. He runs over the things 
 that men thought were going to last, and shows that they are all 
 fleeting, temporary, passing away. 
 
 " Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail." It was the 
 mother's ambition for her boy in those days that he should be- 
 come a prophet. For hundreds of years God had never spoken 
 by means of any prophet, and at that time the prophet was 
 greater than the king. Men waited wistfully for another mes- 
 senger to come, and hung upon his lips when he appeared as 
 upon the very voice of God. Paul says, " Whether there be 
 prophecies, they shall fail." This book is full of prophecies. 
 One by one they have " failed " ; that is, having been fulfilled, 
 their work is finished ; they have nothing more to do now in the 
 world except to feed a devout man's faith. 
 
 Then Paul talks about tongues. That was another thing that 
 was greatly coveted. ' Whether there be tongues, they shall 
 cease." As we all know, many, many centuries have passed 
 since tongues have been known in this world. They have ceased. 
 Take it in any sense you like. Take it, for illustration merely, 
 as languages in general — a sense which was not in Paul's mind 
 at all, and which, though it cannot give us the specific lesson, will 
 point the general truth. Consider the words in which these 
 chapters were written — Greek. It has gone. Take the Latin — 
 the other great tongue of those days. It ceased long ago. Look 
 at the Indian language. It is ceasing. The language of Wales, 
 of Ireland, of the Scottish Highlands is dying before our eyes.
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 445 
 
 The most popular book in the English tongue at the present 
 time, except the Bible, is one of Dickens's works, his " Pick- 
 wick Papers." It is largely written in the language of London 
 street life; and experts assure us that in fifty years it will be 
 unintelligible to the average English reader. 
 
 Then Paul goes further and with even greater boldness adds, 
 " Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." The 
 wisdom of the ancients, where is it? It is wholly gone. A 
 schoolboy to-day knows more than Sir Isaac Newton knew. 
 His knowledge has vanished away. You put yesterday's news- 
 paper in the fire. Its knowledge has vanished away. You buy 
 the ol editions of the great encyclopedias for a few pence. 
 Their knowledge has vanished away. Look how the coach has 
 been superseded by the use of steam. Look how electricity 
 has superseded that, and swept a hundred almost new inven- 
 tions into oblivion. One of the greatest living authorities, Sir 
 William Thompson, said the other day, " The steam engine is 
 passing away." " Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish 
 away." At every workshop you will see, in the back yard, a 
 heap of old iron, a few wheels, a few levers, a few cranks, 
 broken and eaten with rust. Twenty years ago that was the 
 pride of the city. Men flocked in from the country to see the 
 great invention ; now it is superseded, its day is done. And 
 all the boasted science and philosophy of this day will soon be 
 old. But yesterday, in the University of Edinburgh, the great- 
 est figure in the faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discov- 
 erer of chloroform. The other day his successor and nephew, 
 Professor Simpson, was asked by the librarian of the university 
 to go to the library and pick out the books on his subject that 
 were no longer needed. And his reply to the librarian was 
 this : " Take every text-book that is more than ten years old, 
 and put it down in the cellar." Sir James Simpson was a 
 great authority only a few years ago : men came from all parts 
 of the earth to consult him ; and almost the whole teaching 
 of that time is consigned by the science of to-day to oblivion. 
 And in every branch of science it is the same. " Now we know 
 in part. We see through a glass, darkly." 
 
 Can you tell me anything that is going to last? Many things 
 Paul did not condescend to name. He did not mention money, 
 fortune, fame ; but he picked out the great things of his time,
 
 446 DRUMMOND 
 
 the things the best men thought had something in them, and 
 brushed them peremptorily aside. Paul had no charge against 
 these things in themselves. All he said about them was that they 
 would not last. They were great things, but not supreme things. 
 There were things beyond them. What we are stretches past 
 what we do, beyond what we possess. Many things that men 
 denounce as sins are not sins ; but they are temporary. And that 
 is a favorite argument of the New Testament. John says of the 
 world, not that it is wrong, but simply that it " passeth away." 
 There is a great deal in the world that is delightful and beauti- 
 ful ; there is a great deal in it that is great and engrossing ; but 
 it will not last. All that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the 
 lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, are but for a little while. 
 Love not the world, therefore. Nothing that it contains is worth 
 the life and consecration of an immortal soul. The immortal 
 soul must give itself to something that is immortal. And the 
 only immortal things are these : " Now abideth faith, hope, 
 love ; but the greatest of these is love." 
 
 Some think the time may come when two of these three things 
 will also pass away — faith into sight, hope into fruition. Paul 
 does not say so. We know but little now about the conditions of 
 the life that is to come. But what is certain is that love must 
 last. God, the eternal God, is love. Covet, therefore, that ever- 
 lasting gift, that one thing which it is certain is going to stand, 
 that one coinage which will be current in the universe when all 
 the other coinages of all the nations of the world shall be useless 
 and unhonored. You will give yourselves to many things ; 
 give yourselves first to love. Hold things in their proportion. 
 Hold things in their proportion. Let at least the first great 
 object of our lives be to achieve the character defended in these 
 words, the character — and it is the character of Christ — which 
 is built round love. 
 
 I have said this thing is eternal. Did you ever notice how con- 
 tinually John associates love and faith with eternal life? I was 
 not told when I was a boy that " God so loved the world that He 
 gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
 should have everlasting life." What I was told, I remember, 
 was, that God so loved the world that, if I trusted in Him, I was 
 to have a thing called peace, or I was to have rest, or I was to 
 have joy, or I was to have safety. But I had to find out for my-
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 447 
 
 self that whosoever trusteth in Him — that is, whosoever lovelii 
 Him — for trust is only the avenue to love — hath everlasting life. 
 The gospel offers a man life. Never offer men a thimbleful of 
 gospel. Do not offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or 
 merely rest, or merely safety ; tell them how Christ came to 
 give men a more abundant life than they have, a life abundant 
 in love, and therefore abundant in salvation for themselves, 
 and large in enterprise for the alleviation anc 1 redemption of 
 the world. Then only can the gospel take hold of the whole 
 of a man, body, soul, and spirit, and give to each part of his 
 nature its exercise and reward. Many of the current gospels 
 are addressed only to a part of man's nature. They offer 
 peace, not life; faith, not love; justification, not regeneration. 
 And men slip back again from such religion because it has 
 never really held them. Their nature was not all in it. It 
 offered no deeper and gladder life-current than the life that 
 was lived before. Surely it stands to reason that only a fuller 
 love can compete with the love of the world. 
 
 To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever 
 is to live forever. Hence, eternal life is inextricably bound up 
 with love. We want to live forever for the same reason that we 
 want to live to-morrow. Why do you want to live to-morrow ? 
 It is because there is someone who loves you, and whom you 
 want to see to-morrow, and be with, and love back. There is 
 no other reason why we should live on than that we love and are 
 beloved. It is when a man has no one to love him that he com- 
 mits suicide. So long as he has friends, those who love him 
 and whom he loves, he will live ; because to live is to love. Be it 
 but the love of a dog, it will keep him in life ; but let that go and 
 he has no contact with life, no reason to live. He dies by his own 
 hand. Eternal life also is to know God, and God is love. This 
 is Christ's own definition. Ponder it. " This is life eternal, 
 that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ 
 whom Thou hast sent." Love must be eternal. It is what 
 God is. On the last analysis, then, love is life. Love never fail- 
 eth, and life never faileth, so long as there is love. That is the 
 philosophy of what Paul is showing us ; the reason why in the 
 nature of things love should be the supreme thing — because it 
 is going to last ; because in the nature of things it is an eternal 
 life. It is a thing that we are living now, not that we get when
 
 448 DRUMMOND 
 
 we die ; that we shall have a poor chance of getting when we die 
 unless we are living now. No worse fate can befall a man in 
 this world than to live and grow old alone, unloving, and un- 
 loved. To be lost is to live in an unregenerate condition, love- 
 less and unloved ; and to be saved is to love ; and he that dwell- 
 eth in love dwelleth already in God. For God is love. 
 
 Now I have all but finished. How many of you will join me 
 in reading this chapter once a week for the next three months? 
 A man did that once and it changed his whole life. Will you do 
 it? It is for the greatest thing in the world. You might begin 
 by reading it every day, especially the verses which describe the 
 perfect character. " Love suffereth long and is kind ; love en- 
 vieth not ; love vaunteth not itself." Get these ingredients into 
 your life. Then everything that you do is eternal. It is worth 
 doing. It is worth giving time to. No man can become a 
 saint in his sleep ; and to fulfil the condition required demands a 
 certain amount of prayer and meditation and time, just as im- 
 provement in any direction, bodily or mental, requires prepara- 
 tion and care. Address yourselves to that one thing; at any 
 cost have this transcendent character exchanged for yours. 
 You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments 
 that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the 
 moments when you have clone things in a spirit of love. As 
 memory scans the past, above and beyond all the transitory 
 pleasures of life, there leap forward those supreme hours when 
 you have been enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those 
 round about you, things too trifling to speak about, but which 
 you feel have entered into your eternal life. I have seen almost 
 all the beautiful things God has made ; I have enjoyed almost 
 every pleasure that He has planned for man ; and yet as I 
 look back I see standing out above all the life that has gone, 
 four or five short experiences when the love of God reflected it- 
 self in some poor imitation, some small act of love of mine, and 
 these seem to be the things which alone of all one's life abide. 
 Everything else in all our lives is transitory. Every other good 
 is visionary. But the acts of love which no man knows about, 
 or can ever know about — they never fail. In the book of Mat- 
 thew, where the judgment day is depicted for us in the imagery 
 of One seated upon a throne and dividing the sheep from the 
 goats, the test of a man then is not, " How have I believed ? "
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 
 
 449 
 
 but " How have I loved? " The test of religion, the final test 
 of religion, is not religiousness, but love. I say the final test of 
 religion at that great day is not religiousness, but love ; not 
 what I have done, not what I have believed, not what I have 
 achieved, but how I have discharged the common charities of 
 life. Sins of commission in that awful indictment are not even 
 referred to. By what we have not done, by sins of omission, 
 we are judged. It could not be otherwise. For the with- 
 holding of love is the negation of the spirit of Christ, the proof 
 that we never knew Him, that for us He lived in vain. It means 
 that He suggested nothing in all our thoughts, that He inspired 
 nothing in all our lives, that we were not once near enough to 
 Him to be seized with the spell of His compassion for the world. 
 It means that : 
 
 " I lived for myself, I thought for myself, 
 For myself, and none beside — 
 Just as if Jesus had never lived, 
 As if He had never died." 
 
 It is the Son of Man before whom the nations of the world 
 shall be gathered. It is in the presence of humanity that we shall 
 be charged. And the spectacle itself, the mere sight of it, will 
 silently judge each one. Those will be there whom we have met 
 and helped ; or there, the unpitied multitude whom we neglected 
 or despised. No other witness need be summoned. No other 
 charge than lovelessness shall be preferred. Be not deceived. 
 The words which all of us shall one day hear sound not of the- 
 ology, but of life, not of churches and saints, but of the hungry 
 and the poor ; not of creeds and doctrines, but of shelter and 
 clothing; not of Bibles and prayer-books, but of cups of cold 
 water in the name of Christ. Thank God the Christianity of to- 
 day is coming nearer the world's need. Live to help that on. 
 Thank God men know better, by a hair's-breadth, what religion 
 is, what God is, who Christ is, where Christ is. Who is Christ? 
 He who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick. And 
 where is Christ? Where? — whoso shall receive a little child 
 in My name receiveth Me. And who are Christs ? Everyone that 
 loveth is born of God. 
 
 Vol. II. — 29
 
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