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 ^L I B RAFLY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVERSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE 
 
 OONSERYATIYE PARTY 
 
 BEING 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 THE EIGHT HOK 
 
 LOED GEOEGE HAMILTON, M.P. 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL 
 
 AT THE INAUGURAL MEETING OF' THE CONSERYATIYE 
 ASSOCIATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 
 
 JANUARY 14, 1S80 
 
 AND A SPEECH MADE AT DALKEITH 
 
 JANUARY IG, 1880 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXX
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY CONSERVATIVE ASSOCIATION 
 
 IN THE 
 
 MUSIC HALL, EDINBURGH, January 14, 1880. 
 
 Lord George Hamilton, who was received w^ith loud and 
 enthusiastic cheering, addressed the meeting as follows : — 
 
 As the Chairman has already intimated to you, we have met 
 together to-nis^ht to celebrate the formation of a Conservative 
 Association amongst the students and graduates of the Univer- 
 sity of Edinburgh, In accordance with a request conveyed to 
 me some months back, I have undertaken to address you upon 
 the present position of that political party whose principles we 
 profess, and whose prosperity we mean to maintain. Strongly 
 conscious as I am of my incompetence to do adequate justice to 
 such a subject, there were two reasons which alone induced me 
 to accept your invitation. For some centuries past my family 
 have had an intimate connection with the country in which we 
 now are; but as circumstances, which I need not enumerate, 
 have prevented me from taking part in your local affairs, I gladly 
 seized so favourable an opportunity of establishing an acquaint- 
 ance. Secondly, because I knew that a great proportion of the 
 members of this association must be young men. Eleven years 
 ago I was rather unexpectedly returned to Parliament as Mem- 
 ber for the metropolitan county of England, at an age little in 
 advance of that of many of you. The necessity of acquiring 
 political information early in life was thus brought home to me. 
 Even now there is not that difference in age between myself
 
 and many of my audience to prevent me from sympathising with 
 and appreciating the impulses and aspirations which in early life 
 are supposed to influence opinions and actions. Conservative 
 opinions have, during the last ten years, made marvellous pro- 
 gress in London and the surrounding constituencies. I was 
 anxious, therefore, to ascertain if the opinions which have thus 
 prospered in the south of England are identical with those which 
 the students enrolled as members of this Association desire to see 
 the dominant political creed of Scotland. 
 
 In the months which have elapsed since I accepted your invi- 
 tation, a great electioneering phenomenon has occurred. Mr 
 Gladstone has visited Scotland. Now, may I make a personal 
 appeal to you — may T ask you not to treat the name of that dis- 
 tinguished man in a Liberal manner, — in the manner in which 
 Liberals always salute the mention of the names of their 
 opponents ? Well, Mr Gladstone has visited Scotland, and 
 Scotland has given him a reception such as few public men 
 had ever received before. The duties of political life are recip- 
 rocal, and if a country gives a distinguished man a national 
 reception, he should endeavour in return to be national in 
 his utterances by sinking the partisan in the patriot, the poli- 
 tician in the statesman. In one sense Mr Gladstone's repayment 
 was unique. For I find that, excluding minor addresses at rail- 
 way stations, or from railway bridges, railway carriages, and 
 other locomotive machines, he spoke 37 columns of the ' Times ' 
 newspaper. Every column has on the average 232 lines, and 
 every line 10 words ; multiplying the three together, we get a 
 grand total of 85,840 words. I have read with care the whole 
 of these 85,840 words, and their substance can be summarised 
 in a sentence : The infamy of Lord Beaconsfield's policy is 
 only equalled by the villany with which he has carried it out. 
 
 This fecundity of speech is fortunately rare in our public life. 
 Statesmen's words are supposed to derive influence, not from 
 their volume, but their weight. No one, least of all a man of 
 high-strung, nervous temperament, can, speak in a few days 
 85,840 words to excitable audiences without himself uncon- 
 sciously drifting towards the line that divides fact from fiction, 
 sense and reason from rant and passion. But when the orator is 
 the foremost man of his party, when the subjects upon which he 
 speaks affect the fortunes and destinies of nations, when the 
 moral generalisations and principles perpetually evolved to meet 
 every personal difficulty are to form the basis of legislation at 
 home, and of foreign policy abroad, then this verbosity becomes 
 a positive danger to the commonwealth. The process of degen- 
 eration is continuous and rapid. The statesman becomes more 
 and more merged in the politician, the politician in the partisan, 
 
 u;uc
 
 the partisan in the election agent, reckless as to the means by 
 which he wins, provided only that he does win. Mr Gladstone 
 was perfectly frank. At all risks and hazards, Lord Beacons- 
 field's Government must be got rid of, was his ever-recurring 
 refrain. But the extent to which, in order to attain this end, he 
 himself is prepared to go, both in misstating the case against his 
 rival and in catching votes, a calm perusal of those 85,840 words 
 alone reveals. 
 
 Tor any Conservative to speak now in Scotland without in 
 some way noticing Mr Gladstone's indictment would be absurd ; 
 it would, however, be equally ridiculous for me in any way to 
 put myself in personal competition with him. Fortunately I 
 need not adopt either course. Mr Gladstone appealed with 
 confidence from "Philip drunk to Philip sober." Adapting the 
 metaphor to modern requirements, I appeal with equal con- 
 fidence from Mr Gladstone on the stump to Mr Gladstone in 
 office, — for the most effective reply to his words in Mid-Lothian 
 is to recall his deeds in Downing Street. 
 
 If the present Government have committed, in the full glare 
 of a free press and of a thinking and independent electorate, the 
 series of atrocities with which they are charged, would it be neces- 
 sary to expend 85,840 words in bringing home to the public these 
 self-evident crimes ? A wish for change is inherent in us all, 
 and the larger the electoral body, the more easily, even in times 
 of uneventful monotony, is it swayed by a desire for change. 
 But when times are bad and employment scarce, this desire, un- 
 less there be some strong counteraction, becomes uncontrollable. 
 Times have seldom been harder, constituencies never so large, 
 bye elections never more numerous, yet our Parliamentary major- 
 ity is as large and more compact than it was six years ago. 
 Again, self-preservation is the first instinct of all animals, human 
 and brute, and even members of Parliament are not exempt from 
 a wish to prolong their existence. A general election is every 
 day coming nearer. Is it conceivable, nay, is it not impossible 
 that, in proportion as that day of reckoning approaches, Members 
 would take increased delight in voting contrary to the wishes and 
 desires of those from whom they alone derive authority ? Some 
 other explanation must be found. Mr Gladstone in one sense 
 was right. The present position of the Government, or rather of 
 the Conservatives, is without parallel in our constitutional his- 
 tory. We have had the disadvantage of continuous distress at 
 home and trouble abroad. We have been compelled in conse- 
 quence to impose fresh taxes. Our opponents have had the fur- 
 ther help in the House of Commons of superior debating power 
 — the inestimable gain of choosing both time and subject for 
 attack — and yet after six years' ceaseless Parliamentary warfare,
 
 the only impression they have made is upon themselves. Abroad 
 our position is still more remarkable. Six years ago the influence 
 of England in the Councils of Europe was null and void, now 
 her voice is respected and her authority acknowledged. Descend- 
 ing from generalities to individuals, the outcome of the last six 
 years is even more striking. Lord Beaconsfield is the main object of 
 the abuse of our opponents, and their ever- recurring charge is that 
 he holds neither the confidence nor the opinions of his fellow-coun- 
 trymen. Abroad he has power, because he is known to under- 
 stand and give effect to the prevailing instincts of Englishmen 
 to a greater degree than any Minister of the last half-century. 
 
 A fresh count has, however, been added to the indictment. 
 The firm retention by Lord Beaconsfield of the confidence of 
 his Parliamentary supporters for seven years is, in Mr Glad- 
 stone's mind, a direct infringement of the British Constitution. 
 It is true that the law fixes seven years as the limit of a Par- 
 liament, but when the law says seven, Mr Gladstone contends 
 that it means six. I will do that distinguished man the justice 
 to say that on this point he must be in earnest, for it can only 
 be from a conscientious desire to keep within the supposed limits 
 of the law that he has hitherto always so rapidly forfeited the 
 confidence of every majority and every constituency with which 
 he has come in contact. The secret of the retention of the confi- 
 dence of our supporters in Parliament, and the Constituencies 
 outside, is involuntarily explained by the ' Daily News ; ' for that 
 journal the other day observed that " the majorities of the Govern- 
 ment on matters connected with foreign policy have not been par- 
 alleled in recent Parliamentary history." Our foreign policy has 
 been our sheet-anchor. The resistance which we throughout have 
 offered to Eussian aggrandisement struck a sympathetic and 
 patriotic chord in the minds of our countrymen. Eor the prin- 
 ciples upon which we acted I claim no originality. The lines 
 upon which we moved are identical with those adopted and 
 handed on by every Government of the last thirty years. It was 
 our ill-luck to deal with the periodical upheaval of the Eastern 
 Question, or, to put it in Mr Gladstone's own words, " The Eastern 
 Question, that is, in its recent phase and development, began in 
 1875." As, however, the Eastern Question has been in existence 
 for centuries, and its factors remain unchanged, what Mr Glad- 
 stone by " recent phase " clearly means, is that on previous occa- 
 sions he was in office, and that in 1875 for the first time he was 
 in Opposition. I wish to make no personal imputations, or to 
 insinuate in any way that his action was influenced by a desire 
 for office. I am simply pointing out that historically the " recent 
 phase " was this, that we, the Conservatives, had to do what on 
 previous occasions the Liberals had done, and we did it to the
 
 best of our power. The Liberals were asked to do what the 
 Conservatives had always done — support the only possible policy 
 of the only possible Government — and Mr Gladstone and a large 
 section of them declined. Can I make good this most serious 
 statement ? If I cannot, I ought to publicly apologise for hav- 
 ing made it; but if I can, why, then, an apology is clearly due 
 from some one else. 
 
 Before I describe the more recent history of the Eastern question, 
 let us be quite sure that we fully understand why England takes 
 so deep an interest in the Eastern question. Eor we have in this 
 question two distinct interests — one in common with the rest of 
 Europe ; the other concerns ourselves alone. That which we 
 have in common with the rest of Europe is a desire to extend 
 commerce and promote just government in the dominions of the 
 Sultan, coupled with a resolution not to allow any part of his 
 dominions in Europe, and especially Constantinople, to slip into 
 the hands of those who might use them to the detriment of 
 European interests generally. Our other interest is far greater 
 and more important, and arises from the possession of India. 
 We hold India because the natives, being in no sense a homo- 
 geneous people, cannot govern themselves. Although our empire 
 in India has conferred upon one-sixth of the human race the 
 inestimable benefits of permanent peace and security, yet its ad- 
 ministration imposes a heavy annual strain upon the resources 
 and population of this country. The Eoman philosopher Seneca 
 accounts for the stability of the Eoman empire in a sentence — 
 " Wherever the Eoman conquers he inhabits." Their empire, 
 however, lay within temperate zones, capable of Italian colonisa- 
 tion. But the climate of India is such that white men cannot 
 there permanently reside. Every year we send out large num- 
 bers of civilians and soldiers to replace those who are disabled or 
 dead, and by this constant influx and rotation of fresh men we 
 keep up our establishments to the requisite strength — the one 
 for the administration of the country, the other for the repres- 
 sion of external or internal danger. For there are still in India 
 elements of turbulence and disorder amongst the warlike castes 
 and races, and it is by our strong hand alone that they, a war- 
 like minority, are no longer allowed to terrorise over a peaceful 
 majority. The first danger to which our rule in India is subject 
 is internal disorder, arising, not from the oppression of the many, 
 but the suppression of the turbulent few. 
 
 The death-rate amongst Europeans in India is, as may be sup- 
 posed, much greater than here ; so much so, that if supplies of 
 fresh civilians and soldiers were cut off for a few years, our 
 empire would, I believe, collapse of inanition. It is absolutely 
 essential, therefore, that our sea-route to India should be free and
 
 unchecked ; and this route passes by the Suez Canal through the 
 ' territories of the Khedive, a vassal of the Sultan. If this Canal 
 became temporarily blocked, we should have to pass, as before, 
 by the overland route through Egypt. Supposing that these 
 routes were permanently closed to us, our fortresses of Gib- 
 raltar, Malta, and Aden would be practically useless, for our 
 annual convoys would be compelled to pass round the Cape. 
 Owing to the enlargement of ordnance, the conditions of naval 
 warfare are so altered that a very small gunboat can now blow 
 the biggest transport out of the water. To safeguard the route 
 by the Cape of Good Hope during war would therefore involve 
 enormous additions to the navy, as not only would they have 
 to protect Government transports, but also the Indian export 
 trade to this country, by means of which India alone pays for 
 the civilians, soldiers, loans of money, and stores which are 
 annually sent to her. Asia Minor and Syria are the keys to 
 Egypt, and Egypt in the hands of an enemy would increase ten- 
 fold our difficulty of giving to India, out of an Asiatic revenue, 
 a European administration. The second danger to the stability 
 of our empire in India is a blockade or stoppage of the route by 
 which our annual supplies must go. To meet such a contingency 
 we purchased an interest in the Suez Canal. Mr Gladstone ob- 
 jects to that purchase on the ground that if war breaks out we 
 must *' secure the Suez Canal with the strong hand, whether you 
 are a proprietor in it or not." To protect by force your own 
 property is very different to taking by force property not belong- 
 ing to you; the one is a legal exercise of right, the other the 
 programme of a political bandit. 
 
 But there is another branch of the Eastern question affecting 
 India. Outside the north-west frontier of India is Afghanistan 
 — a country of restless warriors, who with European leaders and 
 artillery would once more overrun the fertile plains of India. 
 Russia has for years past on all sides been steadily advancing 
 towards Afghanistan. If she were once allowed to become poli- 
 tically dominant in that country, at any moment she could give 
 us infinity of trouble by an unofficial war such as she carried 
 on in Servia. 
 
 There are thus three dangers affecting the stability of our rule 
 in India, and it is the duty of every Government in this country 
 to prevent things so drifting as to admit of the likelihood of a 
 simultaneous uprising of these three difficulties. By the constant 
 acquisition of fresh territory in Asia Minor, and by political pre- 
 dominance in Afghanistan, it would lie in the power of Russia, 
 if she were so minded, to raise at a moment most inconvenient 
 to us this combination of difficulties. If it were not for India, 
 we should have little interest in the Eastern question ; and it is
 
 9 
 
 because India is an integral part of our empire that the Eastern 
 question is of imperial concern to us. I have dwelt at length 
 upon this point, because you will often see it asserted that the 
 Afghan war is an imperial war, and not an Indian war. Exactly 
 the reverse is the case. Without India we should have no 
 Eastern policy ; and it would be far truer to say that the 
 Crimean war was an Indian war, than to insinuate that the 
 present Afghan war is an English war. 
 
 Such, therefore, being the nature of our interests in the East, 
 it is obvious that whilst we ought, if possible, to obtain the 
 concert of other European Powers in promoting our views, it by 
 no means follows that if the rest of Europe, having no personal 
 interest in British India, decline to safeguard our route there, we, 
 on that account, are to do nothing. The concert of Europe can, I 
 believe, be obtained in necessary engagements affecting European 
 Turkey, but it cannot be now obtained in reference to the protec- 
 tion of Asiatic Turkey. For any one to talk, therefore, of the con- 
 certed action of Europe as a thoroughly effective machine for the 
 protection of our interests in the East, is to display a very imper- 
 fect acquaintance with the nature and extent of those interests. 
 
 Having now got into our heads our interests in this so-called 
 Eastern question, let us see how in the past we have protected 
 them. In 1854 we went to war with Russia, an(J the objects 
 for which we fought are very clearly seen in the words put into 
 the mouth of the Queen by her Ministers : British declaration 
 of the causes of war against Eussia, 28th March 1854. After 
 reciting the course of events, the first half of this paper thus 
 ends — " Her Majesty deemed it right to give an unquestionable 
 proof of her determination to support the sovereign rights of 
 the Sultan." The declaration ends — "In this conjuncture her 
 Majesty feels called upon — by regard for an ally, the integrity 
 and independence of whose empire has been recognised as essen- 
 tial to the peace of Europe, by the sympathies of her people with 
 right against wrong, by a desire to avert from her dominions 
 most injurious consequences, and to save Europe from the pre- 
 ponderance of a Power which has violated the faith of treaties, 
 and defies the opinion of the civilised world — to take up arms in 
 conjunction with the Emperor of the French for the defence of 
 the Sultan. Her Majesty is persuaded that in so acting she will 
 have the cordial support of the people, and that the pretext of 
 zeal for the Christian religion will be used in vain to cover an 
 aggression undertaken in disregard of its holy precepts and of its 
 pure and beneficent spirit." 
 
 It is needless for me to say that Mr Gladstone was one of 
 the foremost of the Ministers of this date. I was a little amused 
 the other day to see our Galashiels friends, in the exuberance 
 
 B
 
 10 
 
 of their spirits, presenting him a memorial, in which they in- 
 formed him that by his exertions the " everlasting infamy " of a 
 war with Kussia on behalf of Turkey had been prevented. The 
 memorialists were unconscious that, with the single exception of 
 the Duke of Argyll, the person they addressed was the only man 
 in Scotland who, twenty-five years ago, had incurred this " ever- 
 lasting infamy." 
 
 The Treaty of Paris was, as we all know, the outcome of that 
 war ; and by that treaty we, in common with certain other 
 Powers, guaranteed the integrity and independence of the 
 sovereignty of the Porte ; and the Sultan in return voluntarily 
 undertook to reform his principles of administration. From 
 the date of the Crimean War up to 1874 the Liberals have 
 almost continuously been in office. The two pillars of Mr 
 Gladstone's present contention are — first, that the Government 
 of the Sultan is one of the most detestable forms of administra- 
 tion this world has ever seen ; and, secondly, that the primary 
 and paramount duty of the British Government is to watch over 
 and ameliorate the condition of the subject -populations. Both 
 these principles are, so far as he is concerned, of very recent 
 growth, for, with one exception, I can find no record of his 
 raising his official little finger on behalf of the oppressed races, 
 whilst on the other hand he has never failed to give the whole 
 moral and material power of England to the maintenance of the 
 sovereign rights of the Sultan. By a close and continuous series 
 of events this can be proved. I dare say you will excuse me if 
 I go rather at length into this point, because there is an un- 
 happy habit springing up among our opponents of invariably 
 treating every statement of ours as a lie unless the authority is 
 given. In 1860 the Eussian Government, in a circular letter to 
 other European Governments, directed their attention to the 
 condition of the Christians in Turkey. To that appeal the 
 English Government, whilst admitting the advisability of in- 
 quiry, declined to adopt any course by which the rights of the 
 Sultan, as an independent sovereign, would be infringed. After 
 his return from the East, Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe frequently 
 called the attention of the Liberal Government to the urgent 
 necessity of pressing the Porte to carry out the promised reforms, 
 and his efforts culminated at the accession of Abdul Assiz as 
 Sultan in 1861. In reply to these repeated warnings. Lord 
 Kimberley, one of Mr Gladstone's colleagues, urged that Abdul 
 Assiz was an excellent young man, being a teetotaller, and con- 
 tent with one wife. !N"othing was, therefore, done during his 
 reign. Yet, when he was deposed in 1876, for many years he 
 had been a notorious drunkard, whilst his fifty-three boat-loads 
 of ladies who accompanied him after his deposition, showed that
 
 11 
 
 he had to some extent indulged in the practice of polygamy. In 
 1863 a motion upon the sufferings of the Christian population 
 was made in the House of Commons by a Liberal member. It 
 was chiefly remarkable for Mr Cobden's advocacy of the "bag 
 and baggage" policy. But Philip was sober then, for Mr 
 Gladstone arose from the Treasury bench and said in reply, " If 
 my hon. friend is prepared to say the condition of the Turks, 
 the history of the Turks, or the conduct of the Turks is still 
 such that in his opinion the whole world ought to be permitted 
 to pull down that which exists without the slightest regard to 
 what follows, then I confess it is entirely in accordance with the 
 argument of my hon. friend. But we have got the fact of the 
 existence of the Ottoman Power to deal with; are we prepared 
 to encourage a general crusade against that Power ? It would be 
 a total reversal of British policy. . . . Let us firmly adhere to 
 the ancient policy of this country, grounded on the belief that 
 whether the existence of the Ottoman Empire be in itself 
 desirable or not, it is a matter of profound European concern 
 to take care that the destruction of that empire be not made 
 the means of introducing more serious evils and dangers more 
 menacing than any which may attend its continuance." — May 
 29, 1863. 
 
 It would be difficult to find words more completely expressing 
 the policy of Lord Beaconsfield than the words I have just 
 quoted. In 1867 and 1868 Mr Gladstone approved of Lord 
 Derby's conduct in reference to the Cretan insurrection. To- 
 wards the end of 1868 he became Prime Minister, and he was 
 then the most powerful Minister of the century; for not only 
 had he a majority of 120, but, what was even greater, the un- 
 known, because untested, power of a reformed House of Commons 
 behind him. He had not been ten days in office before — the 
 differences between Greece and Turkey having come to a crisis — 
 he was asked to join in a European Conference for their settle- 
 ment. Of all the subject -races, the Greeks most excite his 
 enthusiasm ; and as the dispute in question arose out of the 
 cruelty with which the Turks had suppressed a Greek insurrec- 
 tion, a more favourable opportunity of calling attention to their 
 condition could not be conceived. These, however, are the terms 
 upon which alone Mr Gladstone would allow Great Britain's repre- 
 sentatives to be present at the Conference : "It is sufficient for the 
 present purpose that I should authorise your Excellency to make 
 known to M. de Lavalette that, with the distinct understanding 
 that no other question shall be mooted in the Conference save 
 that of a settlement of the difference between Turkey and Greece, 
 and that no proposal shall be brought forward affecting the in- 
 tegrity of the Ottoman Empire, or involving interference in the
 
 12 
 
 internal administration of Turkey, or with the rights of the Sultan 
 over his subjects, her Majesty's Government agree to be repre- 
 sented in the Conference." — Lord Clarendon to Lord Lyons, De- 
 cember 30, 1868. In 1870 Eussia declared her intention of freeing 
 herself from one of the vital articles of the Treaty of Paris. A 
 Conference was held (to use Sir Charles Dilke's words) " to save 
 the honour of the country by a farcical formality." Previous to 
 its appointment discussions took place as to the scope of its delib- 
 erations, and Mr Gladstone's Government purposely limited the 
 discussion, so that no question affecting the condition of the Chris- 
 tians in Turkey or the sovereignty of the Sultan could be raised. 
 
 During the five years, from 1869 to 1874, Mr Gladstone 
 was Prime Minister, and his interest in the Christian popula- 
 tions is evinced by the two following telegrams. In August 
 1872 a question was asked by an inquisitive supporter as 
 to the internal condition of Turkey, and in hot haste the 
 following telegram was sent to Sir Henry Elliot, our Ambas- 
 sador at Constantinople, "Let me know, if possible, by two 
 o'clock to-morrow" — (the question had to be answered at 4.30) — 
 " whether the Turkish authorities may be said to be giving effect 
 to the several edicts in favour of the Christians." Again, in June 
 1873 — " What answer can be given to following questions in the 
 House of Commons ? " and then follow two inquiries relating to 
 the condition of the Christians. To both these queries the public 
 reply of Mr Gladstone's Government was that the reforms were 
 in the main progressing favourably. A few months later he left 
 office. I must here point out that when Mr Gladstone is in 
 office, so trustworthy and thorough is the knowledge of our Am- 
 bassador and his staff, that a telegraphic opinion upon the state 
 of the whole of Turkey is authoritative and conclusive. When 
 Lord Beaconsfield is in office, then the written despatches and 
 elaborate reports of the very same Ambassador, and the same 
 Consuls, are contemptuously thrown on one side by Mr Glad- 
 stone as emanating from vitiated sources. 
 
 The prospect to which in 1874 we succeeded was unpleasant. 
 The sanctity of treaties, the sole security for permanent peace, 
 had been rudely violated by Eussia, and with Mr Gladstone's 
 connivance. The commendable principle of arbitration had been 
 brought into disrepute by the farce of the Alabama negotiations 
 — proceedings by which we paid a sum to the United States so 
 much in excess of what they expected that to this day they do 
 not know what to do with it. The alliance between Austria, 
 Germany, and Eussia, so ominous to the liberties of Europe under 
 the better-known name of the " Holy Alliance," was so close, and 
 its authority so powerful, that even now Mr Gladstone mistakes 
 the mandates of the three Emperors for the concerted action of
 
 13 
 
 Europe. The persistent neglect of reform in Turkey, aggravated 
 by wholesale and reckless borrowing, rendered the whole upris- 
 ing of the Eastern question at any moment imminent. Whilst 
 abroad the moral influence of Great Britain was naught, at home 
 her material forces were far from effective — for Lord Cardwell's 
 innovations had increased the cost but emasculated the manhood 
 of our army — whilst the depletion of the stores of our dockyards, 
 and the want of repairs to the boilers of our ironclads, rendered 
 our navy to a great extent " a fleet upon paper." On the other 
 hand, Eussia's position since the Crimean war had been as much 
 strengthened as ours was weakened. New railways had been con- 
 structed bringing her into easy and direct communication both 
 with Turkey in Asia and Europe ; the limitation upon her fleet 
 in the Black Sea had been shaken off", the last spark of Circassian 
 resistance had been stamped out, and a huge army in a secure 
 and strategical position south of the Caucasus lay ready for action. 
 In Central Asia the advance of Eussia towards the frontiers of 
 Afghanistan had been by " leaps and bounds." In Afghanistan 
 things were even worse. Shere Ali, alarmed at the progress of 
 Eussia, expressed a natural wish in 1873 for an assurance of 
 British protection. His advances were so coldly repelled by the 
 Duke of Argyll, then Secretary of State for India, that from the 
 date of the Duke's refusal to entertain his proposals he com- 
 menced to intrigue with Eussia. I must add that during Lord 
 Northbrook's viceroyalty, the most critical phase of our relations 
 with Shere Ali, the Duke of Argyll discharged his duties by two 
 meagre telegrams. When his party interests or personal reputa- 
 tion are at stake, he writes off-hand a pamphlet of one thousand 
 pages of vigorous invective. How heavy a penalty this lack of 
 judgment and foresight, coupled with a most perfunctory dis- 
 charge of all important duties, has cost the nation, the news of 
 the last six months from Cabul makes painfully clear. 
 
 These were the circumstances with which we had to deal when 
 the Eastern question again arose ; but all these difficulties were 
 as nothing compared to the embarrassment caused by Mr Glad- 
 stone's erratic and ecstatic performances. Mr Bright uncon- 
 sciously uttered a truism the other day by observing, that if Mr 
 Gladstone had been in office the Eusso-Turkish war would not 
 have occurred. That is precisely our contention. Eecollect what 
 our position was. We had to discriminate, in the tangled cross- 
 purposes of this Eastern puzzle, between plans of real reform in 
 the administration of Turkey and plausible schemes for Eussian 
 aggrandisement. From first to last our attitude was the same. 
 We declined to assist in breaking up the Ottoman Empire by 
 force ; we were ready to promote within that Empire any real 
 reforms. We announced, in addition, our determination to allow,
 
 14 
 
 under no specious pretext, territory to slip into the hands of 
 Eussia, the possession of which would ultimately either endanger 
 the stability of our Indian Empire, or lead to war with England. 
 From this position we never swerved, l^o feasible alternative 
 policy was ever proposed. Mr Gladstone did at last, in the ses- 
 sion of 1877, propose four resolutions — and in two of them was 
 sketched the faintest outline of an alternative course. They had 
 not been one minute upon the notice paper before his own follow- 
 ers began to shy at them. The position was absurd ; but, as in 
 great national crises, the unity of the Liberal party is the only 
 thing to be considered, a compromise was soon arrived at. On 
 the day of the debate, Mr George Trevelyan, with a " countenance 
 arranged for the occasion," arose and asked Mr Gladstone if he 
 would withdraw the last two of his resolutions, and alter the first 
 two so as to mean nothing — in which case the Liberal party would 
 in their union support him. Mr Gladstone, in reply, agreed to 
 the substance of this suggestion, though he spent forty-five min- 
 utes in showing that nothing meant something. Why were these 
 resolutions withdrawn ? Because they meant war with Turkey, 
 Eussia being our ally. Mr Gladstone denied that they meant 
 war ; but then he explained that, in his opinion, the battle of 
 JTavarino was not war, merely an " untoward event." With this 
 fiasco commenced and ended Mr Gladstone's alternative foreign 
 policy. But although he could originate nothiag feasible, he ex- 
 ercised the whole of his gigantic powers to degrade and discredit 
 in the eyes of the world the Government of his own country ; and 
 he did this deliberately at a time when to avert war it was all- 
 important that this Government should speak with the authority 
 derived from representing the majority of the people. We suc- 
 ceeded without war ; but the heavy expenditure which, as a declar- 
 ation of our intention to use force if compelled, we were obliged to 
 incur, was the only effective means by which we could disprove his 
 assertion that he and not we represented the feeling of the country. 
 During the earlier stages of this controversy the Government 
 were invariably charged with a fixed intention to involve this 
 country in a European war. This accusation was reiterated and 
 fitted to every changing phase of circumstances. W^hen its utter 
 falsity was proved by the result of the Berlin Conference, a new 
 series of charges were trumped up. We are now told that we" 
 have augmented the power of Eussia, increased the liabilities of 
 the country, abused the treaty -making power of the Crown, 
 abridged the just rights of Parliament, and caused the com- 
 mercial distress of the last five years. A few sentences only are 
 necessary to dispose of these hallucinations. If Lord Beacons- 
 field has augmented, while Mr Gladstone would have curtailed^, 
 the power of Eussia, the Eussian press must be strangely blind to.
 
 15 
 
 their own interests, for their daily prayer is for the overthrow of 
 the man who has helped them, and the instalment in office of 
 the man who would baffle them. That we have increased our 
 liabilities by the Anglo-Turkish Convention is equally absurd. 
 When we came into office, the Treaty of Paris had been renewed 
 by Mr Gladstone three years before, and by that treaty and its 
 sequel — the Tripartite Treaty — we gave an unconditional and 
 unlimited guarantee to maintain the integrity and independence 
 of the Turkish Empire. At any moment France or Austria might 
 have called upon us to maintain by force of arms that pledge. 
 By the Treaty of Berlin a different arrangement was devised for 
 European Turkey. As regards the remainder of Turkey, we sub- 
 stituted a limited and conditional treaty, — limited to Asiatic Tur- 
 key, and conditional upon reforms being carried out. So long, 
 therefore, as the whole is greater than the part, so long will a 
 conditional and limited treaty, such as the Anglo-Turkish Con- 
 vention, be a contraction and not an expansion of an uncondi- 
 tional and unlimited liability, such as was contained in the Treaty 
 of 1856. During the whole of these protracted transactions, I 
 challenge any member of the Liberal party to mention one single 
 act not in accord with precedent and custom, with the single 
 exception of bringing Indian troops to defend Indian interests in 
 Europe. Parliament, by overwhelming majorities, ratified this 
 proceeding. Should the Eastern Question hereafter arise, all 
 Europe will know that when interests common to both England 
 and India are assailed, the many millions of India are as avail- 
 able for their defence as the vast resources of Great Britain. 
 
 The argument by which the Government are associated with 
 the present commercial distress assumes the form of the follow- 
 ing syllogism in the mouth of an opponent : " War is prejudicial 
 to trade and commerce. Trade is now very bad. We believe 
 the policy of the Government to be in favour of war ; therefore 
 their policy is the cause of the present or late commercial de- 
 pression." As a matter of fact, this contention is unadulterated 
 nonsense. A warlike policy no doubt prejudicially affects trade, 
 but its invariable effect is this — that by taking away able-bodied 
 men from employment it curtails production ; by increasing the 
 demand for certain commodities, it raises prices. War prices are 
 thus a well-known term in economic science, implying very high 
 prices. But the causes of the recent depression are exactly the 
 reverse. It is because production has outrun consumption that 
 prices are low — so low that in many instances it no longer repays 
 the manufacturer to produce. If Mr Gladstone can prove that 
 a policy of war lessens the price of every commodity, and espe- 
 cially of the necessities of life, the prospects of peace for the 
 future will not be very reassuring.
 
 16 
 
 I think I liave now made good my first assertion, that an 
 appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober is a conclusive vindica- 
 tion of the foreign policy of the Government. That the Conser- 
 vative party have obtained popularity and credit at home by 
 their foreign policy abroad is clearly shown by the elections of 
 the last three years. Previously the Liberal candidates fought 
 us fairly; latterly, so conscious are they that they are over- 
 matched, that in almost every case they have been compelled by 
 some sacrifice of principle and self-respect to purchase the Home 
 Eule vote. The practical effect of Mr Gladstone's agitation 
 against Lord Beaconsfield's foreign policy has been to give 
 renewed vitality to a moribund movement for the disintegration 
 of our empire. But if any enthusiasm has been aroused on our 
 behalf, its origin is as much negative as positive, for it has been 
 produced as much by aversion to the conduct of the Anti-nacional 
 faction as by sympathy with Lord Beaconsfield. The people of 
 these islands are patriotic, and they love fair play. Both these 
 national attributes have been outraged by recent proceedings. 
 Men of candour and common-sense were unable to understand, 
 if the Ashantee war, undertaken by Mr Gladstone for the defence 
 of a poisonous marsh, was a " melancholy necessity," how the 
 Zulu war, to defend a colony teeming with English families, 
 could be a wanton brutality. If a vote of credit in 1870 to avert 
 the remote contingency of an attack upon Belgium was urgent 
 and imperative, how could a similar vote in 1878 to save Con- 
 stantinople from the grip of the Eussian be " wholly unneces- 
 sary " ? If during the Crimean war Mr Gladstone was a patriot 
 for expending tens of millions of money and tens of thousands of 
 lives in repelling Eussian aggression, was Lord Beaconsfield to 
 be termed " Mephistopheles " for achieving the same result with- 
 out the loss of a single life ? One of the acknowledged qualities 
 of Englishmen is a power to speak the truth, yet on more than 
 one occasion during this troublous controversy Mr Gladstone 
 has deliberately preferred the statement of a Eussian — nay, even 
 of an Afghan — to the word of his own countrymen. Govern- 
 ment by party and party organisation can only remain healthy 
 in their action and result while they rest upon a more stable 
 foundation than mere personal feeling. We admire Lord Beacons- 
 field's genius, but we follow him because he professes, and so 
 ably gives effect to, the principles we believe to be most benefi- 
 cial to our country. But if principle once becomes wholly sub- 
 ordinate to personal feeling — if the country once admits that a 
 foreign policy when adopted by Mr Gladstone is right, but when 
 carried on by Lord Beaconsfield is wrong — a fatal shock is given 
 to public morality and principle, and party government degene- 
 rates into the worst form of personal faction and prejudice ; the
 
 17 
 
 sense of national interests becomes obliterated ; a continuous 
 foreign policy becomes impossible; self-interest and adulation, 
 with their parasites, venal flattery and corruption, will become 
 the future mainspring and motive power of our public life. 
 
 Last year I read a most remarkable article in the 'Nine- 
 teenth Century,' entitled "The Friends of the Foreigner." The 
 writer there points out with such irresistible logic and prece- 
 dent the certain results of a factious and anti-national criticism 
 upon the foreign policy of the country, that I will read to you 
 his inferences in their entirety : 1. " We cannot rest in the con- 
 fidence that the policy of an Opposition is patriotic merely be- 
 cause it is advocated by statesmen of brilliant parts and long 
 experience of affairs." 2. "When an Opposition assails the 
 foreign policy of the Government, it is liable to be tempted into 
 criticism of an anti-national character, and into measures of re- 
 sistance that may fairly be described as factious." 3. " A rapid 
 and continuous degenerative process is to be looked for in this 
 direction, — the recldessness of the attack becoming more pal- 
 pable as all the surrounding conditions more imperatively call 
 for prudence and reticence." 4. " Such conduct on the part of 
 an Opposition inevitably alienates popular support and breaks 
 up party organisation ; " and he adds — " The lesson of history to 
 which I call attention is plain : when once an Opposition has 
 entered into the path of anti-national resistance, it* must either 
 break in pieces or must yield to the dictation of its most extreme 
 members." How sadly had these prophetic words been realised! 
 The dominant action of the Liberals in England is that led by 
 Mr Chamberlain — in Ireland that under the banner of Mr 
 Parnell — whilst in Scotland Mr Gladstone seems to combine the 
 violence and doctrines of both. His home policy is at present 
 undeveloped, but he ominously informed his audience that a ques- 
 tion "outside the practical range of politics" can by the assassin's 
 pistol become the question of the day. Not content with this 
 declaration of political impulse, he selected the moment of a 
 communistic movement in Ireland for a philosophical disserta- 
 tion upon the justice of a compulsory appropriation of other 
 people's property. So long as the Conservatives are in office, the 
 good we do must be measured not merely by the legislation we 
 achieve, but by what we stop. Owing to the development of 
 obstruction and the interminable discussions upon the Eastern 
 question, our remedial measures have been stopped and blocked. 
 So long, however, as we are in power, no Churches shall be dis- 
 established — the secularists shall not divorce the education of 
 the young from religion — the union with Ireland shall remain 
 untouched. The individual interests of every section of the 
 community are safe from harassing legislation ; for we have no
 
 18 
 
 Imngry revolutionists to periodically satisfy by morsels of our 
 institutions. 
 
 The issue to be settled by the constituencies is so clear, that 
 unless it were obfuscated there could be little doubt as to the 
 result of the appeal. Our financial policy is therefore dragged 
 in, and, by a series of statements of the most woeful inaccuracy, 
 the causes of increased expenditure are misrepresented, and the 
 condition of our indebtedness falsified. That the public resources 
 should be husbanded, and that the nation should not be allowed 
 to embark in any enterprise beyond its capacity, are maxims held 
 in common by all political parties. Eor it is a remarkable fact 
 that during the last century there is not a single eminent Finance 
 Minister whose training was Liberal or Whig. Pit, Huskisson, 
 Peel, Gladstone, and Northcote, all obtained their financial know- 
 ledge as Conservatives. Whilst, therefore, we are earnestly in 
 favour of judicious economy, we hold that no more pusillani- 
 mous or pernicious principle for the conduct of public affairs can 
 be laid down than that the policy of Great Britain, the richest 
 country in the world, is solely to be regulated by a consideration 
 of £ s. d. To do right costs more than to do wrong. That our 
 expenditure during the last five years is more than during the 
 preceding five is not disputed ; but were the circumstances of the 
 two periods the same? But even on this portion of the attack 
 Mr Gladstone cannot state his case without inexcusable unfair- 
 ness. I will take his statement on Indian finance as a specimen. 
 He says — " Lord Northbrook and the Liberal party retired, 
 leaving behind a surplus of nearly seven millions of money. 
 The present Government have accumulated an aggregate deficit 
 in the past four years of £5,931,000 ; " and he distinctly insinu- 
 ates that this deficiency is due to a new foreign policy. The 
 trick by which he credits himself with a surplus of £7,000,000 
 requires exposure. By the constitution of India, the Secretary 
 of State for India, a member of the Cabinet, and not the Governor- 
 General, is responsible to Parliament for Indian finance. When 
 in 1868 Mr Gladstone came into ofi&ce. Lord Mayo, a Conser- 
 vative, was Go verner- General, and it was mainly due to his per- 
 sonal efforts that a series of surpluses were accumulated during 
 Mr Gladstone's Administration. Mr Gladstone is entitled to 
 these surpluses, and he takes them. We come into office under 
 exactly the same conditions. Lord Northbrook, an able financier 
 and a Liberal, being Governor- General. Mr Gladstone then re- 
 verses his principles, and quietly appropriates the surpluses of a 
 Conservative Secretary of State, on the ground that the Governor- 
 General is a Liberal, and by this double-faced inversion of a 
 principle he credits himself with the surpluses of two Adminis- 
 trations, The insinuation that the deficits. of the last four years
 
 19 
 
 were caused by a new policy is false. They were the result of 
 an extraordinary combination of losses, amounting to twenty 
 millions sterling, from famine and the depreciation of the value 
 of silver — two calamities no human foresight could have averted. 
 Of this gigantic sum of £20,000,000, no less than £14,000,000 
 is met out of revenue. The condition in which Mr Gladstone left 
 Indian finance was most unsatisfactory. At the commencement 
 of the financial year 1873-74, his Government had abolished the 
 income-tax. In the autumn of that year they had sanctioned 
 an expenditure upon public works to the amount of twenty-two 
 millions sterling, without providing ways and means. In the 
 winter a terrific famine broke out in Bengal, and, as Under- 
 Secretary for India, the very first act that I had to pass, in order 
 to meet impending deficiency and other liabilities bequeathed to 
 us, was power to raise £10,000,000 on loan. These facts are as 
 well known to Mr Gladstone as they are to me. Why does he 
 suppress them ? 
 
 Mr Gladstone proceeds — " I know this, that the expenditure 
 in India during our time was £50,600,000 on the average, and 
 I now know that it has risen to £58,970,000, or very nearly 
 £60,000,000." The only inference to be drawn from this state- 
 ment is, that there is a difference of about £10,000,000 between 
 the expenditure of our Government and his. This is the mode 
 by which he obtains his figures : During his Administration 
 several millions of taxes, being locally collected and locally 
 spent, were excluded from the imperial account. This and 
 certain other exclusions were denounced by accountants as 
 wrong ; so we reformed the accounts by assimilating them to 
 the Treasury forms, so as to present under one return the total 
 expenditure of the Government of India. Without one word of 
 explanation, Mr Gladstone draws a comparison between himself 
 and his opponents, to his own advantage, by excluding this vast 
 sum from his own expenditure and adding it to ours. The 
 distinguished author of these misstatements prefaced them by 
 informing his audience that " he was fond of financial honesty ; " 
 but he added that he had an equal partiality for " squaring his 
 account." Let us hope that next time he attacks our financial 
 policy, he may be able to " square his account " a little more in 
 accordance with the usually accepted notions of " financial 
 honesty." 
 
 I must add one other Indian incident, for it is a delightful 
 specimen of our opponents* sincerity. Nothing done by the 
 Government has been more attacked by Mr Gladstone and his 
 colleagues than the Act for conferring upon the Queen, in refer- 
 ence to her Indian territories, the title of Empress. When Mr 
 Gladstone was in office it was necessary, in 1869, to send a
 
 20 
 
 congratulatory telegram in the name of the Queen to the Ameer 
 of Cabul. The telegram was prepared in accordance with usage, 
 but it was altered by his Government by adding to her Majesty's 
 titles that of '' Empress of India/' When we asked for statutory 
 power to do legally what our predecessors without warrant have 
 done, they suppress their act, and charge us with subverting the 
 Constitution of the country. 
 
 Such are the tactics by which this anti- national crusade is 
 now being carried on. Are they to succeed, or are they to fail ? 
 Upon the individual action of Conservatives depends the reply. 
 If during the next few months we are content to sit still in our 
 arm-chairs, then the fanaticism of a faction may overcome the 
 passive dislike of the nation. But if we imbibe but a moiety of 
 the energy of our great antagonist, we shall frustrate, not only in 
 Mid-Lothian but elsewhere, the object of his campaign. For I 
 will never believe that any one man, unless aided by apathy or 
 discord, can extinguish in these islands, by misstatement and 
 sophistry, the dictates of common-sense or the instincts of 
 patriotism.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MEMBEES OF THE 
 DALKEITH DISTEICT CONSERYATIVE ASSOCIATION, 
 
 in reply to a resolution in support op the 
 policy of the government. 
 
 January 16, 1880. 
 
 Lord George Hamilton, who was received with ' loud and 
 prolonged cheering, said — Mr Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen, 
 the satisfaction which, as a member of the Government, j 
 naturally otherwise should entertain towards a resolution so 
 unanimously carried as that which the noble Lord has just 
 put from the chair, is on the present occasion considerably 
 diminished by knowing that in reply to it it will be my duty 
 to say a few words to you. For I had hoped that during 
 my present visit to Dalkeith I should only have been com- 
 pelled to make one political speech, — I always endeavour, 
 so far as I can, to be accurate, and especially to be accurate 
 concerning any statement that I may make regarding my 
 political opponents. I therefore was somewhat disappointed 
 to find that the only political speech I have ever made in 
 Scotland has not altogether met with the approbation of my 
 political opponents. It is quite true that, with the exception 
 of one gentleman with whom I shall subsequently deal, no one 
 has in any way attempted to dispute the accuracy of my facts. 
 But then I am most presumptuous, and, in fact, I am almost 
 a rowdy, for venturing in any way to contest Mr Gladstone's 
 infallibility or personal accuracy. Now, gentlemen, I will only 
 say concerning that distinguished man that it is my earnest 
 wish, and I believe the wish certainly of every one of any 
 standing in her Majesty's Government, to treat him with that
 
 respect and that consideration which his talents and advanced 
 years entitle him to. But our great difficulty is that he won't 
 allow us to pay him that respect. He retired into private 
 life some five years ago, and from that day until now he has 
 never ceased to bring a series of the gravest conceivable charges 
 against the Government of which I am but a humble member. 
 Now, you must remember that the more eminent any political 
 individual is, the wider is the circulation which his statements 
 obtain. I have no doubt you have come, even in the county 
 of Mid-Lothian, in contact with individuals who, although they 
 have no great education in political matters, implicitly accept 
 every statement that Mr Gladstone makes, because he is so good 
 and so great a man. If, then, we appear in public, and do not 
 notice his statements, our opponents say that we ignore them 
 because we cannot answer them ; and if we do answer them, then 
 we are told that we are both impertinent and inaccurate. 
 
 What I regret, and I am sure everybody else who wishes to 
 conduct, in accordance with usage and precedent, political war- 
 fare, is the tone and temper with which Mr Gladstone has 
 assailed the Government which is now in office. He is ever- 
 lastingly appealing to the principles of justice and Christianity, 
 and yet — I have here one of the numerous editions of his 
 speeches — in these speeches I find that every fact which can tell 
 in favour of the Government is either suppressed or explained 
 away, and every incident which may tell against the Government 
 is, dwelt upon and exaggerated. I regret to add another charge, 
 which I, I hope, not intemperately, but deliberately, make. I 
 say that when facts fail, then Mr Gladstone draws upon his im- 
 agination for facts to an extent unprecedented in political war- 
 fare. Now, I do not for a moment wish to impute to him any 
 intentional desire to misrepresent. I was reading the other day 
 an account of a great man who played a great part in the middle 
 ages — a gentleman of the name of Peter the Hermit, who was the 
 origin of the First Crusade — and that gentleman was a man of 
 great vigour, and intense and touching eloquence. He told many 
 startling stories, and everybody believed, for they said, " Is he not 
 a good man ? " and at last the historian relates that his mind 
 became so inflamed that whatever he wished he believed. Now, 
 gentlemen, I think this is not a very unfair description of the 
 state of mind into which Mr Gladstone's animosity against the 
 Government has reduced him. Let me just give a specimen of 
 the kind of charges he makes against us. It is not a very in- 
 telligible charge, but it is a general charge. In p. 16 of one of 
 the speeches he says : " I am now only illustrating to you the 
 manner in which a series of surprises, a series of theatrical ex- 
 pedients, calculated to excite, to alarm, to stir pride and passion, 
 and to divide the world, have been the daily aliment, subsist- 
 
 UMJCT 
 
 'orijA^
 
 3 
 
 ence, and established dietary of the present Government." Now, 
 gentlemen, some of ns, I am afraid, have towards the end of 
 some of the more recent arduous sessions occasionally felt 
 twinges of indigestion; and no wonder, when our established 
 dietary — the daily aliment and subsistence of every member of 
 her Majesty's Government — is a portion of the globe. No 
 wonder we find it indigestible. But, after all, a charge of this 
 sort can be easily dealt with. If any man less eminent than Mr 
 Gladstone had made that statement, his friends would probably 
 have told him that if he would speak nonsense in public he had 
 better not speak at all. 
 
 Now, the lecturer* in his very able address alluded to the last 
 form of charge made against the Government. It is that we are 
 a turbulent and that we are an aggressive body ; that we are 
 always wishing to go to war, and that our determination is in 
 some shape or other to go to war. Whenever I meet my Eadical 
 friends — I am glad to say that I have a good many of them — 
 and when they inform me that I am one of the turbulent and 
 bloodthirsty Government, so soon as they have completed their 
 enumeration of the charges, I always say to them — " Now, I am 
 going to ask you to do something that none of you Eadicals much 
 like." My friends generally ask, "What is that?" I say, 
 " Exercise a little common-sense in analysing your own accusa- 
 tions." Now, gentlemen, just let us for a moment apply a little 
 common-sense to this hackneyed charge against the Conservative 
 Government — that their great desire and motive is to involve 
 this country in war. What constitutes a Conservative ? Why, 
 a man who is really more or less contented and happy with 
 his condition. And what constitutes a Eadical ? A man who is 
 discontented and dissatisfied. Therefore a great object of Con- 
 servatives and Conservatism is to establish such a state of things 
 in this country, that the great majority of the people shall be 
 happy and shall be contented. And the commonest charge that 
 is made against demagogues is that they will persist in mak- 
 ing proposals which are impracticable, and that their great 
 object is to keep a large number of people in discontent and 
 discomfort, because the fact that a large number are discon- 
 tented and uncomfortable gives them elements for agitation. 
 Everybody knows, for a great commercial and trading nation 
 such as England to go to war must at once necessitate increased 
 taxation. Such taxation must at once — even if things and 
 prospects were pleasant — curtail employment, raise prices, and 
 generally produce, in some shape or other, discontent, and possibly 
 depression. Therefore, it is absolutely contrary to the very foun- 
 dations on which Conservatism rests that we should in any way 
 attempt to embark this country in war. It is a very curious thing, 
 * Mr J. P. B. Robertson, advocate.
 
 but I was some time ago reading a speech of Lord Beaconsfield's 
 many years back — it is a speech made some fifteen years ago — 
 and it entirely proves and supports the main contention which 
 the lecturer so ably laid before you. Lord Beaconsfield spoke in 
 1864, then regretting the loss of English influence in the councils 
 of Europe. These were his words. He had then no prospect of 
 obtaining office ; and it is supposed — at least Mr Gladstone con- 
 tends, that a man never thoroughly expresses his opinions unless 
 he is in Opposition — and as Lord Beaconsfield was then in Oppo- 
 sition, we may assume that this is a thoroughly accurate expres- 
 sion of his opinion. He says : " It does appear to me impossible 
 to deny, under these circumstances, that the just influence of 
 England in the councils of Europe is lowered ; and now, I ask, 
 what are the consequences of the just influence of England in the 
 councils of Europe being lowered ? The consequences are — to 
 use a familiar phrase in the despatches — ' most serious,' and 
 because in exact proportion as that influence is lowered the 
 securities of peace are diminished. I lay this down as a great 
 principle, which cannot be controverted, in the management of 
 foreign affairs." 
 
 Well now, gentlemen, we are part of a great and powerful nation ; 
 we have interests in every part of the globe to protect, and no one, 
 I think, can ignore the possible contingency on our part, under 
 certain circumstances, of having to use force to protect those inter- 
 ests. Two different methods of protecting English interests have 
 been adopted. In 1854, Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet, of which Mr 
 Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer, considered it of vital 
 importance to this country that Eussia ought not to be allowed 
 to do certain things which the Emperor of Eussia announced his 
 intention of doing. But their words were so undecided, and their 
 preparations were so inadequate, that the Emperor of Eussia did 
 not believe that they were in earnest. The consequence was, 
 that he did that which he subsequently admitted he never would 
 have done if he had known England was in earnest. The fatal 
 step was taken, and the Crimean war ensued. Let me mention 
 one little incident which occurred just previous to that war. Mr 
 Gladstone is a very great financier ; but I think at times he is a 
 little apt to ride what I may call the pedantry of finance too 
 hard. He never will understand that there are exceptional cir- 
 cumstances when the ordinary rule regarding finance should be 
 suspended. But he could not see that prior to the Crimean war, 
 and what was the result ? When it was necessary for the Govern- 
 ment of the day to make a military demonstration to show that 
 they were in earnest, and would exercise force if necessary, Mr 
 Gladstone, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, laid an estimate before 
 the House. Eor what do you think that estimate provided? It was 
 a provision to send out her Majesty's Brigade of Guards as a military
 
 demonstration to Malta ; but he also provided the cost of bringing 
 them back again. Well, now, we acted with more difficult circum- 
 stances under exactly the reverse principle. We believed that it 
 was absolutely essential that Russia should not obtain possession 
 of Constantinople ; and we believed that if Russia had possession 
 of Constantinople, a terrible European war would ensue in which 
 England must necessarily be involved. And therefore we asked 
 for a large sum of money in the House of Commons in order to 
 make adequate preparations, and show our determination to use 
 force if we were compelled. I simply put it to any gentleman 
 here present — not asking them as Liberals or Conservatives, but 
 as men of common -sense — Which is the best investment — our 
 four millions in making preparation by which we " obtained our 
 object and averted war, or Mr Gladstone's rigid adherence to the 
 pedantry of finance, by which we became involved in a terrible 
 war which cost hundreds of millions ? 
 
 But, gentlemen, you may observe, I think very fairly, that it is 
 all very well for a member of the Government to say that the 
 Government is averse to war ; but have they not been engaged 
 in two wars? There has been a war — which now, I hope, is 
 over — in Zululand, and our troops are still acting on the offensive 
 in Afghanistan. I regret, and every member of the Government 
 regrets, we were compelled in these two instances to use force ; 
 but, gentlemen, we must not believe all that is said concerning 
 the objects of the Government in using force either in Zululand 
 or Afghanistan. I find in almost immediate juxtaposition to the 
 passage which I have read from Mr Gladstone's speech the follow- 
 ing definite charge. He says, as regards our action in Africa : 
 " The practice which, in other circles, is well known by the name of 
 hedging, was brought into play, and Sir Bartle Erere was schooled 
 and instructed as to affairs in Africa with infinite skill, and in 
 terms most artfully constructed in such a way that, if they turned 
 out well, the honour and the glory would redound to his patriotic 
 Government ; but if they turned out ill, tlie responsibility and 
 the burden would fall on the shoulders of Sir Bartle Erere." 
 That is a perfectly clear and perfectly definite charge, and I say 
 that there is not one single particle of truth in it. If we have 
 been guilty of this act, we have been guilty of a disgraceful and 
 dishonourable transaction. But who is the person who drew up 
 Sir Bartle Erere's instructions ? Lord Carnarvon. Mr Gladstone 
 has a great regard for Lord Carnarvon — a regard which has 
 increased tenfold since he left the present Government. I 
 would like to make a perfectly fair challenge to Mr Gladstone, 
 and say to him he would not dare in Lord Carnarvon's presence 
 to bring that charge against him which he has brought against 
 the Government. 
 
 But, gentlemen, it is always, I think, interesting, if the nation
 
 is engaged in war, that we know what we are fighting for ; and 
 if you allow me, I think I can describe in a few words what the 
 difficulties are in South Africa. In almost every part of the 
 globe — in Canada, in the United States, in New Zealand, in 
 Australia — the aboriginal population has faded and disappeared 
 under the influence of civilisation. In South Africa, at the very 
 moment almost that the Dutch or the English colonised the 
 Cape, a large number of warlike tribes came down from the 
 north and centre of Africa. These tribes were the Kaffirs and 
 Zulus. The aboriginal population had disappeared in South 
 Africa ; the white man has been brought face to face with the 
 Zulu or the Kaffir, who, so far from disappearing under the 
 contact of civilisation, multiplies and increases faster than the 
 white man. He is a courageous and a stronor savaf::e. If the 
 black races in the South of Africa combined against the white 
 man, all they require to enable them to exterminate the white 
 men are arms and discipline. Now, it is a very curious fact that 
 one requisite of arms was, I admit quite unconsciously, supplied 
 to them by the late Government of which Mr Gladstone was the 
 head, and it arose in this way ; Lord Granville gave to the 
 Cape Colony powers of self-government, but he did not suf- 
 ficiently sever the imperial connection with that Government. 
 The local Government then obtained powers for regulating the 
 fiscal and custom duties, and they deliberately allowed a very 
 large import of arms, because upon that import of arms they 
 levied a large revenue. A gun or rifle was one of the few things 
 for which a Zulu or Kaffir will work. There are many traders 
 only too anxious in the Diamond Fields to employ the natives, 
 and thus these natives became armed. In Zululand they were also 
 disciplined. Everybody acquainted with South Africa saw that 
 a great danger was imminent. Now, the instructions from first 
 to last of Sir Bartle Frere were that he was only to employ force 
 if it became absolutely necessary — that he was to act strictly on 
 the defensive. He differed from that view of the Home Govern-, 
 ment. He adopted the offensive, and the great disaster of 
 Isandula occurred. Now, if we had been in any way actuated 
 by the motives Mr Gladstone ascribed to us, all we should have 
 had to do was simply to recall Sir Bartle Frere, and no blame 
 could be imposed on the Government. We might have avoided 
 a great Parliamentary difficulty, but we should have endangered 
 the national interests, because Sir Bartle Frere is a man of iron 
 nerve and of vast resource. He had ingratiated himself with 
 the Cape colonists, and it is perfectly certain if we recalled him 
 we should have found no one able to take his place at a moment's 
 notice. Therefore, while he had to a certain extent disobeyed 
 the instructions of the Home Government, we deliberately 
 undertook the Parliamentary difficulty which Sir Bartle Frere's
 
 remaining in office incurred, and upon a motion made against 
 that, had the worst party division in the last five years. There- 
 fore, so far from Mr Gladstone's statement being true, it is 
 diametrically in the face of the facts, which before he had 
 spoken he was as well acquainted with as I am. 
 
 Well, now, gentlemen, I come to the other war — the war in 
 Afghanistan — and I can state in a few words what was the 
 origin of that war. Every Government, and every Governor- 
 General generally, had admitted that no political influence, other 
 than that of England, could be allowed to prevail in Afghanistan. 
 Lord Lawrence adhered to a certain policy. He said — "Do 
 nothing, and the nearer Eussia approaches to Afghanistan the 
 more Afghanistan will gravitate towards England, not through 
 love of Englishmen, but through fear of Eussia." Well, I can 
 only say that his policy was in the main followed by the late 
 Government, and that nothing was done for many years which 
 in the smallest degree could wound the susceptibilities of the 
 Ameer of Cabul. During no period of Indian history was the 
 advance of Eussia more rapid towards Afghanistan than during 
 the viceroy alty of Lord Northbrook, and at no time were the 
 relations between the English Government and Shere Ali worse 
 than when he left India. Therefore we find that, so far from 
 Lord Lawrence being right in his predictions, that exactly the 
 reverse was taking place. Lord Salisbury was most anxious to 
 avert, as far as he could, the collision which he thought ultim- 
 ately would occur, because you must recollect if Eussia had in- 
 vaded Afghanistan, or established a force there either with or 
 without the connivance of the Ameer, we should have been 
 compelled to make it a casus belli. In almost every despatch 
 the instructions of Lord Salisbury from the time he assumed 
 office were made on purpose to avoid the very contingency which 
 has occurred — viz., the war between ourselves and the Ameer. 
 Mr Gladstone was very anxious the other day to prove that this 
 was a wanton and unnecessary war, and he adopted a somewhat 
 peculiar line of argument. He said to his audience — Why, this 
 Government don't even know the object for which they have 
 gone to war, or the cause of the war ; and I quote verbatim his 
 language. He said at Glasgow — " Lord Cairns, a man of great 
 ability, said in the House of Lords — ' We are not going to war 
 with Afghanistan for receiving the Eussian Envoy ; we are 
 going to war with him for not receiving our Envoy.' Another 
 Minister is said to have given the following account in the 
 House of Commons — and this other Minister was Lord John 
 Manners — 'We did not quarrel with the Ameer because he 
 did not receive a British Mission at Cabul; we quarrelled 
 with him for having received a Eussian Mission at Cabul.'" 
 There was naturally laughter among his audience at this,
 
 '8 
 
 because he had apparently established an irreconcilable con- 
 tradiction between a Minister in the House of Lords and 
 a Minister in the House of Commons. Can I surprise you 
 by telling you that the words attributed to Lord John 
 Manners are unadulterated fiction. What Lord John Man- 
 ners" did say — and it is very extraordinary Mr Gladstone 
 cannot recollect, because he followed Lord John Manners in 
 that debate, he heard every word Lord John Manners said, 
 and with his usual skill fixed on every weak point in his speech 
 — what Lord John Manners said was exactly the reverse : " We 
 had not quarrelled with the Ameer because he had received the 
 Russian Mission, but because, having received it with great pomp 
 and unwonted solemnity, when the Indian Government asked 
 him to receive a peaceful English Mission, he not only refused 
 to do so, but refused with insult and violence." You will there- 
 fore see that there is not the slightest difference between the 
 words used by Lord Cairns and those used by Lord John Man- 
 ners in the respective Houses of Parliament. This was pointed 
 out to Mr Gladstone. He has published — any of you can buy it 
 — a preface to his speeches. You would have thought that any 
 man — and the more eminent the man the more necessary it 
 is for him — ought to withdraw a statement which has not 
 a particle of truth in it. Well, what does Mr Gladstone 
 do? I will tell you what he does. I must ask your close 
 attention to it, because this part of his preface is almost as bad 
 as a Chinese puzzle. He says — " I observe with less satis- 
 faction that a correspondent of the * Globe ' newspaper, writing 
 from Bath on the 9th, has been so kind to Lord John Manners as 
 to charge me with having wilfully misquoted him at Glasgow. 
 I quoted him as having stated, in contradiction to Lord Cairns, 
 that we made war upon the Ameer of Afghanistan because he 
 refused to receive our Mission. The statement was, says the cor- 
 respondent, that he refused it with insult and violence. But 
 that statement is grossly and absolutely untrue, as is now known 
 from the Parliamentary papers. It was reserved for the cham- 
 pion of the Ministry, in his uninstructed eagerness, to exhibit 
 him to the world as the author of such a statement, which, of 
 course, greatly aggravates the case." Let me explain, for it is 
 very difficult to understand what Mr Gladstone means. He first 
 attempts to establish a contradiction between two Ministers by 
 imputing to the one Minister a passage which he did not use ; 
 and when the falsity of that statement is established, instead of 
 withdrawing the statement, he, with most extraordinary adroit- 
 ness, substitutes the words he gave to the one Minister and puts 
 them in the mouth of the other Minister ; and he then proceeds 
 to cover his own misstatements by attributing falsehood to the 
 Minister whose words he alone had falsified, without producing
 
 one particle of evidence. Well, I can only say that when Mr 
 Gladstone appeals to the principles of justice, morality, truth, 
 and religion, he seems not altogether to be able to adapt his 
 practice to his precepts. 
 
 But it is not merely on foreign policy that we have to com- 
 plain of Mr Gladstone's misstatements, and his constant change 
 of front. Sir Stafford North cote, in his many speeches, had 
 frequently alluded to the handicapping to which the present 
 Government were subjected in consequence of the succession 
 of bad harvests, because nothing will reduce the natural 
 growth or increment of revenue more than an annual series 
 of bad harvests. Well, of course, Mr Gladstone was bound to 
 say that every argument which Sir Stafford Northcote used was 
 contrary to fact. Therefore in a remarkably able speech at 
 Edinburgh he proceeded to demolish the theory that the five 
 first harvests of the present Government were in any sense worse 
 than the harvests of the last five years that he was in office. He 
 went into a most elaborate detail, and proved entirely to the 
 satisfaction of his audience and himself that the only difference 
 between the harvests in the last five years he w^as in office and 
 the first five years he was in opposition was a difference in yield 
 of four-fifths to three-fifths of a bushel per acre. And then he 
 goes on to say the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who ought to be 
 by far the best informed in the country on every detail on these 
 questions, thinks it fit and becoming to delude the citizens of 
 London, on the limited nature of whose agricultural knowledge 
 he too boldly relied. You will see, therefore, that what Mr 
 Gladstone thinks is, that it is altogether humbug and nonsense 
 for anybody to contend that the harvests of the first five years 
 we have been in office were in any degree worse than the last 
 five that he was in office. When I read that I said colloquially 
 to myself, " My friend, I think you have put your foot in it. It 
 is a very clever thing, no doubt, to show to your town audience 
 in Edinburgh that bad harvests have had nothing whatever to do 
 with the falling off of the revenue, but when you say that the 
 harvests of the first five years' tenure of office of the present 
 Government were no worse than those under your administra- 
 tion, do you think that the shrewd farmers of Mid-Lothian are 
 prepared to agree with you?" Well, gentlemen, as might bo 
 expected, next day comes the inevitable post -card. What was 
 in the post-card ? Let us see, for it is curious ; it is really very 
 funny. It is a long letter. He says — " It has been supposed 
 by some that in speaking on finance at ICdinburgh I intended to 
 convey that the condition of those concerned with agriculture hi 
 Scotland had been as good during the six years of the present 
 administration as during the five years of the last." Then he 
 enters on a laboured explanation of the reason why he made
 
 10 
 
 this statement. He cannot give up without a dab at the 
 Government: and it is this — "How little the Ministry attach 
 importance to the heavy calamity of this year's harvest may 
 be judged by the sanguine description given at the Guild- 
 hall on the 10th of November of the revival of business, which 
 was declared to be solid and universal." So you see Mr Glad- 
 stone first begins by roundly abusing the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer for saying there has been a succession of bad harvests, 
 and the moment he finds that the farmers of Mid-Lothian object 
 to this abuse, he turns round and says — "Why, the Govern- 
 ment do not attach any importance at all to bad harvests," and he 
 only arrives at this conclusion by misstating more grossly — well, 
 I will not use strong language — but by misstating, unintentionally 
 no doubt, the argument which Lord Beaconsfield made use of, for 
 the argument Lord Beaconsfield made use of was this — he gave 
 them to understand that the revival of trade was permanent in 
 his belief, because it had occurred after the worst harvest almost 
 in the century. Nothing retards the recovery of trade nriore than 
 a bad harvest ; and if, therefore, after the worst harvest if not of 
 the last century, certainly of the last fifty years, there was a 
 steady improvement in the general branches of trade, the infer- 
 ence naturally was that that recovery of trade was likely to last 
 and to be permanent. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I have detained you much longer than I 
 meant, but I think I have shown this, that if persons of my age 
 and my position do in any way call in question Mr Gladstone's 
 statements, we do not do so out of or through wantonness, but 
 because he has got into such an unhappy frame of mind that he 
 will persist in making a series of misstatements which are per- 
 fectly irreconcilable with fact. Of all the home questions, the ques- 
 tion, I would imagine, which most concerns a Scottish audience 
 is a question on which I find Mr Gladstone most reticent, and 
 that is, as to what are his intentions refi^ardinf]^ the Established 
 Church of Scotland. Now, you must remember that Mr Glad- 
 stone appears before you as the only man in the three kingdoms 
 who has already been the executioner of an Established Church. 
 The more I study — and I have studied with some little attention 
 the facts preceding his announcement in 1868 of his intention to 
 disendow and disestablish the Irish Church — the closer the anal- 
 ogy is between these circumstances and the circumstances that 
 now exist. Mr Gladstone, I observe, informed his audience in 
 Dalkeith that " as regards the Scottish Church I have no second 
 thought kept in reserve;" and still no question must be put to 
 Mr Gladstone on that point. Now, the sum total of his observa- 
 tions is this — If the Church of Scotland is to be put on its trial, 
 it shall have a fair and open trial. Well, the first question that
 
 11 
 
 occurs to one is — Why is the Church of Scotland to be put on 
 its trial ? And the next question is — If Mr Gladstone's idea of 
 a fair and open trial is the one according to which he is now try- 
 ing the Government, I shall be very sorry for the Church of 
 Scotland. I have always understood — I believe I am not quite 
 sure whether I am more Irish or Scotch, but I have lived more 
 in Ireland than in Scotland — I say that I have always understood 
 that the Scotch nation are a very shrewd people ; and I cannot 
 believe that any constituency, if the majority of the constituency 
 are in favour of the maintenance of the Established Church of 
 Scotland, can be put off with the flimsy pretext of a "fair trial," 
 When a candidate appears before you, and you ask his opinions 
 on a certain question, you don't want to know that there is to be 
 a fair trial of the question. What you want to know is, when that 
 question comes on to be tried, will he be counsel for the prosecu- 
 tion or for the defence ? Well now, gentlemen, I dare say a great 
 many of you would like to know that, but I don't think you will 
 find that out. But just look at it seriously for a minute. What 
 does it mean, that this question is to be "fairly and openly 
 tried " ? Why, it means this, that it is to be an open question 
 — until the opponents of the Church of Scotland, through any 
 combination of accidental circumstances, temporarily obtain 
 a majority ; then down goes the Church of Scotland. And, 
 gentlemen, you must remember that the leaders of the Liberal 
 party are in a position of peculiar difficulty. The Liberal party 
 is composed of a variety of sections of men who have little 
 in common, and the only way that they are kept together is by 
 various concessions being made from the different sections of 
 those parties to each other. The greatest Whig or Liberal that 
 ever lived — Mr Burke — laid down an admirable definition of a 
 party. He said, " It is a body of men who are banded together 
 for a common purpose in order to advance the national interests 
 upon some particular principle on which all are agreed." Now, 
 I will undertake to say that the great bulk of the Liberal party 
 cannot agree on any one single principle except the dislike to 
 Conservatives. But it is a melancholy fact — and you cannot 
 ignore it — that year by year Mr Gladstone, with his vast abilities 
 and untiring eneruy, is more and more tending in the direction 
 of extreme opinions, and more and more relying on the support 
 of the most advanced members of his party. If he should be 
 returned, — I won't contemplate the possibility of his being re- 
 turned for Mid-Lothian — I was thinking more of Leeds at the 
 time — a more suitable place ; but if the party of which Mr 
 Gladstone is the actual head — for he out-towers all his Liberal 
 contemporaries in ability — returns him to power, who will be the 
 sections on whom he relies ? I will tell you who they are. He
 
 12 
 
 will have the support of the extreme section of the Irish Eoman 
 Catholic party. They — and I do not blame them — honestly 
 and openly profess the opinions they hold, and they would not 
 object to the overthrow of another Protestant bulwark such 
 as the Established Church of Scotland. Who are the other 
 sections ? The other sections are the extreme advanced sec- 
 tions who conscientiously object to all established and all en- 
 dowed Churches. Now, this latter body is a very powerful and 
 influential body in England. As a rule, they interest themselves 
 little in questions of foreign policy ; but is any man sufficiently 
 blind to the signs of the times not to see what is going on ? 
 These men are evidently supporting Mr Gladstone in attacking 
 the foreign policy of the Government, not because they care for or 
 fully share in the opinions he professes, but because they say to 
 themselves, " If we help him in overthrowing the foreign policy 
 of the Government, he must help us in the internal policy of 
 England and Scotland." And what is that internal policy? 
 The disestablishment and disendowment of all Established 
 Churches. Now, gentlemen, let us for a moment — for it is 
 always as well in politics to anticipa.te the improbable as well as 
 the probable — let us for a moment contemplate the impossible 
 contingency of Mr Gladstone being returned for Mid-Lothian. 
 Would not the fact that one of the constituencies of Scotland — 
 the most interested in the maintenance of the Established Church 
 of Scotland — had deliberately rejected a candidate like my noble 
 friend, who is in favour of the Establishment of that Church, 
 and selected a man who admits that it is an open question, and 
 you have only got to squeeze him enough, and then he will aban- 
 don the Church, — can any one doubt that if such were the 
 result of the election, the days of the Church of Scotland are 
 sooner or later doomed ? I therefore thank our opponents for 
 their indiscretion. Lord Hartiugton unwisely raised this question 
 of disestablishment, and Mr Gladstone declines to give any de- 
 finite answer, and wraps himself up in that cloud of words in 
 which he always takes refuge when he is hard pressed. It is true 
 that his immediate purpose is the overthrow of the present Gov- 
 ernment, but you must recollect that the overthrow or fall of any 
 Government is reparable, while the destruction and the over- 
 throw of an ancient and beneficent Established Church is irre- 
 parable. I therefore thank the indiscretion of our opponents 
 who have in this county identified the cause of my noble friend 
 with the maintenance of the Established Church of Scotland ; 
 and if they must stand and fall together, I feel certain that both 
 will succeed in surviving the temporary tempest to which they 
 are now subject.
 
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