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 A POLICY 
 
 OF 
 
 SHRINKAGE. 
 
 B,j the Author of " LIBERAL MISRULE IN IRELAND," 
 "LIB ERA L DESPO TISM, ' ' 
 " THE SITUATION," 
 
 " CONSERVATISM AND THE PEOPLE," 
 1 < L IBERAL 1 r A GILL A TIOX, ' ' 
 •• UNCONSCIONABLE AG I TA TIOX AND POLITIC 1 1. 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY." 
 " THE EGYPTIAN IMBROGLIO," 
 '• TEE HUH HIE OF OBSTRUCTION," ETC 
 
 "A GOVERNMENT WHICH, KNOWING NOT TRUE WISDOM, 
 IS SCORNED ABROAD, AND LIVES ON TRICKS AT HOME."— Dvyden 
 
 London. : Bemeose & Sons, Printers, 23, Old Bailey : and Derby
 
 ^ 
 
 POLICY OF SHRINKAGE. 
 
 By the Author of " Liberal Misrule in Ireland" " Liberal Despotism" 
 "The Situation" "Conservatism and the People," "Liberal Vacillation," 
 11 Unconscionable Agitation and Political Responsibility ," " The Egyptian 
 Imbroglio," " The Bubble of Obstruction," $e. 
 
 "A Government which, knowing not true wisdom, 
 Is scorned abroad, and lives on tricks at home."— Dryden. 
 
 London : Bemrobe & Sons, Printers, 23, Old Bailey ; and Derby.
 
 THE 
 
 DEMONSTRATION AT RAIKES HALL.* 
 
 ENTHUSIASTIC PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 SPEECHES BY Messrs. H. CHAPLIN, M.P, Lieut.-Gen. 
 FEILDEN, M.P., W. E. M. TOMLINSON, M.P., H. C. 
 RICHARDS, J. H De RICCI, H. BYRON REED, &c. 
 
 The Conservative demonstration which took place at Raikes 
 Hall on Friday last, was a significant witness to the vitality of 
 Conservatism in the Fylde, and the party leaders are greatly 
 to be congratulated on the results which attended their efforts 
 to promote the success of the undertaking. With a wise in- 
 sight, steps had been taken to make the gathering representa- 
 tive of this section of the division, and, as a consequence, 
 the meeting itself was of especial value by reason of the 
 presence of large contingents from Fleetwood and the rural 
 districts. The Theatre was crowded to its utmost capacity 
 — the number of people present being between 3,000 and 
 4,000. Hundreds, however, were unable to gain admission, 
 and the gardens were therefore well filled in other parts. The 
 procession which was formed in Queen's Square, under the 
 •control of Mr. J. Turnbull, reached the pavilion by way of 
 Church Street, and with the accompanying bands proved an 
 enlivening prelude to the speechmaking. The arrangements 
 for the meeting were conducted by the local committee, and 
 so far as we could see and hear, the proceedings were satis- 
 factorily consummated. Letters of apology for inability to 
 
 * Blackpool.
 
 be present were received by Mr. H. H. Wainwright from Mr 
 E. Birley, J.P, Mr. W. H. Cocker, J.R, Mr. T. Cain, J.P., Mr 
 H. J. Gilbertson, J.R, Mr. T. Miller (Singleton), Rev. H. A 
 James, D.D., Mr. Sidney Harrison, Mr. J. Bowker. The Right 
 Hon. F. A. Stanley, M.R, had purposed being present, but was 
 hindered by the death of his uncle, which occurred a couple of 
 days before the meeting. The only drawback to the com- 
 pleteness of the meeting was the enforced absence of Sir 
 Henry Drummond- Wolff, M.R The hon. gentleman wrote to 
 the Chairman, as under : — 
 
 Grove Hotel, Birmingham, 
 
 October 16th, 1884. 
 My dear Mr. Wainwright, — It is with very great regret I am 
 obliged to remove all hope ol attending the meeting at Blackpool 
 on Friday. 
 
 I have for a long time been very unwell, and my doctor has. 
 prohibited my speaking at any length, an injunction I am obliged 
 to respect, especially on the eve of the assembly of Parliament, 
 
 I had really hoped to be better by this time, but both here and 
 elsewhere I have been compelled to abstain from exertion. 
 
 Hoping that your meeting- will prove a great success, I am, 
 yours very truly, 
 
 H. Drummond- Wolff. 
 
 Mr. H. H. Wainright, President of the Blackpool and Fylde 
 Conservative Association, occupied the chair, and supporting 
 him on the platform were Mr. H. Chaplin, M.P. for Mid- 
 Lincolnshire, Lieut.-General Fielden, M.P. for North Lanca- 
 shire, Mr. Tomlinson, M.P. for Preston, Mr. de Ricci, Con- 
 servative candidate for Bedford, Mr. H. C. Richards, Con- 
 servative candidate for Northampton, Mr. H. Byron Reed 
 (Darlington), the Revs. N. S. Jeffrey, S. Y. B. Rradshaw, and 
 J. Wilkinson (Blackpool), C. Pakes (Copp), L. C. Wood 
 (Singleton), W. Richardson (Poulton), T. Meadows (Thornton), 
 
 o
 
 F. J. Dickson (Bispham), T. Terry (St. Anne's), R. S. Stoney 
 (Wrea Green), Mr. H. Hall, J.P, Mr. E. Banks, J.P. (Carlisle), 
 Mr. Alderman W. Bibby, J.P. (Chairman of Preston Con- 
 servative Association), Dr. Chapman, J.P. (Garstang), Mr. J. 
 Long (Chairman of Preston Conservative Working Men's Club), 
 Captain Hargreaves (Huddersfield), Aldermen M'Naughtan, 
 Challoner, and Birch, Councillors Coulston, J. Bicker staffe, 
 Broadbent, Buckley, Car dwell, Eaves, My cock, and J. B. Fisher; 
 and Messrs. R. Collinson (Garstang), G. Singleton (St. 
 Michael's-on-Wyre), Dr. Fisher and R. Hutchinson (Great 
 Eccleston), Dr. Winn, R. Poole, R. Silcock, J. Hodgson. 
 S. Butler, and T. Lawrenson (Poulton), Brierly (Preston), 
 Captain Jameson, T. M. Wearing, Spence, R. Edmondson, J. 
 T. Marginson, W. Gaulter, and H. Smith (Fleetwood), Captain 
 Ormsby (Rossall), J. Fisher and W. Fisher (Lay ton), and H. P. 
 May, H. Riding, A. M. Viener, J. Grime, R. Gorst, J. Turnbull, 
 J. E. Gibson, J. Harrison. J. Walker, Dr. Richardson, Dr. 
 Anderson, C. P. Fish, J. Whitaker, J. Parkinson, J. Wilkinson, 
 J. Worthington, H. Maden, J. Finney, J. Gill, J. Pye, J. Braith- 
 waite, G. Pye, &c. (Blackpool). — Extract from The Gazette 
 and News, Blackpool, October 24, 1884.
 
 A POLICY OF SHRINKAGE. 
 
 In Politics, what begins in fear, 
 Usually ends in folly. Coleridge. 
 
 The Chairman having called upon the Conservative Candidate 
 for Bedford to move the following Eesolution : — 
 
 ' ' That this meeting desires to express its most emphatic condemnation 
 of the home and foreign policy of the present Administration, which 
 has entailed dishonour and discredit upon the British name abroad,, 
 and produced a vast increase of expenditure and discontent at home.'* 
 
 Mr. J. H. De Eicci addressed the meeting to this purpose : — • 
 
 If there was one Policy more than another to which Mr- 
 Gladstone pledged himself head over ears before coming into office 
 in 1880, it was a Policy of Shrinkage ! 
 
 In the August number of the Nineteenth Century, 1877, the 
 right honble. gentleman put the great weight of his authority 
 into an assertion that " It will still remain an effort beyond, and 
 almost against nature for some thirty or thirty-five millions of 
 men " (i.e.. Englishmen) " to bear in chief the burden of defending 
 the countries inhabited by near three hundred millions." 
 
 In other words, Mr. Gladstone declared that our Empire is too 
 big for us. 
 
 This was the text which the right honourable gentlemen under- 
 took by the force of his genius to drill into the heads of the proud 
 citizens of the richest and mightiest empire the world has ever 
 seen. 
 
 In the following year the eventful acquisition by England of 
 that important strategical position, Cyprus, enabled Mr. Gladstone 
 to discharge an apparently inexhaustible magazine of petulant 
 invective against all who would not conform to the tenets of this 
 parochial doctrine. 
 
 The right lion, gentleman's prolonged active service enabled
 
 him to denounce the new possession as "worthless as a military 
 post"*; and whether by pen or by word of mouth, he mono- 
 tonously cavilled at the lofty motives, vigorous statesmanship, 
 and undoubted patriotism that won for England a place of Arms, 
 commanding at the same time the Euphrates Valley and the 
 Suez Canal, and destined, I venture to prophesy, to become one 
 of the most famous of the line of strongholds guarding our high- 
 road to India. 
 
 But let us enquire what are Mr. Gladstone's views regarding 
 India ! 
 
 Has he not ominously told us that our rule there " leads into 
 the unknown," f and spoken of the brightest jewel in the Imperial 
 Crown as a source of weakness, not of strength. { 
 
 Indeed, it is with such knowledge only that it would be possible 
 to account for the inept persistency with which the right hon. 
 gentleman inveighed, in each one of his Midlothian speeches 
 delivered in 1879-80, with perhaps three exceptions, against the 
 good fortune which enabled us, under the illustrious guidance of 
 Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, to gather Cyprus under 
 the British flag. 
 
 The late determined advances of Russia in Central Asia, 
 recall to our minds these events, inasmuch as the Convention of 
 1878, whereby we acquired Cyprus, was entirely due to the 
 annexations which Russia had then recently made in Asiatic 
 Turkey. 
 
 It was feared that Ardahan, Kars, and Batoum might " become 
 the base from which emissaries of intrigue " would " issue forth, to 
 be followed in due time by invading armies " ; that not only would 
 Armenia and Persia be translated into Muscovite satrapies, and 
 thus open up the easiest of all roads from Russia to India, via the 
 Persian Gulf, but that England would be for ever debarred from 
 availing herself of the Euphrates Valley route, and, moreover, the 
 Suez Canal would be seriously menaced. 
 
 In these circumstances, Lord Salisbury informed the Sublime 
 Porte, through our Ambassador, that further encroachments by 
 Russia would be resisted, if necessary, by force of arms, on two 
 conditions : 
 
 * Vide pp. 567 and 568, Nineteenth Century, September, 1878. 
 t Vide -p. 578, Nineteenth Century, September, 1878. 
 % Vide -p. 348, "Gleanings," Nineteenth Century, August, 1877.
 
 Firstly — That the Porte would undertake to introduce reforms in 
 the government of her Christian and other subjects in those 
 regions ; and 
 
 Secondly — That a suitable position should be assured to Great 
 Britain, whence moral and military influence, if necessary, could 
 make itself felt for the furtherance of these ends 
 
 Thus it became the paramount duty of whatever Party happened 
 to be in power, not only under this Convention, but also on behalf 
 of this country, as one of the Signatories of the Treaty of Berlin, t j 
 effectively press on the Porte the necessity for carrying out such 
 reforms, in accordance with the stipulations set forth in the 23rd 
 and 61st Articles of that Treaty. 
 
 In the result you will, perhaps, not be surprised to hear that 
 next to nothing has been achieved. 
 
 The same want of sympathy between the Government of the 
 Sultan and the Prime Minister, which made itself manifest in the 
 decoration of Arabi Pasha at a time when he was supposed to 
 be a rebel, and was in arms against England, we have only too 
 good reason to believe yet exists. 
 
 The bag and baggage onslaughts made by Mr. Gladstone on 
 Turkey have not been forgotten, and consequently, notwithstanding 
 the powerful advocacy of the late brilliant representative of British 
 interests at Stamboul, we are informed that bribery and corruption 
 and extortion of every kind is generally practised ; that justice is 
 sold ; Christians are oppressed, and crime is prevalent throughout 
 the fair Provinces of Asiatic Turkey. Here was an occasion for 
 the adequate discharge of a noble and Christian mission through 
 the intermedium of the " European Concert." And who would not 
 have thought that Mr. Gladstone, of all Statesmen, was the one most 
 calculated to set such a machinery in motion? When his great rival, 
 Lord Beaconsfield, was in power, he was never tired of invoking 
 the great fetish of " Coercion by the united authority of Europe.''* 
 How is it, then, let us ask, that the right hon. gentleman has so 
 palpably failed in these urgent conditions to efficaciously intervene 
 on the behalf of oppressed and suffering. peoples — an intervention 
 demanded of him, alike by Imperial exigencies, International 
 Treaty, and the obligation of his own repeated public professions ? 
 
 * Vide First Midlothian Speech, page 27.
 
 9 
 
 The prime necessity for such intervention was pointedly recog- 
 nized in the speech from the throne in 1880, in these words, for 
 which Mr. Gladstone is responsible : — 
 
 11 The cordial relations which I hold with all the other powers of 
 Europe will, I trust, enable me to promote, in concert with them, 
 the early and complete fulfilment of the Treaty of Berlin with 
 respect to the effectual reforms and equal laws in Turkey, as well 
 as to such territorial questions as have not yet been settled in 
 conformity with the provisions of that Treaty. I regard such a 
 fulfilment as essential for the avoidance of further complications in 
 the East." 
 
 But with Ireland in a condition so critical that not long since 
 Mr. Trevelyan declared that the Queen's Government there was 
 only separated from Civil War by the Queen's troops ; with India 
 agitated to such an alarming degree as we have not witnessed 
 since the dark days of the Mutiny ; with South Africa convulsed — 
 Convention after Convention torn up and flung in our faces by the 
 Boers, who, in cold bljod, have foully murdered British subjects 
 and Englishmen ; who have even contemptuously threatened to 
 horsewhip the British Forces, and from whom — we confess it to 
 our shame — it has been found necessary, under this so-called 
 Liberal Government, to hide the British Flag, to save it from 
 further indignity and contumely ; with Egypt in process of being 
 relegated from prosperity to bankruptcy, and bankruptcy to 
 barbarism — with what conscience, indeed, could the Prime Minister 
 have questioned the Sublime Porte as to a state of things, which, 
 after all, is of the growth of centuries, not like these other blots 
 nearer home, the crying reproach, the disastrous outcome, of a 
 brief Liberal Administration ? 
 
 But Mr. Gladstone clearly had another way out of this grave 
 difficulty, had he been so minded as to genuinely act up to the 
 virtuously indignant expatiations of Midlothian. 
 
 In his Glasgow speech, December 5th, 1879, the civilized world 
 was authentically nabergasted by the confidence conveyed to it by 
 Mr. Gladstone, that the Convention under which we obtained 
 Cyprus was a " gross breach of the public law of Europe." 
 
 Fortunately for England, the public law of Europe depends 
 upon and proceeds from the great Powers of Europe, not from Mr. 
 Gladstone, and as none of those Powers had taken active excep- 
 tion to the Anglo-Turkish Convention signed on the 4th June,
 
 10 
 
 1878, nor was its authority disputed in the Berlin Treaty, signed 
 on the 13th July, 1878, all the force of this awry thrust against 
 successful British diplomacy spent itself flaccidly in the spasmodic 
 effort that gave it birth. 
 
 But, nevertheless, seeing Mr. Gladstone animated by such 
 a solemn conviction, have not believing electors of the United 
 Kingdom aright to expect that,- at least in this contingency — a con- 
 tingency exposing this country " to all the military dangers and 
 responsibilities of undertaking the defence of the Turkish frontier in 
 Armenia," * the successor of Lord Beaconsfield would do something 
 to justify these everlasting outbursts of far-fetched morality? We 
 have waited patiently for any such justification, but in vain ; and 
 we have all the more reason, perhaps, to be disappointed, from 
 the fact that Mr. Gladstone having, when out of office, wantonly 
 accused Conservatives of aggrandizing Kussia in Armenia.! 
 Once in office, the right lion, gentleman hastened, in the para- 
 graph of the Queen's Speech I have already cited, not only to 
 declare that the fulfilment of the Treaty of Berlin, which gave 
 Batoum, Ardahan, and Kars to Kussia, was essential for the avoid- 
 ance of further complications in the East, but he has since studiously 
 ignored the fact that England is merely entitled to remain in Cyprus, 
 so long as Russia holds these Armenian strongholds, lately in the 
 possession of the Sublime Porte. J Surely Mr. Gladstone's fine 
 ethical sense of " England's mission " cannot have become so- 
 completely warped by the mere possession of power as to make him 
 doubt how much he might have advanced through the European 
 concert towards the repairing a "broken European law," and the 
 final abrogation of " a single-handed Convention with the Porte," 
 containing " provisions most gravely affecting its integrity and 
 independence in Asia." I have taken these last words from a con- 
 tribution of Mr. Gladstone's in the September number of the 
 Nineteenth Century, 1878. 
 
 And yet the stubborn fact remains, that the Prime Minister 
 has practically accomplished nothing in this matter of common 
 justice towards Turkey ! 
 
 But there is another view of the Eastern Question, which will 
 
 * Vide 2nd Midlothian Speech, Dalkeith, 26th "November, 1879. 
 t Vide 3rd Midlothian Speech, 27th November, 1879. 
 
 %Vide Turkish Convention, 4th June, 1878, and Lord Salisbury's Dispatch,. 
 
 30th Mav, 1878.
 
 11 
 
 perhaps further excuse me in your eyes for having dwelt so far 
 on a matter not just now exciting such accentuated notice as 
 another question we hear promulgated at railway stations 
 and other impromptu platforms, even broken-down platforms, 
 symbolical of the one-sided views preached from them, throughout 
 the land, but which, nevertheless, touches very closely the breeches 
 pockets of Englishmen, and consequently the welfare of you men 
 of Lancashire. 
 
 It is the state of our commercial relations in that part of the 
 world. 
 
 In 1883, in round numbers, the position was this : — 
 
 About one-fifth of the British exports to Russia enters by way 
 of her Southern ports, and if we take it that this proportion of 
 exports supplies a corresponding proportion of Russian population, 
 we find that, whereas, twenty-one millions of Turks — that is to 
 say the total population of European and Asiatic Turkey — were 
 purchasers of the produce of the United Kingdom to the extent of 
 seven millions sterling, twenty-one millions of Russians were only 
 purchasers of our goods to the paltry extent of eight hundred 
 and seventy-four thousand pounds' worth in the same year. 
 
 Further, in these transactions we find that, while Turkey took,. 
 in 1883, not less than five millions sterling worth of English cotton 
 goods, about equally divided between European • and Asiatic 
 Turkey, Russia through her Southern ports did not take more 
 than the insignificant amount of one hundred and thirty-three 
 thousand pounds' worth. 
 
 Thus you see, as affairs now stand, what an infinitely better 
 market Turkey offers for British goods than Russia. 
 
 " Xo agent has been found more apt for the progress of civilization 
 than commercial relations.'" 
 
 These words are to be found in one of the last paragraphs of a 
 circular dispatch addressed from St. Petersburgh on the 21st 
 November, 1864 by the great Russian Chancellor, Prince 
 Gortchakow, to Russian Representatives abroad. 
 
 This dispatch, moreover, definitely fixed the Southerly limits- 
 of Russian Empire in Asia as resting upon a frontier extending 
 from the Syr-Daria to Lake Issyk-Kaul. Since that date Muscovite 
 Southerly limits have unceasingly trended towards our great 
 Indian dependency, until in that direction alone, a territory not
 
 12 
 
 less in extent than the total area of Great Britain and France has 
 become absorbed. The scene, indeed, has changed from the strife 
 of the churches in classic Palestine to strife with the Turkoman 
 on the arid steppes of Central Asia ; but, although the pretext is 
 varied, the policy remains the same : we continue to see " beyond 
 and above, towering high in the misty north," " The ambition of 
 the Czars." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, however, is apparently not of this opinion, for 
 £0 lately even as March, 1880, he was at the pains of writing an 
 elaborate review in unstinted praise of a book entitled " Eussia 
 
 and England," by the accomplished Eussian authoress, O.K , 
 
 wherein he not only ridiculed the "necessity of guarding by 
 •decisive measures against the sleepless plots of Eussian aggres- 
 sion," but he derided those who had no faith in diplomatic neutral 
 zones or such-like fanciful delimitations against encroachments, 
 which experience had proved were as shifting as the very sands in 
 which they were traced. 
 
 We now, unfortunately, know that, while Mr. Gladstone was thus 
 per fervidly engaged in puffing the patriotism of Madame de 
 Novikoff in the pages of the Nineteenth Century, at the expense 
 of British diplomacy in the East, Eussia was seriously occupied 
 in receiving with open arms Shere Ali, the late Ameer of Afghan- 
 istan, who had been effectually alienated from us by Mr. Gladstone's 
 previous Administration in 1873, and who, we have every reason to 
 believe, was then engaged with his new friends in plotting a descent 
 upon India.* 
 
 Since that date, and since Mr. Gladstone has been in office, we 
 also, yet more unfortunately, know that the important strategical 
 posts, Merv and Sarakhs, commanding roads respectively along 
 the banks of the Murghab and Herri Eud rivers, and' only within 
 a few easy marches of Herat, have been annexed by Eussia ; and, 
 what is yet more serious, a third alternative route, leading directly 
 from the Caspian Sea, via the Attrek Valley, a new and easy high- 
 way to India, has been ceded to the Czar, under the terms of a 
 Eusso-Persian Treaty, signed in December, 1881, and which 
 apparently was acquiesced in without a murmur by the Prime 
 Minister. 
 
 * Vide Secret Correspondence between Shere Ali and the Russian General 
 Kaufmann, discovered during the British occupation of Cabul.
 
 13 
 
 Thus, while the public mind has been almost entirely diverted 
 from these most serious events by Liberal meddle and muddle, 
 elsewhere, both at home and abroad, there has been silently pre- 
 paring for England another phase of the Eastern Question, which, 
 although now is but a small cloud upon the political horizon, may 
 at any moment develop to such alarming proportions, and assume 
 an aspect so dark and threatening, as to imperil the very existence 
 of our Indian Empire. 
 
 Fortunately, at this juncture we have this crumb of comfort, 
 this ray of hope — that these grave problems will soon engage the 
 commanding attention of a statesman who possesses the complete 
 confidence of his fellow-countrymen, whether as a great adminis- 
 trator or distinguished diplomatist — I mean Lord Dufferin, and 
 who will doubtless speedily not only grasp that, if Herat is the 
 gate of India, Persia is the key of that gate, but also that, if the 
 labours of the present Boundary Commission are not like the "Entente 
 cordiale" or "neutral zone," of 1873, to end in smoke, Eussia must be 
 prepared to put into practice the dictum I have quoted to you of Prince 
 Gortchakow. In a word, effect must be given to the urgent necessity 
 of establishing satisfactory commercial relations between this 
 country and Eussia in Central Asia. As to what the nature of 
 those relations has hitherto been, you will be in a better position to 
 judge when I remind you that the Financial Commissioner of the 
 Punjaub reported in 1882, that when the country came under 
 Eussian administration, upon the death of the Emir of Bokhara, 
 the markets of Central Asia were practically closed to Indian traders 
 by the prohibitory character of the duties imposed. 
 
 But time is precious, and I will therefore pass to another striking 
 evidence of the Liberal Policy of Shrinkage, touching an interest 
 upon which we have been lately reminded in a powerful speech 
 by the late First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. W. H. Smith, the 
 very life of this country depends — our Navy. 
 
 Briefly, the position of affairs in regard to our navy is this : — 
 In 1862-63, the naval strength of the British Empire, if gauged by 
 our ironclads, was twice as great as all the rest of the five other 
 great Powers. 
 
 Since the days of Nelson and Trafalgar, our maritime supremacy 
 has been unquestioned — we swept the seas. 
 
 The year 1882-83 found all this reversed. The navies of the other
 
 14 
 
 ; great Powers not only exceeded by two and a-half times the strength 
 of the British navy, but the 'navy of one of those Powers alone, 
 France, was so nearly equal in its capacity to our own navy, that to 
 •experts must be left the task of establishing that superiority in 
 favour of England which we must all devoutly hope and trust exists. 
 
 Meanwhile, let me give you one or two figures which will enable 
 any one of you to estimate for himself how dangerously near the 
 wind we have been sailing in the parsimonious policy which has so 
 alarmingly attenuated the naval predominance of this country. 
 
 In 1882-83 the total displacement or tonnage of the ironclads of 
 the British navy was 334,820 tons, while the French navy equalled 
 •384,061 tons ; thus the tonnage of the French navy exceeded 
 the tonnage of the British navy by forty-nine thousand and 
 odd tons. 
 
 On the other hand, we find that the average thickness of the 
 armour of the French men-of-war was only 7^-inches as against the 
 .average of 7^-inches of our British ironclads ; and, moreover, we 
 -can claim 76,296 greater horse-power than the French can for their 
 ironclads. 
 
 In the matter of guns, it is perhaps difficult to form any pro- 
 nounced opinion upon the armaments of the respective navies, but 
 let us not forget that it has been categorically asserted, apparently 
 on excellent authority, in the columns of that representative Liberal 
 organ, the Pall Mall Gazette, and never denied, that we are behind 
 France in the power of our guns. 
 
 Further, in the year 1882-83, the French out-numbered us in 
 their navy by nearly five thousand men, while the total number of 
 their ironclads was 56 against our 55. 
 
 With these undoubted facts before us, we need not, perhaps, be 
 astonished at the denial by the French Minister of Marine in the 
 Chamber of Deputies, in November, 1882, of the assertion that 
 the French navy is inferior to the English navy. Nor can we 
 blink the fact that the French Colonial trade and interests are 
 almost nil., and, consequently, in time of war, France would be in a 
 position to harass us in every quarter of the globe, without it being 
 possible, as we are at present circumstanced, to do more than 
 absolutely hold our own— if that, without chance of making 
 reprisals.
 
 15 
 
 Now, as regards the responsible duties of our British navy, let 
 me give you one or two more figures, and I shall have done. 
 
 The Imports and Exports of the United Kingdom in 1862-63, 
 were £393,782,118; in 1882-83, they amounted to £719,680,322. 
 Thus we find, during the past twenty years, our Import and Export 
 Trade, which, in time of war, is entirely dependent for its 
 ■existence, safety, and protection, upon our navy, has very nearly 
 •doubled, while the total tonnage of British shipping, which enters 
 and clears our ports in the United Kingdom, has in this time more 
 than trebled. In 1862-63, they amounted to 13,989,770 tons ; 
 in 1882-83, they had increased to 43,670,361 tons. 
 
 We also know that the gross revenue of the United Kingdom, 
 which, in the year 1862-63, only amounted to £68,153,355, has 
 since then grown to the enormous sum of £89,004,456 sterling. 
 
 In other words, it has been given to a Liberal Administration, 
 led by Mr. Gladstone, to enjoy the notorious distinction of having 
 succeeded, in the year 1883, in extracting the greatest revenue ever 
 obtained by any Administration at any period in our history, out 
 of the pockets of the people of this Kingdom. And the great and 
 absorbing question now arises, what has Mr. Gladstone to show for 
 it as regards the consolidation of our Empire ? Has even the corner- 
 stone of our greatness — the efficiency of the navy — been kept up ? 
 Has the growth and power of our navy been co-ex*tensive with 
 this vast increase of our national wealth and enormously 
 augmenting revenue ? The answer must be, I fear, emphatically, 
 -It has not!" 
 
 You will scarcely credit it — but I take these data from an in- 
 controvertible source, a Parliamentary Beturn issued in May, 1883 
 — that, whereas the expenditure for the Naval Service was in the 
 year 1862-3, £11,075,154 sterling, in the year 1882-3, the expendi- 
 ture amounted to not more than £11,038,989 — that is to say, if we 
 take these figures only, we find that our naval expenditure has 
 been absolutely stationary during the past twenty years ; while still 
 more incredible is the fact that even this circumscribed outlay in 
 1882-83 was further diminished in the following year by a sum of 
 over one hundred thousand pounds. 
 
 I believe it is impossible for Englishmen to approach a graver 
 question than that of the supremacy of the British navy. More 
 than one-half of our food supplies comes from across the seas.
 
 16 
 
 We have been told that is not a party question, and let us hope 
 that such indeed will be the case in the future ; but, so far as the 
 past is concerned, it is my duty to point out that for over twenty 
 years the expenditure for the Navy had never been at so low an 
 ebb as during Mr. Gladstone's last Administration. It did not 
 average yearly more than nine-and-a-half millions sterling from 
 1869-70 to 1872-73 ; or, in other words, we find a smaller 
 expenditure by one-and-a-half millions per annum, or a total of 
 six millions sterling, taken away from our Navy, during these four 
 years as compared with the Naval expenditure of 1862-63. 
 
 On the other hand, were it not for the heavy increased expendi- 
 ture for the Naval Service which immediately followed, during 
 Lord Beaconsfield's last Administration, and which in the year 
 1877-78 exceeded twelve and a-quarter millions sterling, it may 
 be confidently expressed that we would be infinitely worse off 
 than we are now. 
 
 Let us hope that it was not by this policy of shrinkage and 
 cheeseparing — this starving of the Navy, that at least one 
 Liberal Minister was enabled to build up a reputation as a great 
 financier. 
 
 Let us hope that it was not by such means — at the expense 
 of our Navy, that Mr. Gladstone was emboldened in 1874 to offer 
 a bribe of si. v millions ! to the Constituencies, which Englishmen 
 rejected with scorn. 
 
 Let us hope that the day has not yet been reached when we can 
 no longer lay claim to the proud boast that '• Britannia rules the 
 waves." 
 
 But if, indeed, we be assailed by any such sombre doubts, let us 
 also not forget the Prime Minister's flourish on the 30th of last 
 August, in Edinburgh, that there had been twelve Parliaments 
 since the Beform Act of 1832, in every one of which he had sat, and 
 ten of which " have had a Liberal majority." 
 
 Consequently, if there be any responsibility attaching to any 
 party in regard to the present anxious condition of the Navy, 
 Mr. Gladstone has, by this confession, irrevocably saddled this 
 responsibility upon the Liberal Party. 
 
 It only remains for me to leave to your consideration and decision 
 these vital issues I have raised, and which I venture to assert are 
 • inseparably bound up with the common weal, and the continued 
 greatness and prosperity of our glorious Empire.
 
 
 
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