[Mr. Anstey: I said, Austria was ready to have joined with us if we
had acted differently.] Well, then, the hon. member says we balked the
readiness of Austria to interpose in favour of the Poles, when we had
many reasons to adopt a different course. This question has been so
often discussed that I can only repeat what I have said in former
Parliaments. It is well known that when we came into office in 1830,
Europe was in a state which, in the opinion of any impartial man, and
of the best political judges, threatened to break out into a general
war. I remember being told by a right hon. gentleman, in the course of
a private conversation in the House, that 'if an angel came down from
heaven to write my dispatches, I could not prevent Europe from a war
in six months'. Well, Sir, not months, but years, rolled by, and no
war took place. It was the anxious desire of the Government of Earl
Grey to prevent war; and the maintenance of peace was one of the
objects at which they expressly aimed, and succeeded. What were the
dangers which threatened the peace of Europe? There had just been a
great revolution in France, there had been another in Belgium, and
these had been followed by a great rising of the Poles against the
sway of Russia. In these struggles there was a conflict of principle
as well as one of political relations. There was the popular
principle in France, in Belgium, and in Poland, to be resisted by
the monarchical principle of Austria, of Russia, and of Prussia.
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