I think that in the actual
state of Europe the House will hold me justified if I do not think it
expedient to go into a general detailed discussion of the political
situation, and the more so as that situation is changing not merely
from week to week, but from day to day, and I may say, from the
telegrams received, almost from hour to hour. I shall confine myself,
therefore, as closely as I can, to the questions which have been
put to me in the course of this discussion. First of all comes the
question of the hon. member for Wick (Mr. Laing). He wants some
guarantee that no intervention is contemplated on our part. He wants
some assurance that this country will not be dragged into a war as it
was in the Crimean case. He admits the policy of the Government is
intended to be that of non-intervention; but he fears that it may be
possible to drift into a quarrel without intending it. But I suppose
when the hon. member speaks of intervention he means either armed
intervention or intervention of such a nature as, though not
immediately, yet in ultimate result might lead to an appeal to
physical force. If that is what he refers to, all I can say is that
if the speech which Lord Derby about a week ago delivered in another
place--if the opinions which I myself have invariably expressed on
that subject, not merely when occupying the position I now hold, but
for many years past when these questions were under discussion--if,
what is infinitely more important, the unanimous feeling (for I
believe it to amount to unanimity both of Parliament and the people
out of doors)--the feeling that we ought not to be dragged into
these Continental wars--if all these things, taken together, do not
constitute a guarantee that ours will be a pacific policy, a policy of
observation rather than of action--then I am unable to understand in
what language a stronger guarantee can be given.
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