The more you examine this matter the more you will come to the
conclusion which I have arrived at, that this foreign policy, this
regard for 'the liberties of Europe', this care at one time for 'the
Protestant interests', this excessive love for 'the balance of power',
is neither more nor less than a gigantic system of out-door relief for
the aristocracy of Great Britain. (Great laughter.) I observe that
you receive that declaration as if it were some new and important
discovery. In 1815, when the great war with France was ended, every
Liberal in England whose politics, whose hopes, and whose faith had
not been crushed out of him by the tyranny of the time of that war,
was fully aware of this, and openly admitted it, and up to 1832, and
for some years afterwards, it was the fixed and undoubted creed of the
great Liberal party. But somehow all is changed. We who stand upon the
old landmarks, who walk in the old paths, who would conserve what is
wise and prudent, are hustled and shoved about as if we were come to
turn the world upside down. The change which has taken place seems
to confirm the opinion of a lamented friend of mine, who, not having
succeeded in all his hopes, thought that men made no progress
whatever, but went round and round like, a squirrel in a cage. The
idea is now so general that it is our duty to meddle everywhere,
that it really seems as if we had pushed the Tories from the field,
expelling them by our competition.
I should like to lay before you a list of the treaties which we have
made, and of the responsibilities under which we have laid ourselves
with respect to the various countries of Europe.
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