And consequently, in saying that Russia
ought to be vigilantly watched in that quarter, I am only applying to
her the rule which in parallel circumstances I feel convinced ought to
be applied, and would be justly applied, to judgements upon our own
country.
Gentlemen, there is only one other point on which I must still say a
few words to you, although there are a great many upon which I have a
great many words yet to say somewhere or other. Of all the principles,
gentlemen, of foreign policy which I have enumerated, that to which I
attach the greatest value is the principle of the equality of nations;
because, without recognizing that principle, there is no such thing
as public right, and without public international right there is no
instrument available for settling the transactions of mankind except
material force. Consequently the principle of equality among nations
lies, in my opinion, at the very basis and root of a Christian
civilization, and when that principle is compromised or abandoned,
with it must depart our hopes of tranquillity and of progress for
mankind.
I am sorry to say, gentlemen, that I feel it my absolute duty to make
this charge against the foreign policy under which we have lived for
the last two years, since the resignation of Lord Derby. It has been
a foreign policy, in my opinion, wholly, or to a perilous extent,
unregardful of public right, and it has been founded upon the basis of
a false, I think an arrogant, and a dangerous assumption,--although
I do not question its being made conscientiously and for what was
believed the advantage of the country,--an untrue, arrogant, and
dangerous assumption that we were entitled to assume for ourselves
some dignity, which we should also be entitled to withhold from
others, and to claim on our own part authority to do things which we
would not permit to be done by others.
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