Sir William Harcourt ended his speech by quoting from one
of Lord Salisbury's speeches an admirable protest against overburdening ourselves owing to an exaggerated Imperialism. We agree most heartily, but we would point out that Sir William Harcourt and his party have not always acted up to their professions. When two years ago a section of the Press and a large portion of the supporters of the present Government were—most unwisely as we thought and think —trying to force upon Lord Salisbury a Chinese policy of an aggressive and dangerous kind, Sir William Harcourt and his friends criticised the action of the Cabinet in a way which, in effect, though not in words, tended, not towards the sane Imperialism which we have always tried to urge on the nation, but towards that dog-in-the-manger policy which has done so much to give na a bad name abroad. Again, we must not forget that it was the late Liberal Government which first gave Mr. Rhodes his head in South Africa, which allowed him to seize Matabeleland, and to govern it on his own principles, and set the official seal of approval on Rhodesian policy and statesmanship by making him a Privy Councillor and allow- ing him to put in his own nominee as High Commissioner. Mr. Rhodes never wielded such power at the Colonial Office as he did during the Administration of 1892-95,—a Govern- ment in which Sir William Harcourt held the second place.
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