A great number of influential Liberals have spoken during the
week, and no one can say that their voice has not been com- pletely and cordially unanimous against any breach whatever of English neutrality, immediate or probable. Sir Henry James spoke yesterday week at Taunton. He expressed very neatly the fear now entertained as to the possible action of her Majesty's Government, by describing a case in which a farmer, who had shot a boy committing depredations on his cherry orchard, was defended at great length by his counsel on the theory that he bad not intended to shoot the boy, but only to fire in the air and frighten him. The Judge summed up the advocate's defence in eight words,—" The prisoner shot at nothing, and missed it." That was what the country feared with respect to the action of the Government, —that her policy towards Russia might be some day correctly de- scribed as shooting at nothing and missing it. But though Sir Henry James would not allow Russia to take possession of the Suez Canal, or—apparently—to occupy Constantinople perman- ently, he saw no cause at present for war. If Russia demanded the destruction of the fortresses of the Quadrilateral, he would remit that question to the consideration of the European Powers. If she asked the opening of the Dardanelles, under proper regulations he would accord it, but he sug- gested that many Russian statesmen would think Russia had more to lose than to gain by opening the Straits to the ships-of-war of all nations. Lord John Manners had suggested that we might have to fight for "the laurel of unquestioned victory and the lily of lasting peace," but the laurel is not a tree that bears any fruit, and has been a very expensive tree to this country, and the lily of lasting peace is a flower very difficult to obtain,—especially by the process of breaking peace. Sir Henry James held that against any war policy the disunited Liberal ranks would close up like a phalanx.
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