Mr. Gladstone's journey home was like his journey to Scot-
land,—one long ovation. At Motherwell, at Carstairs, at Carlisle, at Overholme, at Preston, at Wigan, at Warrington, and at Chester (where a great torchlight procession was organ- ised), Mr. Gladstone was met by large crowds with the greatest enthusiasm. At many of these places he was compelled to deliver short addresses, and of these the address at Wigan was perhaps the most effective, being a trenchant commentary on Lord Salisbury's announcement that whenever there was a great war in Europe, England always seized a bit of territory at some point giving her a specific local influence over the course of the war. He asked if other nations had the same right. If so, the con- sequence must be a bloody general scramble and chaos in Christendom. Indeed, the assertion of such a right was the doc- trine of a political bandit, he said, rather than that of a statesman. But if other nations had not the same right, where do we get ours to proclaim Pharisaically that we are not as other men are, but rather have a right to appropriate whatever gives us the requisite influence over the course of European wars P That is difficult to answer ; but Lord Salisbury may at least say that he was not posing as the Pharisee. He was rather posing like the gentleman who boasted, "I'm the publican, not the Pharisee, thank God!" He was posing as one who did not fast, and give tithes of all that he possessed, but preferred rather to feast, and take tithes of that which feeble allies possessed.
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