Mr. Blight's speech at Birmingham, on Wednesday, was received with
enthusiasm, though it was an elaborate denun- ciation of the policy of the Government, which, from the Gulf of Venice, yid Cyprus, Egypt, and Asia Minor, up to Afghanistan, has undertaken the responsibility either of government or defence. He sketched the history of the 100 years, to show that every war we have waged has been de- nounced by posterity, derided our senseless jealousy of Russia, believing the two Empires will be least hostile when their frontiers become conterminous, and declared that while he would not give up India, the only material benefit she brought was a trade which did not yield above £5,000,000 a year of profit. He denounced the turbulent foreign policy of the Cabi- net, and in a peroration full of his old fire, while declaring that he left the Government to the retribution which awaits it, said, " They have played, in my view, falsely, both with Parliament and with the country. They have wasted, and are now wasting, the blood and the treasure of our people. They have tarnished the mild reign of the Queen by needless war and slaughter on two continents, and by the menace of needless war in Europe ; they have soiled the fair name of England, by subjecting and handing over the population of a province which had been freed by Russia through war and treaty to the cruel and the odious government of the Turk. And beyond this, they have shown, in my view, during an interval of five years through which they have been in possession of office and of power, that they are imbecile at home, and turbulent and wicked abroad." That is not mildly put, but it is true, though Mr. Bright should have added that the policy abroad was not only "turbulent and wicked," but a total failure.
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