Mr. Disraeli in reply made the last speech he will
ever make in the House of Commons. It was one of the feeblest of his career, but one of the most characteristic. He quizzed Sir William Harcourt on his " Rhodian rhetoric," taunted him with settling affairs like a member of a debating club, minimised the atrocities as far as he dared, asked why, when the Daily .News was quoted, the Levant Herald was flouted, denied that England was specially protecting Turkey, and finally declared, in his most pompous tones, that the duty of English statesmen was to "protect the Empire of England, and not to hazard its exist- enee,"—a sentence which, if intended to mean anything but rhodomontade, means that the British Empire depends for exist- ence on the contentment of a knot of Pashas. And so pleading for the necessity of condoning crime, Mr. Disraeli passed out of the House of Commons.
