DISRAELI ON AGGRESSORS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—I do not know if you can find space to insert Disraeli's prophetic vision, written eighty years ago, defining Britain's foreign policy, but in view of the anxious times we are pass- ing through now perhaps you may deem it worthy of insertion in your next issue of your widely read paper.
"If there be any foreign Government or foreign potentate who, in the supposed distractions and political dissensions of our form of Government, believes that he has found elements on which he may calculate for pursuing with success any scheme of aggression or of violent ambition, then I can assure that Government and that ruler that they mistake the character and genius of the English people and the English Constitution—and if they count on our dissensions and on the noble rivalries of our public life as the means for the successful prosecution of those designs, they will count on them to their confusion. They will find, if ever the time should come when the independence of this ccuntry or the. Empire of our Sovereign should indeed be menaced, that the Sovereign of these realms rules over a devoted people and a united Parliament."
(Life of Disraeli, Vol. IV. Buckle.)
Wynfield, Manor Drive, Upton Wirral, Cheshire.
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