opponents were about as wild as to ask the House
of Commons The only vein of indignant anger really appropriate to the and the Speaker to attend Greenwich Fair and roll themselves occasion was too stale for Lord Beaconsfield; all the little orators down from the top to the bottom of Greenwich Hill, every one of the country towns had expressed their horror of what the Turks would have laughed at the admirably-acted, round-mouthed had done, and Lord Beaconsfield would not sully his repute- jollity of the new-made British Peer, and at the wonderful tion for originality by following them even for a moment. The power possessed by a Prime Minister weighted by so many cares, most he could manage to admit, and we wonder he admitted so to throw them off for a moment, and unbend in society of the much,was the hypothesis that " the Porte may have ten thousand hearty old English type. But in the speech which Lord faults, I will not say crimes,"—and there his original mind was Beaconsfield actually delivered, these excursions to Greenwich compelled to stop. To have gone further would have been Hill, these involuntary reversions to barley, are bits of pure to fall into the vulgar ruts of common-place British feeling. cynicism, and will do more thrin anything else to persuade the The mortal sins were the sins of English orators and Servian people that the House of Commons did not misunderstand Mr. statesmen. The venial sins, which he did not attribute to the Disraeli's drift when they laughed at his witty sally about the Turkish Government, but from which he did not venture abso- Oriental people who are apt to terminate their connection with lutely to exonerate it, were trifles which, in comparison with the prisoners, not by torture, but " in a more expeditious manner." declaration by Servia of " this outrageous and wicked war," The speech at Aylesbury was the most cynical of Lord shrink into insignificance and disappear. That is the amount Beaconsfield's performances. He is reverting in his old age to of sympathy which Lord Beaconsfield has for a popular feeling the mood of Vivian Grey, and trying how much the people he deeper and more profound than any which the nation governs will bear from him. The nation, as he well knows, has felt in the recollection of any living man. Ere is in thorough earnest about this Turkish mockery of government caps its passionate detestation of organised cruelty and lust which it has been our policy to bolster up. But that only with the mock-heroics of a still more vehement detestation of makes it more sport for Lord Beaconsfield to launch his unpatriotic English politicians and unscrupulous Servian rebels. taunts right and left, and show how superior he can Then he tenderly intimates that perhaps even Turkey. has her be to the country whose affairs he condescends to admin. faults,—he will not call them crimes. Again, as to the practical ister. We are enthusiastic, he tells us, but that only demands of the English people, he merely ridicules, with what makes us the prey of designing men, whose conduct he deems, no doubt, unmerciful banter, the remedy for Turkish is even more atrocious than that of the murderers, misrule which Europe applied so successfully twenty years ago plunderers, and violators who have been filling with broken to the administrative abuses of Moldo-Wallachia, and suggests hearts the villages and towns of Bulgaria. Perhaps the only nothing else in its place. Further, he declares what seems person in England who took this extraordinary bit of theatri- to be as far as possible from the truth, that Turkey has cal rant from Lord Beaconsfield as a burst of real indignation, completely "crushed" these " ungrateful " Servian subjects of was the writer whose effusions must have first suggested to hers. And when he sat down, he had made for his Govern- Lord Beaconsfield the grotesque scale of moral comparison meat but a single point,—that by its influence it had gained which he only somewhat broadly caricatured,—the writer, we for Servia that suspension of hostilities over which General mean, who declared many weeks ago that to impute to the Tchernaieff is still chafing and fretting. As for any satin- British Government any share of culpability for these atro- faction to the English desire that the wretched States which cities, was as wicked as the conduct of the Turkish Govern- the Porte does not govern, but does harass and plunder, shall ment in permitting them, and leaving their perpetrators be safe against their mortal enemy for the future, Lord unpunished. Lord Beaconsfield's "passionate outburst of Beaconsfield said not a distinct word, though he asserted is denunciation" will read to the great majority of his the vaguest possible phraseology that Lord Derby had laid readers about as much like the natural expression of down satisfactory principles by which to regulate the future intolerable indignation as St. Aldegonde's similar burst relations between the Porte and Christian subjects of the Porte. of denunciation in " Lothair" against the Liberal Whip, Considering that after the Berlin Memorandum was pressed whose summons he receives at Jerusalem :-4" A most infernal upon him, and rejected, Lord Derby had nothing to suggest, letter from Glyn ; most insolent. If I do return, I will vote except that if Servia and Turkey fought it out, it might subse- against them. But I will not return. I have made up my mind quently be possible to find a solution of the difficulties which he to that. People are so selfish,' exclaimed St. Aldegonde with then regarded as insurmountable, and that, according to his own indignation,—' they never think of anything but themselves.'" admission, since that time, the difficulties of the solution have " The letter of the Opposition Whip," remarks the novelist, been vastly multiplied, it is not possible to attach much value " did not deserve the epithets ascribed to it by St. Aldegonde;" to Lord Beaconsfield's confident assurance that Lord Derby has and no doubt the same personage was perfectly well aware that the true solution of the problem at his finger-ends, and will satisfy no statesman or politician who has spoken on the subject of all reasonable persons, if the British nation will but cool down the British policy in Turkey has deserved the epithets showered from its heroics, and be content to deal with facts as they on him by Lord Beaconsfield, in the fine frenzy of a stage are. effect. He was as little serious, we imagine, in that part of Lord Beaconsfield's speech is the worst and most unexpected his speech, as he was in the later part, when he assumed the blow the Government could have received. No one who had rollicking style, and imagined the Speaker and all the Members watched him, and who was not heart and soul with Turkey, was of the House of Commons rolling down Greenwich Hill. And at all prepared to trust his foreign policy ; but it was expected perhaps we ought to say the same of Lord Beaconsfield's wild that he would be adroit, prudent, persuasive, and offer as much denunciation of Servia for her " outrageous and wicked war," show of sympathy to the passionately expressed wishes of the for " outraging every principle of public morality and every country, as might be in any way consistent with doing nothing principle of honour" in declaring war on the Porte. Clearly, effectual after all. But he has not even offered to the country this was not serious. A moment before Lord Beaconsfield the homage of so much as trying to seem in sympathy with it. He declared it was not Servia, but the Secret Societies,—the same has launched against it a cynical and almost whimsical deft,,,-/ Secret Societies which he had hymned in "Lothair,"—which ance. He has acted indignation against every one for whom made war on the Porte. It was "Mary Ann,"—it was the "divine the nation feels any cordial sympathy, and expressed tenderness Theodora,"—not M. Ristics and Prince Milan, who were respon- only for the hypothetical faults of Turkey. What will his sible for this "outrageous and wicked war." A moment after, he colleagues say to this tormenting bit of political caprice and took great credit to Lord Derby for being so ready to pull Servia mischief-making I Will Sir Stafford Northoote, who strove so out of the scrape into which she had plunged, when she entered TOPICS OF THE DAY. on this "outrageous and wicked war." These are the incon- sistencies of a lordly actor. A statesman really filled with the indignation which his words appeared to convey, could never LORD BEACONSFIELD AT AYLESBURY. have committed them. Lord Beaconsfield was lost for the T,ORD BEACONSFIELD said, on Wednesday, that he went moment in his " Lothair " mood. He was presenting in an to Aylesbury to talk of the brightness of the Bucking- easy, artistic way various attitudes of mind which it might hamshire barley, not of the greatest pending question of foreign be possible successively to assume on this subject, rather than politics, and it would have been well if he had kept to the really possessed by any of them. Just as he was often on the intended subject. He was evidently in the humour for heavy very edge of discussing whether the barley of this year had or comedy, for a happy mixture of the style of Lord Lothair with had not " that brightness which brewers love," so, no doubt, the style of the Hughenden squire who suggested " the crossing in the denunciatory passages he was inventing various specimens of Downs with Cotswolds;' and if in such a speech he had of brilliant indignation, and asking himself, as he pronounced parenthetically remarked that some of the proposals of his them, whether they had the ring which orators love. opponents were about as wild as to ask the House of Commons The only vein of indignant anger really appropriate to the and the Speaker to attend Greenwich Fair and roll themselves occasion was too stale for Lord Beaconsfield; all the little orators down from the top to the bottom of Greenwich Hill, every one of the country towns had expressed their horror of what the Turks would have laughed at the admirably-acted, round-mouthed had done, and Lord Beaconsfield would not sully his repute- jollity of the new-made British Peer, and at the wonderful tion for originality by following them even for a moment. The power possessed by a Prime Minister weighted by so many cares, most he could manage to admit, and we wonder he admitted so to throw them off for a moment, and unbend in society of the much,was the hypothesis that " the Porte may have ten thousand hearty old English type. But in the speech which Lord faults, I will not say crimes,"—and there his original mind was Beaconsfield actually delivered, these excursions to Greenwich compelled to stop. To have gone further would have been Hill, these involuntary reversions to barley, are bits of pure to fall into the vulgar ruts of common-place British feeling. cynicism, and will do more thrin anything else to persuade the The mortal sins were the sins of English orators and Servian people that the House of Commons did not misunderstand Mr. statesmen. The venial sins, which he did not attribute to the Disraeli's drift when they laughed at his witty sally about the Turkish Government, but from which he did not venture abso- Oriental people who are apt to terminate their connection with lutely to exonerate it, were trifles which, in comparison with the prisoners, not by torture, but " in a more expeditious manner." declaration by Servia of " this outrageous and wicked war," The speech at Aylesbury was the most cynical of Lord shrink into insignificance and disappear. That is the amount Beaconsfield's performances. He is reverting in his old age to of sympathy which Lord Beaconsfield has for a popular feeling the mood of Vivian Grey, and trying how much the people he deeper and more profound than any which the nation governs will bear from him. The nation, as he well knows, has felt in the recollection of any living man. Ere is in thorough earnest about this Turkish mockery of government caps its passionate detestation of organised cruelty and lust which it has been our policy to bolster up. But that only with the mock-heroics of a still more vehement detestation of makes it more sport for Lord Beaconsfield to launch his unpatriotic English politicians and unscrupulous Servian rebels. taunts right and left, and show how superior he can Then he tenderly intimates that perhaps even Turkey. has her be to the country whose affairs he condescends to admin. faults,—he will not call them crimes. Again, as to the practical ister. We are enthusiastic, he tells us, but that only demands of the English people, he merely ridicules, with what makes us the prey of designing men, whose conduct he deems, no doubt, unmerciful banter, the remedy for Turkish is even more atrocious than that of the murderers, misrule which Europe applied so successfully twenty years ago plunderers, and violators who have been filling with broken to the administrative abuses of Moldo-Wallachia, and suggests hearts the villages and towns of Bulgaria. Perhaps the only nothing else in its place. Further, he declares what seems person in England who took this extraordinary bit of theatri- to be as far as possible from the truth, that Turkey has cal rant from Lord Beaconsfield as a burst of real indignation, completely "crushed" these " ungrateful " Servian subjects of was the writer whose effusions must have first suggested to hers. And when he sat down, he had made for his Govern- Lord Beaconsfield the grotesque scale of moral comparison meat but a single point,—that by its influence it had gained which he only somewhat broadly caricatured,—the writer, we for Servia that suspension of hostilities over which General mean, who declared many weeks ago that to impute to the Tchernaieff is still chafing and fretting. As for any satin- British Government any share of culpability for these atro- faction to the English desire that the wretched States which cities, was as wicked as the conduct of the Turkish Govern- the Porte does not govern, but does harass and plunder, shall ment in permitting them, and leaving their perpetrators be safe against their mortal enemy for the future, Lord unpunished. Lord Beaconsfield's "passionate outburst of Beaconsfield said not a distinct word, though he asserted is denunciation" will read to the great majority of his the vaguest possible phraseology that Lord Derby had laid readers about as much like the natural expression of down satisfactory principles by which to regulate the future intolerable indignation as St. Aldegonde's similar burst relations between the Porte and Christian subjects of the Porte. of denunciation in " Lothair" against the Liberal Whip, Considering that after the Berlin Memorandum was pressed whose summons he receives at Jerusalem :-4" A most infernal upon him, and rejected, Lord Derby had nothing to suggest, letter from Glyn ; most insolent. If I do return, I will vote except that if Servia and Turkey fought it out, it might subse- against them. But I will not return. I have made up my mind quently be possible to find a solution of the difficulties which he to that. People are so selfish,' exclaimed St. Aldegonde with then regarded as insurmountable, and that, according to his own indignation,—' they never think of anything but themselves.'" admission, since that time, the difficulties of the solution have " The letter of the Opposition Whip," remarks the novelist, been vastly multiplied, it is not possible to attach much value " did not deserve the epithets ascribed to it by St. Aldegonde;" to Lord Beaconsfield's confident assurance that Lord Derby has and no doubt the same personage was perfectly well aware that the true solution of the problem at his finger-ends, and will satisfy no statesman or politician who has spoken on the subject of all reasonable persons, if the British nation will but cool down the British policy in Turkey has deserved the epithets showered from its heroics, and be content to deal with facts as they on him by Lord Beaconsfield, in the fine frenzy of a stage are. effect. He was as little serious, we imagine, in that part of Lord Beaconsfield's speech is the worst and most unexpected his speech, as he was in the later part, when he assumed the blow the Government could have received. No one who had rollicking style, and imagined the Speaker and all the Members watched him, and who was not heart and soul with Turkey, was of the House of Commons rolling down Greenwich Hill. And at all prepared to trust his foreign policy ; but it was expected perhaps we ought to say the same of Lord Beaconsfield's wild that he would be adroit, prudent, persuasive, and offer as much denunciation of Servia for her " outrageous and wicked war," show of sympathy to the passionately expressed wishes of the for " outraging every principle of public morality and every country, as might be in any way consistent with doing nothing principle of honour" in declaring war on the Porte. Clearly, effectual after all. But he has not even offered to the country this was not serious. A moment before Lord Beaconsfield the homage of so much as trying to seem in sympathy with it. He declared it was not Servia, but the Secret Societies,—the same has launched against it a cynical and almost whimsical deft,,,-/ Secret Societies which he had hymned in "Lothair,"—which ance. He has acted indignation against every one for whom made war on the Porte. It was "Mary Ann,"—it was the "divine the nation feels any cordial sympathy, and expressed tenderness Theodora,"—not M. Ristics and Prince Milan, who were respon- only for the hypothetical faults of Turkey. What will his sible for this "outrageous and wicked war." A moment after, he colleagues say to this tormenting bit of political caprice and took great credit to Lord Derby for being so ready to pull Servia mischief-making I Will Sir Stafford Northoote, who strove so anxiously to persuade Edinburgh that the Government was keenly alive to its moral responsibilities, and deeply penetrated with horror at what had happened, enjoy this practical joke of his chief's ? How will Lord Salisbury, who had Just recorded in dignified language an echo of Sir Stafford Northcote's feeling, tolerate this squib? How will Mr. Cross, who is the soul of good-sense and good-feeling ? How will Lord Carnarvon, who probably feels for the Christian States of Turkey at least as keenly as Mr. Glad- stone himself ? This ought to be a crisis to try to the very uttermost the loyalty of Lord Beaconsfield's Cabinet, and even, we think, to prevail over that honourable personal 4) feeling which renders colleagues so reluctant to embarrass their chief. The country does not desire to have this matter turned into a party question. If the Conservatives can—and surely they can—give full expression to the conscience of the country, that is what the country most desires. But it is not to be borne that the Prime Minister should simply make a laughing-stock of the English people's strongest and deepest convictions. And though we all hope to see this matter dealt with by Conservatives, can we longer endure to see it dealt with by a Prime Minister whose levity is so ostentatious, and whose scorn for the national opinion is so contemptuously expressed, or by the feeble and half-hearted Minister whose policy he so jocularly defends ? For the last three months every speech uttered by Lord Derby, or Mr. Disraeli has been, as far as we can judge, almost anxiously calculated to alienate the heart of the nation, and to make Englishmen hold in the lightest possible esteem the judgment of our First Minister and of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. A climax was, however, reached at Aylesbury on Wednesday, which may well lead to a salutary crisis.
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