John Morley

Gladstone first came into contact with Bismarck,—the genius of popular right, and free government, and settled law of nations, into contact with the genius of force and reason of state and blood and iron—the realist minister of Prussia…

Then he said he did not approve of the candidature, but he was not disposed to interfere with the liberty of the Spanish people to choose their own sovereign.

Peace unfortunately hung upon the prudence of a band of statesmen in Paris, who have ever since, both in their own country and everywhere else, been a byword in history for blindness and folly.

Even in the low and broken estate into which the moral areopagus of Europe had fallen in these days, it was a disadvantage to figure as the aggressor.

This disadvantage the French Empire heedlessly imposed upon itself.

Prussia was called to account in a form that became a public and international threat, as Bismarck put it, “with the hand on the sword-hilt.” These rash words of challenge were the first of the French disasters.

They marched headlong to the pit that Bismarck was digging for them.

In duty to all parties we were bound to hope that the subject of complaint having disappeared, the complaint itself and the danger to the peace of Europe would disappear also.

Fight we must, if we do not want to act the part of the vanquished without a battle.

I cannot describe to you the sensation of pain, almost of horror, which, has thrilled through this country from end to end at the outbreak of hostilities, the commencement of the work of blood.

One of the purposes in life dear to my heart has been to knit together in true amity the people of my own country with those of your great nation.

That web of concord is too tender yet, not to suffer under the rude strain of conflicts and concussions even such as we have no material share in.

The immediate purpose with which Italians and Germans effected the great change in the European constitution was unity, not liberty.

If, unhappily, which God forbid, we have to act in this war, it will not be with six months’, nor three months’, nor even one month’s notice.

What answer would the military authorities make to this question, those of them especially who have brains rather than mere position?

Should the day arrive, we shall then be on the very edge of war, with scarcely a hope of not passing onward into the abyss.

I think the paper,” he said, “if it proves anything proves (1) That generals and not ministers are the proper judges of those weights in the political scales which express the likelihood of war and peace; (2) That there is very little…

But the publication of the treaty has altered all this, and has thrown upon us the necessity either of doing something fresh to secure Belgium, or else of saying that under no circumstances would we take any step to secure her from…

This publication has wholly altered the feeling of the House of Commons, and no government could at this moment venture to give utterance to such an intention about Belgium.

But neither do we think it would be right, even if it were safe, to announce that we would in any case stand by with folded arms, and see actions done which would amount to a total extinction of public right in Europe.

Now the sole or single-handed defence of Belgium would be an enterprise which we incline to think Quixotic; if these two great military powers combined against it—that combination is the only serious danger; and this it is which by our…

But that the Belgians, whether they would or not, should go ’plump’ down the maw of another country to satisfy dynastic greed, is another matter.

The accomplishment of such a crime as this implies, would come near to an extinction of public right in Europe, and I do not think we could look on while the sacrifice of freedom and independence was in course of consummation.

Everybody will agree that it was better to have a minister writing his own articles in a respectable quarterly, than doctoring other people’s articles with concomitants from a reptile fund.

My opinion certainly is that the transfer of territory and inhabitants by mere force calls for the reprobation of Europe, and that Europe is entitled to utter it, and can utter it with good effect.