[PRICE ONE PENNY.
A DREAM
OF MIDLOTHIAN
MR. GLADSTONE IN AUGUST, 1884.
BY
SIR EDWARD SULLIVAN, BART.
"Thus, with an air sincere, in fiction bold
His ready tale th' inventive hero told."
"Oh! still the same Ulysses, she rejoined,
In useful craft successfully refined."
My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—So many and such glorious events have crowded into the four years since last I had the honour of addressing you, that I must begin by craving your patience!
"Friend, be not tedious," said an Indian Rajah to a Christian missionary, who was beginning to explain to him the beauties of the Christian faith, "remember life is short." Life is indeed short; but faith is eternal, especially faith in the great Liberal party.
Grant me but your patience and I will engage not to be tedious!
"Lend me your ears, I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him." I come, not to praise your institution, to tell you of extending empire, of trade and wealth, advancing by leaps and bounds, but to tell you how, since I last addressed you, I have buried, I hope for ever, the last shred of the
IMPERIAL POLICY OF ENGLAND.
You will remember that when I last addressed you the Imperial policy of my predecessor had culminated in the Conference at Berlin. Peace with Honour its authors vainly called it—honour, indeed. Where was the honour? In checking the proselytising influence of Holy Russia? Of putting on the wall again the broken Humpty-Dumpty of Mahommedan cruelty and lust. Honour, indeed. The decisions of that iniquitous Conference have ever since checked the course of our beneficent efforts. How much nobler for England to leave the Conference in London in a minority of one, the champion of humanity and justice, than to leave the Conference at Berlin at the head of the Great Powers of Europe—the champion of injustice and crime. (Loud cheers.) When I last addressed you I engaged that if returned to power I would renounce the Devil and all his works, I would abjure for myself and for you all part or heritage in that policy that proclaimed for its sole objects the stability of British interests
