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dation of mankind. (Loud cheers.) Those inspired words, for inspired they must have been, have already borne fruit, and promise a crop of blessings to this country and to the empire that no human eye can foresee. (Cheers.) In obedience to the wishes of some weak-kneed colleagues I was induced to apologise to the Austrian Government for the force of my language. (Shame.) But what of that? Do you suppose it caused me to change one jot or tittle of my policy? Not a bit of it. It merely, if anything, made me more determined to carry it out. (Loud cheers.) You remember our young friend Mr. Midshipman Easy's apology to the purser's mate for saying that "he was not fit to carry guts to a bear." "Sir, I have the greatest pleasure in allowing that you are fit to carry guts to a bear!" Well, gentlemen, that was the nature of my apology to Austria. (Loud cheers.) "Words are the daughters of the Earth, acts are the sons of Heaven," and it was by acts not by "words, idle words," that I have brought about the satisfactory relations that now exist between Germany and this country. (Loud cheers.) During the last four years, as you are aware, the relations between Germany and Austria on the one side, and of France and Russia on the other, have been very strained. Last year, indeed, war was at one moment very imminent. Well, during that prolonged period of unrest, I have not ceased to parade my active sympathies in favour of France and Russia, and
MY HOSTILITY TO GERMANY AND AUSTRIA.
Naturally, at first, Germany could not appreciate the full nobility and self-negation of my policy; she could not conceive it possible that the active sympathies of an English Government could be in favour of Russia, who openly threatened her empire in India; and of France, who openly threatened her influence in Egypt. And I am told that when the scales at last fell from the eyes of Prince Bismarck, and he saw clearly the full nobility of our policy, he laughed—actually laughed, loud and long. Evidently national abnegation is an unknown virtue to Prince Bismarck and his school of politicians—a lesson he has yet to learn. (Cheers.) I need not explain to you, my dear fellow-countrymen, whose indisposition to give a direct answer is proverbial, how impossible it is that there should be any sympathy, anything, in fact, but antipathy between me and a statesman who says exactly what he means, who tells you point blank what he wants, and how he is going to get it; who goes direct to his point, and as was said of Cæsar, writes despatches in the same way as he makes war—"in eodem animo scripsit quo bellavit." What sympathy can I feel for one who laughs at the noble faith of cosmopolitanism, who boasts that his sole political guide is the interest of his own country. With such a nature I can, of course, hold no communion, and I am satisfied you would not wish me to do so. (Loud and prolonged cheering.) I do not worship at the shrine of Angerona. I have never practised plain speaking, and, if it pleases Divine Providence, I never will. I can feel nothing but pity for those earthy minds who can see in international politics only questions of hard common sense, who would strip them of all that sentiment, of all those high-sounding professions,
