suggested and supported that action long ago, in a matter where colonial and imperial interests were strictly identical, and where the loyalty of the colonists to the British crown and their fidelity to the British connection might properly have been stimulated by warm and hearty encouragement given from Downing Street to their legitimate aspirations. As the chronicle of failures to which we have alluded is brought in review before us, we ask ourselves in amazement – How long will public opinion submit to these things? The British public is indeed not easily roused, and assuredly of late years its apathy has been one of the most remarkable features of the age. Whether it is that the rapidity with which events move at the present time, and the regular and speedy succession in which the occurrences of every day are presented to the public eye, prevent their retention by the public mind, is a problem of which we must leave the solution to philosophers. Certain it is, at any rate, that events of the greatest importance appear to be forgotten with incredible celerity; and the memory of a disaster which would have roused the last generation of Englishmen to the utmost indignation against those who were responsible for its occurrence, endures but for a day, and apparently awakens no such righteous emotion.
So it has happened that under the auspices of the Gladstone Government we have seen our soldiers die unavenged and our flag dragged through the dirt in South Africa, and yet the nation has been silent. In the same regions of the world we have seen the pusillanimous abandonment not only of territory, but of faithful allies who had trusted to our strength and to our honour, and the nation has made no sign. In Egypt, again, we have seen the champions of peace bombard Alexandria; the champions of Boer patriotism slaughter Arab "patriots," with at least as good title to the name as the Transvaal Boers; the champions of financial morality attempt a questionable juggle with Egyptian finance; and the champions of self-government prevent Egypt from governing herself, and yet shirk the responsibilities which by such action they had undertaken. We have seen the blood of Englishmen as well as Arabs shed like water, – and shed because Mr Gladstone's Government had not the courage to accept the consequences of their own acts, and direct the policy and actions of the country over which they had assumed the real and absolute control, – and yet the nation has but murmured. But the time is now at hand when such murmurings will become louder and more general, and when the British people will surely no longer endure the insults and rebuffs which the imbecility and indecision of the Gladstone Cabinet have brought upon them. It is indeed a marvellous instance of the talent of the Government, that they should have been able to set France and Germany against us at the same time, and should have exposed Great Britain to be simultaneously snubbed by both. Never, indeed, has our influence among European nations been at so low an ebb; never during the present century has our country been so isolated and so estranged from those Continental allies which a wise and statesmanlike policy would have secured. An honest, bold, straightforward policy is always the safest, and it is the want of such which has lost us the esteem and respect of Continental
