relationship with the nations yonder, is the next issue to confront us. What will democracy do here?
Our immediate problem is, of course, with Europe.
During the nineteenth century, from the close of the Napoleonic struggle, two opposite European policies contended for mastery with us. The one found its most authoritative exposition in Sir Robert Peel's last speech, in 1850. He argued with weight that we should keep clear of Europe altogether, and that we had no call to exercise even "moral influence" in that quarter, even in the name of "constitutional liberty." Far better attend to our own business, which is urgent enough, and give a wide berth to continental complications.
The other view was best advocated by Mr. Gladstone, in what Mr. Balfour has called his "unequalled" speech of 1877, when the orator exerted himself to recommend the opposite policy of interposition. "Sir, there were other days when England was the hope of freedom"; when, in fact, all those who struggled to be free could look to us for succour. In his appeal to bring those days back again, the master harped on a very tuneful string.
But though either of these policies may have been possible in the nineteenth century, neither of them will command the allegiance of the twentieth.
