Prime Ministers and Some Others: A Book of Reminiscences

f mortal suffering into the peace which passeth understanding. For people who, like myself, were reared in the Gladstonian tradition, it

equalled. To him it was said when he lay dying, "You have so lived and wrought that you have kept the soul alive in England." Of him it was said a few weeks later, "On the day that Gladstone died the world lost its greatest citizen." Mr. Balfour c

o discover any fresh aspects of his character and work; but the Editor[*] has kindly relieved me of that difficulty. He has pointed out certain topi

: Of the Re

LOVE OF

trained to "regard liberty with jealousy and fear, as something which could not wholly be dispensed with, but which was continually to be watched for fear of excesses." Gradually-very gradually-he came to regard it as the greatest of temporal blessings, and this new view affected every department of his public life. In financial matters it led him to

D THE FRANCO-

gentlest and most humane of men must be prepared to draw the sword. But he was profoundly anxious that it should never be

mere military glory, I say you tempt the justice of Him in whose hands the fates of

at Providence enabled him to do so. Yet all through that terrible crisis he saw quite clearly that either of the belligerent Powers might take a step which would oblige England to intervene, and he made a simultaneous agreement with Prussia and France that, if either violated the neutrality of Belgium, England would co-operate

NANCE AND

to prevent the national wealth, which his finance had done so much to increase, from being squandered on unnecessary and unprofitable objects. This jealousy of foolish expenditure combined with his love of peace to make him very chary of spending money on national defences. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston, his eagerness in this regard caused his chief to write to the Queen that "it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the risk of losing Portsmouth or Plymouth." At the end of his career, his final retirement was precipitated by his

ION AND THE

ern vessels, and did a vast deal of damage to the Navy and commerce of the Union. The Government of the United States had a just quarrel with England in this matter, and the controversy-not very skilfully handled on either side-dragged on till the two nations seemed to be on the edge of war. Then Gladstone agreed to submit the case to arbitration, and

the international tribunal; and, although we may think the sentence was harsh in its extent and unjust in its basis, we regard the fine imposed on this country as dust in the balance compared with the moral value of the example set when these two great nations of England a

Y-THE BALKANS

quality of the weak with the strong, the principles of brotherhood among nations, and of their sacred independence. When we are asking for the maintenance of the rights which belong to our fellow-subjects, resident abroa

ess treasure supplied by uncounted millions. It is a petty Power, hardly counting in the list of European States. But it is a Powe

nian massacres of twenty years later. "If only," he exclaimed, "the spirit of little Montenegro had animated the body of big Bulgaria," very different would have been the fate of Freedom and Humanity in those distracted regions. The fact

EA OF PUB

Powers." It had conspicuously failed to avert, or stop, or punish the Armenian massacres, and it had left Greece unaided in her struggle against Turkey. Lord Morley has finely said of him that "he was for an iron fidelity to public engagements and a

ask assigned me by the Editor, and my

of the times, the tendencies of human thought, and the political forces of the world. But we, who were his followers and disciples, know perfectly well what we owe to him. If ever

givings of

in worlds n

f scepticism that "Religion is a disease," then we can point to him who, down to the very verge