ple ought to be a dear and precious object of our ambition.
Ambition may be a questionable quality: if you give a certain meaning
to the phrase, it ill comports with the Christian law. But there
is one sense in which ambition will never mislead men; that is the
ambition to be good, and the ambition to do good in relieving from
evil those who are grievously suffering, and who have not deserved the
evils they endure: that is the ambition which every British statesman
ought to cherish. But, as I have said, for the last two years
especially--and even for more than two years--more or less, I
think, during the whole active period of the foreign policy of the
Beaconsfield Administration--the sympathies of these now free peoples
of the East have been constantly more and more alienated; and except,
perhaps, in a single case which I am glad to cling to--the single
and isolated case of Eastern Roumania--except this case, the whole
strength of England, as far as they have been conversant with it, has
been exercised for the purpose of opposing their best interests.

Well, gentlemen, while free peoples have been alienated, a despotic
Power has been aggrandized through our direct agency. We have
more than any other Power of Europe contributed to the direct
aggrandizement of Russia and to its territorial extension. And how?
Not by following the counsels of the Liberal party. The counsels
of the Liberal party were the concert of Europe--the authoritative
declaration of the will of Europe to Turkey. Had that authoritative
declaration been made, we believe that it would have been enforced
without the shedding of a drop of blood. But even suppose there had
been bloodshed--I am not now speaking of that, I deem it too absurd
a supposition; but suppose that force had required to be used, that
force would not have given to Russia, or to any other Power, a
claim to territorial extension. We chose to cast upon her the
responsibility; and she, making great exertions and great sacrifices
of blood and treasure, advanced this claim to territory, the
consequence of which is that she has received by that a great access
of military reputation, and likewise an enlargement of her borders,
which we have been the main agents in bringing about.

Now I think I anticipate your feelings when I say that although we,
and all of us, say that the rights of a Power, the rights of a nation,
ought not to be invaded because it happens to have the misfortune of
a des