the French
invasion of that country under the Bourbon restoration. They were sung
in Greece, when he constituted himself the first champion of the Greek
regeneration, which has now taken effect in the establishment of a
free and a progressive country, with, I hope, a bright future before
it. They were sung in Portugal, when Mr. Canning sent the troops of
England to defend it against Spain. Nay, even poor Denmark, unhappy as
has been its lot, does not owe the unhappiness of that lot to England,
for the British Government of Lord Palmerston, in which I was
Chancellor of the Exchequer, did make a formal offer to France that
we should join together in forbidding the German Power to lay
violent hands upon Denmark, and in leaving the question of Denmark's
territorial rights to be settled by a process of law. We made that
proposal to France, and the reason that it was not acted upon was
that, most unfortunately, and, I think, most blindly, the Emperor of
the French refused it.

These are the acts of the Liberal party. The Liberal party has
believed that while it was the duty of England above all things to
eschew an ostentatious policy, it was also the duty of England to have
a tender and kindly feeling for the smaller States of Europe,
because it is in the smaller States of Europe that liberty has most
flourished; and it is in the smaller States of Europe that liberty
is most liable to be invaded by lawless aggression. What we want
in foreign policy is the substitution of what is true for what is
imposing and pretentious, but unreal. We live in the age of sham. We
live in the age of sham diamonds, and sham silver, and sham flour,
and sham sugar, and sham butter, for even sham butter they have now
invented, and dignified by the name of 'Oleo-Margarine'. But these are
not the only shams to which we have been treated. We have had a great
deal of sham glory, and sham courage, and sham strength. I say, let
us get rid of all these shams, and fall back upon realities, the
character of which is to be guided by unostentatiousness, to pretend
nothing, not to thrust claims and unconstitutional claims for
ascendancy and otherwise in the teeth of your neighbour, but to
maintain your right and to respect the rights of others as much as
your own. So much, then, for the great issue that is still before us,
though I rejoice to think how many of our fellow subjects in England
have acquitted themselves well and honourably of their part in
the