articles in a respectable quarterly,
than doctoring other people's articles with concomitants from a reptile
fund.

III

On the vital question of the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine, Mr.
Gladstone's view was easy to anticipate. He could not understand how the
French protests turned more upon the inviolability of French soil, than on
the attachment of the people of Alsace and North Lorraine to their
country. The abstract principle he thought peculiarly awkward in a nation
that had made recent annexations of her own. Upon all his correspondents
at home and abroad, he urged that the question ought to be worked on the
basis of the sentiments of the people concerned, and not upon the
principle of inviolability. He composed an elaborate memorandum for the
cabinet, but without effect. On the last day of September, he records:
"_Sept. 30_: Cabinet 2-1/4-6. I failed in my two objects. 1. An effort to
speak with the other neutral Powers against the transfer of Alsace and
Lorraine without reference to the populations. 2. Immediate release of
Fenian prisoners."

To Mr. Bright, who was still prevented by illness from attending cabinets,
and who had the second of the two objects much at heart, he wrote the next
day:--

I send for your private perusal the enclosed mem. which I proposed
to the cabinet yesterday, but could not induce them to adopt. It
presupposes the concurrence of the neutral Powers. They agreed in
the opinions, but did not think the expression of them timely. My
opinion certainly is that the transfer of territory and
inhabitants by mere force calls for the reprobation of Europe, and
that Europe is entitled to utter it, and can utter it with good
effect.

The ground taken by him in the cabinet was as follows:--

A matter of this kind cannot be regarded as in principle a
question between the two belligerents only, but involves
considerations of legitimate interest to all the Powers of Europe.
It appears to bear on the Belgian question in particular. It is
also a principle likely to be of great consequence in the eventual
settlement of the Eastern question. Quite apart from the subject
of mediation, it cannot be right that the neutral Powers should
remain silent, while this principle of consulting the wishes of
the population is trampled down, should the actual sentiment of
Alsace and Lorraine be such as to render that language