n
the case of Ireland Gladstone again relied on the same principles, but
another force was necessary to carry the day, a force which no man can
command, the force of time. In international dealings generally
Gladstone was a pioneer. His principle was not precisely that of Cobden.
He was not a non-interventionist. He took action on behalf of Greece,
and would have done so on behalf of the Armenians, to save the national
honour and prevent a monstrous wrong. The Gladstonian principle may be
defined by antithesis to that of Machiavelli, and to that of Bismarck,
and to the practice of every Foreign Office. As that practice proceeds
on the principle that reasons of State justify everything, so Gladstone
proceeded on the principle that reasons of State justify nothing that is
not justified already by the human conscience. The statesman is for him
a man charged with maintaining not only the material interests but the
honour of his country. He is a citizen of the world in that he
represents his nation, which is a member of the community of the world.
He has to recognize rights and duties, as every representative of every
other human organization has to recognize rights and duties. There is no
line drawn beyond which human obligations cease. There is no gulf across
which the voice of human suffering cannot be heard, beyond which
massacre and torture cease to be execrable. Simply as a patriot, again,
a man should recognize that a nation may become great not merely by
painting the map red, or extending her commerce beyond all precedent,
but also as the champion of justice, the succourer of the oppressed, the
established home of freedom. From the denunciation of the Opium War,
from the exposure of the Neapolitan prisons, to his last appearance on
the morrow of the Constantinople massacre this was the message which
Gladstone sought to convey. He was before his time. He was not always
able to maintain his principle in his own Cabinet, and on his retirement
the world appeared to relapse definitely into the older ways. His own
party gave itself up in large measure to opposite views. On the other
hand, careful and unprejudiced criticism will recognize that the chief
opponent of his old age, Lord Salisbury, had imbibed something of his
spirit, and under its influence did much to save the country from the
excesses of Imperialism, while his follower, Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, used the brief term of his power to reverse the
policy of rac