Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/81



sponsibility for the government of Turkish terri- tory in Asia; and all that was undertaken without the consent and knowledge of the British people, to be done at their expense by the blood of their children. Mr. Gladstone concluded: " There is but one epithet which I think fully describes a covenant of this kind. I think it is an insane cove- nant.'*

Disraeli had formerly said of Palmerston: "With no domestic policy, he is obliged to divert the attention of the people from the consideration of their own affairs to the distraction of foreign politics. His scheme of conduct is so devoid of all political principle that when forced to appeal to the people, his only claim to their confidence is his name." The same language could with equal justice have been applied to Beaconsfield himself. His speeches in defense of his foreign policy are usually a superficial appeal to imperialist passion, and deal in such phrases as "What is our duty at this critical moment?" "To main- tain the empire of England." (Loud cheers.) "Empire" is taken for granted as covering every- thing desirable, but the actual relationship of these adventurous foreign policies to the welfare and true development of the English people is never reas