Page:Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy, 1738-1914 - ed. Jones - 1914.djvu/330

 some assurance that this country will not be dragged into a war as it was in the Crimean case. He admits the policy of the Government is intended to be that of non-intervention; but he fears that it may be possible to drift into a quarrel without intending it. But I suppose when the hon. member speaks of intervention he means either armed intervention or intervention of such a nature as, though not immediately, yet in ultimate result might lead to an appeal to physical force. If that is what he refers to, all I can say is that if the speech which Lord Derby about a week ago delivered in another place—if the opinions which I myself have invariably expressed on that subject, not merely when occupying the position I now hold, but for many years past when these questions were under discussion—if, what is infinitely more important, the unanimous feeling (for I believe it to amount to unanimity both of Parliament and the people out of doors)—the feeling that we ought not to be dragged into these Continental wars—if all these things, taken together, do not constitute a guarantee that ours will be a pacific policy, a policy of observation rather than of action—then I am unable to understand in what language a stronger guarantee can be given. But if what is meant is intervention of a different character—intervention in the shape of friendly advice tendered by a neutral Power, then I think the question whether intervention of that kind is under particular circumstances desirable or not is a question which must necessarily be left to the discretion of the executive Government. I am not personally very fond of the system of giving advice to foreign countries. I entirely agree with what has