Page:Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy, 1738-1914 - ed. Jones - 1914.djvu/440

 with England, and so approving the policy of the noble lord with respect to Denmark and Germany that she voluntarily offered to act with us in endeavouring to settle the question—why was France two or three months afterwards so entirely changed? Why was she so cold, and ultimately in the painful position of declining to act with us? I stop for a moment my examination of this correspondence to look for the causes of this change of feeling, and I believe they may be easily discerned.

Sir, at the commencement of last year an insurrection broke out in Poland. Unhappily, insurrection in Poland is not an unprecedented event. This insurrection was extensive and menacing; but there had been insurrections in Poland before quite as extensive and far more menacing—the insurrection of 1831, for example, for at that time Poland possessed a national army second to none for valour and discipline. Well, Sir, the question of the Polish insurrection in 1831 was a subject of deep consideration with the English Government of that day. They went thoroughly into the matter; they took the soundings of that question; it was investigated maturely, and the Government of King William IV arrived at these two conclusions—first, that it was not expedient for England to go to war for the restoration of Poland; and, second, that if England was not prepared to go to war, any interference of another kind on her part would only aggravate the calamities of that fated people. These were the conclusions at which the Government of Lord Grey arrived, and they were announced to Parliament.