54 CONCLUSION. 



beneath a debt so enormous that nothing but her own recuper- 

 ative power could have borne. 



" Only by renouncing that policy of intervention in the affairs of 

 other States which has been the cause of all her wars, will 

 England be able to avoid financial embarrassment. 



" The Diplomatists and Ministers of England must be restrained 

 from taking part either by Treaties or protocols in the ever- 

 varying quarrels of Continental Powers." 



Mr. Bright, in closing one of his powerful speeches delivered in 

 Parliament in opposition to the Crimean War, used these memorable 

 words : — 



" The past events of our history have taught me that the inter- 

 vention of this country in European Wars is not only un- 

 necessary, but calamitous ; that we have rarely come out of such 

 intervention having succeeded in the objects we fought for ; 

 that a debt of ;^8oo,ooo,ooo sterling has been incurred by the 

 policy which the noble Lord approves,* apparently for no other 

 reason than that it dates from the time of William III. ; and 

 that, not debt alone has been incurred, but that we left Europe 

 at least as much in chains as before a single effort was made by 

 us to rescue her from tyranny. I believe if this country, 

 seventy years ago, had adopted the principle of non-intervention 

 in every case where her interests were not directly and obviously 

 assailed, that she would have been saved from much of the 

 pauperism and brutal crimes by which our Government and 

 people have alike been disgraced. This country might have 

 been a garden, every dwelling might have been of marble, and 

 every person who treads its soil might have been sufiSciently 

 educated. We should indeed have had less of military glory. 

 We might have had neither Trafalgar nor Waterloo, but we 

 should have set the high example of a Christian nation, free in 

 its institutions, courteous and just in its conduct towards all 

 Foreign States, and resting its policy on the unchangeable 

 foundation of Christian morality." 



* Lord Palmerston. 



