On Saturday last, at Oxford, Mr. John Morley addressed an
important speech to the members of the Palmerston Club. After denouncing Liberal Imperialism and Im- perialism generally as leading to militarism, he declared that if the electors wanted that article they would know to what warehouse to go, and would prefer the iron jar from Birmingham to the porcelain and earthenware jars from more fastidious factories. He went on to declare (we quote from the Manchester Guardian, whose report is far fuller than that of any Of the London dailies) "that none of the alleged wrongs of the Outlanders, nor all the wrongs put together, were worth the desolation of a single stricken British or Boer home." That is, of course, a matter of opinion; but we may point out that if a similar view had prevailed in England in the seventeenth century we should never have got rid of "the sullen tyranny of Charles and Laud," the North would have allowed the South to break the Union, with a kindly "erring sister, go in peace." Again, Garibaldi and Mazzini and their supporters must be con- demned as bloodstained fanatics. We know indeed of no better receipt for making tyrannies than the attitude of mind which Mr. Morley's words must encourage. In truth, Mr. Morley's horror of war has clouded his usually clear intellect.
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