Lord Granville's speech chiefly dwelt on the satisfaction with -which
Mr. Cobden would have regarded his success in keeping this English people, the " moat combative" of existing races, out of the war, and in showing the difficulty of doing so he turned aside to quiz rather cleverly the author of ",Dame Europe's School :"- "" Dignitaries of the Church wrote little tales for school children, ,sold not by tens or hundreds, but by tens of thousands, which .appeared to me to contain only one moral, and that was that it was disgraceful and humiliating for this country to conduct itself industriouslyand peacefully, while any other two nations were 'fighting, and while one, as always must happen, was not so sue- scessful as the other." The Ministers had been all but accused, Lord Granville said, of showing a want of ingenuity and skill in 'not managing to involve us iu a contest. The important point practically, however, iu Lord Granville's speech was his declara- tion that, however anxious the Cabinet might be to be useful to France in her difficulty, there was one thing they would not do,— " renew negotiations for a fresh Treaty of Commerce based upon a retrograde principle."
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