It was in relation to this part of Mr. Gladstone's
speech that Mr. Cavendish Bentinck, who loves a chance of appearing to answer greater men, especially when they have no oppor- tunity of reply, retorted on Wednesday, at the annual dinner of the West Cumberland Conservative Association, that Mr. Gladstone had been accused of being a friend' to Russia by the best right in the world,—the right to speak the truth ; and that what the accusation meant was, that Mr. Gladstone had proposed assisting the Russians in their de- mands upon Turkey, instead of thwarting them, and that no- thing could better prove his friendship for Russia. Mr. Caven- dish Bentinek may himself be unable to see that you do more to advance the relative weight and influence of a rival, by try- ing to thwart him when he is right, than by co-operating with him under the same circumstances ; but Lord Beaconsfield at i least, who is not quite so dense as Mr. Bentinck, has well under- stood this axiom. Instead of thwarting the Reform movement in 1867; hetook it into his own hands, and carried it beyond what the Liberals had ventured to propose. In classical phrase, he " dished the Whigs." That was very much what Mr. Glad- stone proposed to do in relation to the action of Russia in the cast of Europe, and there can be little doubt that the result would have been similar.
