On Wednesday the Mayor of Liverpool entertained at a banquet
the three Cabinet Ministers who are also representatives for Lancashire constituencies, namely, Colonel Stanley, Mr. Cross, and Lord Sandon. Colonel Stanley dwelt on the fact that there are times " when it is wise to be bold, as well as times when it may be also bold to be wise." "If you want to avoid collision, you must keep your own side of the road ; but it is well, at least, to make that clear to the person who is liable to meet you." "This is no time, nor has it been for some months, when by a deprecatory attitude, by entreaty, or persuasion, we could have held the position which on some occasions we thought ourselves entitled to hold in the Councils of Europe." Colonel Stanley mistakes the issue. We do not know that any party in this country was in favour of the course which the Minister of War here repudiates. What was maintained, and we think justly, by those who knew their own mind among the Opposition, was that in the recent war the Government mistook friends for enemies, and enemies for friends ; that it courted collision with Russia, in- stead of with Turkey ; that it chose the side of the road on which Russia was coming, to keep clear, instead of the side of the road
on which Turkey was resisting all that Europe had been compelled to advise. And further, we complain that England did not "let other countries know distinctly what we meant to do," but on the contrary, changed her mind flagrantly from time to time, and ended by making the Armenian danger, which at one time Lord Salisbury had very justly ridiculed, the great peril against which it was needful, at any risk to the country, to provide.
