On Foreign policy, Sir S. Northcote's remarks were still better
in tone. In relation to the Suez Canal, he observed that the Government had not taken its line from any desire to favour an exclusive and selfish policy in relation to the Canal, but from the hearty wish to secure to all nations the same freedom of communication which they desire for England. If the Govern- ment associate themselves with M. de Lesseps' great enterprise, it is in the intention not to thwart, but to promote it, and with the strong desire to do full justice to the enterprising man who brought the work to completion and to his associates. England's foreign policy is "not a policy of aggrandisement, not a policy of meddling, not a policy of selfishness;" we guard our own interests firmly and are right in doing so, but England is the apostle of freedom of every kind, and it is her object in all she does to extend to others all the benefits she receives for herself. She must do nothing mean. Her policy must be " noble and magnanimous," and then the time will never come when England will fall in the scale of nations. Well, there are certainly Conservatives and Conservatives. Sir Stafford Northcote could not have described better than he did, in delineat- ing the true Conservative policy, the policy which would have branded the issue of such a circular as the Fugitive-Slave Circular not only as an error, but as a crime.
Previous page
