Mr. Gladstone's speech on the Treaty, explaining the motives 'which
had actuated the Government even more powerfully than the merely formal guarantee,—for guarantees must often be inter- preted with a certain allowance for changing circumstances, and the ensemble of obligations which they contain,—was exceedingly ntriking, and in his best tone. "Belgium," he said, "has set to Europe an example of a good and stable government, gracefully -associated with the widest possible extension of the liberty of the people. Looking at a country such as that, is there any man who does not feel that if, in order to satisfy a greedy appetite for .aggrandizement, coming whence it may, Belgium were absorbed, the day that witnessed that absorption would hear the knell of public right and public law in Europe." And we, he adds, if we could quietly stand by and witness such an act, should be par- ticipators in the guilt. It has been said, with absurd disregard to -facts, that Mr. Gladstone did not find this out till France was already getting the worst of it. In point of fact, Lord Granville's pro- posal was communicated to both France and Germany on Saturday, :30th July, six days before the battle of Weissenburg—the first French reverse—was known in this country, and five before it -occurred.
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