That is in domestic affairs. On foreign politics the cultivated
will be more divided, though the division will not be felt at the polls. With a frankness most unusual in a statesman of such rank, Mr. Gladstone acknowledges serious errors of judgment in the Soudan and in Egypt. He does not describe these errors in detail, and, indeed, he need not, for his evident belief is that we ought never to have entered either of those countries, and his policy is now to evacuate them. The Soudan, indeed, is evacuated ; and Mr. Gladstone declares that our military occupation of Egypt exposes us to be thwarted and humiliated through the claims of other Powers, and causes us to lose that "admirable position in Europe of perfect independence and salutary influence, which nothing but our own errors can put in jeopardy,—an independence given us by the Almighty, and surpassing that of any other State,"—and which can be
used to support freedom, international equality, and the rights of minor States. He would, therefore, quit Egypt " promptly " and without compensation, saying boldly that we deserve not compensation for going there, but retribution. This is out- spoken language, and we cannot adopt it ; but the electors, who are sick of Egypt, certainly will ; and we can go as far as this, that we believe evacuation to be better than the present position of affairs, in which we have all the burden of conquest and none of its advantages, while Egypt has all the misery of subjection and none of its compensations.
