To this Lord Salisbury had nothing to reply, except by
taunt- ing Lord Derby with his devotion to destructive criticism, and with being the kind of statesman who would inevitably have resisted the extension of our empire to India, if he had lived in the days when the Indian Power was gradually growing up ; and by saying that the obligations of the new Protectorate are not half so alarming as the obligations under which we already lie to defend any portion of the Queen's own territories, if attacked. " If you have made up your minds to avoid responsibility altogether, you have made up your minds to renounce empire." This is very like saying that because a railway company must always defend its own rights if attacked, on pain of utter bankruptcy, it may safely take upon itself to defend all the rights of any inferior and much more crazy and risky railway company, whose interests appear to be partially bound up with its own,—which does not seem to be very good sense. Where Lord Salisbury ceased to be personal, his argument collapsed.
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