After acknowledging with great cordiality the attitude of the Free
Churchmen in reference to the decision which he had felt it his duty to take to put by the question of the Scotch Kirk, Mr. Gladstone went on to hope that the Tory foreign policy might be as like the Liberal as it was possible to be, but that the treatment of the Tories by the Liberals in relation to foreign policy might be as unlike the treatment which the Liberals had
received at the hands .of the Tories as it was possible to be. He heartily supported Lord Salisbury in his favourable treatment of the Bulgarian Union ; protested with great elequencengainat the coquetting with Protection which was going on ia the Cam mission on Trade, declaring that it would be as easy to uprootthe Peat- land Hills and plant them in the Firth of Forth as to unsettle the national policy of Free-trade ; and he concluded by pointing out that party organisations are more tools in the hands of the nation, and that what is to be decided is this,—which of the two tools is the more useful to the nation for the work it has in hand That question should be answered rather by reference to deeds than " to the mere froth of light phrases and of sanguine minds." Only judge the two parties by the experience of the past, by the history of the country, and that would determine best which of the two parties is at present the more serviceable for promoting the advantage of the nation.
