LORD GRANVELLE'S SPEECH. L ORD GRANVILLE, said the Prime Minister on
Thursday night, completely made up by his attack on the Govern- ment, in his speech on the Address, for his complete silence during the Long Vacation. That must have been a mere fashion of speech in Lord Beaconsfield, who has never, we think, shown himself so sterile and so unequal to the occasion as he was on the opening of Parliament for the present Session. For Lord Granville's speech, though a remarkable one, was not a very long one, was entirely free from any sort of virulence, was marked by his characteristic amenity of manner, and though studded with sharp points, was certainly not more studded with such points than the speeches of Mr. Disraeli, when leader of the Opposition, uniformly were. Lord Granville has never spoken better than he did on Thursday night, but though always temperate, he has never spoken more temperately. His speech was the only element of real interest in the House of Lords' debate. But it was of real interest. He brought out the leading features of the policy of the Opposition with so much force, that we are inclined to think there must be something in the advice to prune your words, that they may condense to firm purpose within the soul. Lord Granville certainly expressed, in his significant criticism of the Government, a strong purpose, in strong, because carefully clear and definite, words. The leader of the Opposition never gushes as Lord Beaconsfield often gushes, of malice aforethought, when he has the Throne or the electorate of a great city in view. Pro- bably Lord Granville cannot gush. But certainly he can show the great strength in true moderation with singular force, and he showed on Thursday night the great strength of a policy of moderation, in strong contrast to the great weakness of a policy of bluster and a policy of hazard. One of the most effective points of Lord Granville's speech was his defence of the action of the Liberal Govern- ment on the point on which they have lately been attacked on every Tory platform, and especially by Lord Bury, . their former supporter, though now Under-Secretary for War under the Tories,—their mode of dealing with the Russian denunciation of one article of the Treaty of Paris, in 1870. Lord Granville showed that the article denounced by Russia was not in itself ever regarded, even by Lord Palmer- ston, as one which could be permanently upheld ; that it had been condemned most strongly at the time of the Treaty of Paris by Mr. Gladstone, who was Premier in 1870; that it had since been given up by every European Power which signed the Treaty of Paris, except England ; and that, in a word, the only objection to annulling it was the manner in which Russia chose to liberate herself from an international engagement, without the consent of those with whom that engagement was made. Lord Granville showed how firmly the Liberal Government resisted this attempt; how absolutely they refused, in spite of urgent solicita- tion, to give the smallest hint as to what they would do till this high-handed proceeding had been formally retracted ; and how, when this retractation had at length been formally made, how, far from simply cancelling the article which they themselves, no less than Europe, regarded as temporary, and no longer tenable, they substituted for it another provision much more favourable to Turkey, and one which would not injure the dignity of any Power concerned. Lord Granville also showed that no member of the Liberal party had condemned the particular article of the Treaty of Paris thus cancelled so vigorously as had the Conservative leaders the m selves, the present Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, and that so far from attacking the Liberals for not maintaining that article, the Tory Opposition of that time ventured no further criticism than that they might have done better to be abso- lutely passive in the matter, instead of proposing the substitute they did. Well, nothing could illustrate the Liberal foreign policy better than this condemned action of Lord Granville. It did not make a parade of wishing to do what, without the consent of Europe, could not be done. There was no bluster. There was the utmost dignity and firmness. And there was complete success in extracting a full retractation of what was lawless, and substituting a good provision for a bad. And Lord Granville, no doubt intentionally, gave as a pendant to this picture, a sketch of the present Government's action in relation to Russia on the subject of Batoum and Bess- arabia. Lord Salisbury issued a Circular, which made all Europe think those demands were amongst the points most sharply contested by England. He got great credit for his outspoken denunciation of these demands. He then went and concluded secretly with Russia an arrangement bind- ing himself not to oppose them ultimately, if the Congress were otherwise willing to accept them, and Russia got her way in every respect. The present Cabinet, in the meantime, took credit, and unfortunately got credit, with the English people both for the bluster which they made, and for the peace which resulted from their not insisting on their own words when it came to the point.
And everything in Lord Granville's speech tended to the same point—to a policy of reasonable firmness both at home and abroad ; to considering carefully what it was reasonable to insist on, and whatnot; to requiring no more than you meant to insist on, but insisting on all you had once declared your purpose to insist on, with unbending resolution. Lord Granville applied this, as we have said, to our foreign policy. He applied it, also, to our colonial policy, when he condemned strongly the licence allowed to Sir Bartle Frere, who had been retained in office after defying the Government, and after rush- ing into a war which he was told that he had no authority to make. Lord Granville might have illustrated this weakness by contrasting with it his own strength, in a matter in which we, at least, held and still hold him to have been wrong, his policy to New Zealand. Whether that policy was right, as he thinks, and as the issue tends to support him in thinking,—or wrong, as we held at the time, and think it perfectly reasonable still to hold,—it was at least firm. What he said he would do, he on the whole, and with very slight concession, did. He stood firm and held the reins firm, when it was no easy matter to do so. He did not attack the policy of the Colonial Government, and yet uphold it. He did not try to get credit both for condemning it in theory and supporting it in practice.
Again, as regards Home-rule. Lord Granville exhibited the same strength of moderation. He does not try, like Lord Beaconsfield, to get enormous credit for excommunicating the Home-rulers, while he makes no scruple of conferring on them favours, such as Lord Beaconsfield conferred on Mr. King Harman. He condemns any attempt whatever to set up a new Irish Parliament, as a great reversal of the true policy of the United Kingdom ; but he admits as cordially that a great deal of the local business of the United Kingdom is done by Parliament, for which Parliament is quite inadequate ; and that the evil results are natur- ally more felt in Ireland than anywhere else. While he censures strongly, therefore, the movement for separation, he admits his desire to concede the only kind of local govern- ment which makes the demand for separation in any degree reasonable. Lord Beaconsfield, on the other hand, flourishes, —for the benefit of Liverpool,—about "the falsehood to their Sovereign and their country" of those who talk of Home-rule and yet allows his colleagues to make much of distinguished Home-rulers, and to promote them to positions of trust in the Empire. That is the vice of the present Government. It is an intemperate and unbridled Government, which neither con- trols its subordinates nor its own passions ; but which, like most intemperate and unbridled characters, acts weakly at the last, when its passion is spent and its peril is full in view.
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