Mr. Vernon Harcourt also addressed the Druids. He believed that
we were entering on that "period of dark eclipse " called foreign policy, a policy of which he had never seen any good come. Mr. Cardwell was the martyr of one of those panics which always ended in increased establishments, but never in increased efficiency, a fact to be explained only in one of two ways. Either the asser- tion of inefficiency is unfotmded, or the system which wastes such sums must be unsound. He should like to settle which hypo- thesis was the true one before he embarked in any more expen- diture. Mr. Vernon Harcourt then diverged into the " Historicus" vein. He held that our relations with America were not foreign relations but home relations ; that the Alabama question might be settled by introducing a new principle into neutral law; that the right to navigate the St. Lawrence should be conceded to the United States—though it was useless without the control of the canals ; and that the fishery question should be settled by negotiation. At present the fisheries legally belonged to the Canadians. Mr. Harcourt, we should add, expressed himself full of admiration for the heroic resistance offered by the French people to their invaders.
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