How is it possible for any House of Commons to perform its duty if it consents to be treated in such a way,—­if it consents not only to exercise every patience and forbearance, which must often be the case before intelligence can be produced, but if it consents to be dragged through the mire by being set to pronounce formal judgement upon national emergencies of the highest import, and to do that without the information necessary for a judgement; and when it is believed that information has been withheld, no notice whatever is taken of the fact, and perfect satisfaction is felt by the members of that majority whom you are now called upon to try?

Well, that is the withholding of information, gentlemen; but there has been even worse than that—­worse, I am grieved to say it.  I cannot help saying it without being in a condition to trace home the charge if this was thought needful, and I am very unwilling to fasten it upon any one without that full and demonstrative evidence which the case hardly admits of; but I will say this, that news—­that intelligence—­has been falsified to bewilder and mislead to their own peril and detriment the people of this country.  You remember, gentlemen, what happened at the outbreak of the great war between France and Germany in 1870.  At that time there existed for a few days a condition of things which produced in that case excitement of expectation as to the points upon which the quarrel turned; and you remember that a telegram was sent from Berlin to Paris, and was published in Paris, or rather, if I recollect aright, it was announced by a Minister in the Chamber, stating that the King of Prussia, as he was then, had insulted the ambassador of France by turning his back upon him in a garden, where they had met, and refusing to communicate with him.  The consequence was an immense exasperation in France; and the telegram, which afterwards proved to be totally and absolutely false, was a necessary instrument for working up the minds of the French people to a state in which some of them desired, and the rest were willing to tolerate, what proved to be a most disastrous war.  That war never was desired by the French nation at large, but by false intelligence heat was thrown into the atmosphere, party feeling and national feeling to a certain extent were excited, and it became practicable to drag the whole nation into the responsibility of the war.  I remember well at that time what passed through my mind.  I thought how thankful we ought to be that the use of methods so perilous, and so abominable—­for the word is not too strong—­never could be known in our happy country.  Yes, gentlemen; but since that time it has been known in our happy country.  Since that time false telegrams about the entry of the Russian army into Constantinople have been sent home to disturb, and paralyse, and reverse the deliberations of Parliament, and have actually stopped these deliberations, and led experienced statesmen to withhold their action because of this intelligence,