me,’ he said, ’in the time of the Revolutionary War, when the Revolutionary War turned very much upon events in Italy, we appropriated Malta.  At a previous time when the interests of Europe had been concentrated a great deal upon Spain, at the time of the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV, we stepped in and appropriated Gibraltar.’  And this is positively advanced as a doctrine by the Secretary of State, that wherever there is a serious conflict among the European Powers or the European peoples, we are to step in, not as mediators, not as umpires, not as friends, not to perform the Christian and the truly British art of binding together in alliance those who have been foes, but to appropriate something for ourselves.  This is what Ministers have done, and this is what the majority have approved.  Aye, and if, instead of appropriating Cyprus only, they had appropriated a great deal more—­if they had taken Candia too, if they had taken whatever they could lay their hands upon—­that majority, equally patient, and equally docile, and not only patient and docile, but exulting in the discreditable obedience with which it obeyed all the behests of the Administration—­that majority never would have shrunk, but would have walked into the lobby as cheerfully as it did upon the occasions of which you have heard so much, and would have chuckled the next day over the glorious triumph they had obtained over factious Liberalism.  I have done with these details, and I will approach my winding up, for I have kept you a long time.  I have shown you—­and I have shown you in a manner that our opponents will find it very difficult to grapple with, though I have stated it briefly—­I have shown you what your six millions were used for; and I say without hesitation that the main purpose for which your six millions were used—­the main change which was effected—­was to throw a million or a million and a quarter of people inhabiting Macedonia, who were destined by the Treaty of San Stefano for freedom and self-government, back under the lawless government of Turkey.

All these things have been going on.  I have touched some of them in detail.  What has been the general result, what is the grand total, what is the profit, what is the upshot, what is the balance at the end?  Worse than ever.  When Her Majesty’s Government came into office their Foreign Secretary declared that the state of our foreign relations all over the world was thoroughly and absolutely satisfactory; and what is the declaration of the Prime Minister now?  He says this is one of the most formidable crises ever known, and that unless you keep the present Government in power he cannot answer for the peace of Europe or the destinies of the country.