Mr. Gladstone continued on these lines, and he did not tire of admiring the prodigious efforts which we had made and which we were daily making to resist an enemy who had every advantage over us. But when I thanked him for his words and asked him for more effective and less Platonic assistance than pure admiration, he answered me as his colleague Lord Granville had done, by an absolute “non possumus.” England wished for France’s success, but she could not leave the strict neutrality she had maintained from the beginning of the struggle. The Government could not unnecessarily throw the country into such an adventure and expose it to a formidable war. And the English statesman expounded his system with great warmth and remarkable eloquence. Parliament had closed its last Session with a formal declaration on the part of the Cabinet, which might be resumed in the single word: “Peace.” The Government had solemnly promised to an approving country that it would assure it the precious boon of peace, and it had no right to take away all the advantages and all the blessings which peace sheds on a rich, strong and industrious nation. The Government were bound by their promise and they would be guilty of a crime if they wished to break it. Mr. Gladstone is a philosopher and a historian. He likes to go back to principles and to look at questions from the lofty point of view of morality. After pointing out that his Government had given the country an undertaking that it would maintain peace, he discussed the question of war in general. “War is a terrible disaster for humanity. Are there any circumstances which may justify a Government throwing a country into war, and what are such circumstances?” Mr. Gladstone desired to narrow the limits within which war might be considered justifiable as much as possible, but he thought that a great country had the right to make war whenever the _cause_ was a _just_ one. Consequently he considered that a Government may engage the country in a just war, but only on condition that the nation has given its consent. I accepted this principle; the proposition seemed to be a good one for my case, and I let him continue without interruption. After his exposition I brought the conversation back to the actual state of affairs by observing to Mr. Gladstone that the war between France and Germany had greatly changed in character since the overthrow of the Empire.