Here we have a foreseeing and a far-seeing policy. Not a point of this forecast but has engaged, or will soon engage, national attention. With what courage and sagacity did Disraeli hand on the torch of Bolingbroke, who, first of English statesmen, had emphasised the significance of Gibraltar, who foretold England’s mission as “a Mediterranean power,”[119] and pictured her then scanty colonies as so many “home farms”! None can now doubt the sagacity; and if any doubt the courage, they have only to peruse the warnings of that commercial Cassandra, Mr. Bright, who, during the manufactured reaction of 1879, unconsciously justified Disraeli’s predictions of seven years before. After cataloguing his “annexations” like an auctioneer, he thus proceeded to stir passion and impute motives-- “... All this adds to your burdens. Just listen to this: they add to the burdens, not of the empire, but of the 33,000,000 of people who inhabit Great Britain and Ireland. We take the burden and pay the charge. This policy may lend a seeming glory to the Crown, and it may give scope for patronage and promotion, and pay a pension to a limited and favoured class. But to you, the people, it brings expenditure of blood and treasure, increased debts and taxes, and adds risk of war in every part of the globe.” Is sense more conspicuous than charity in this onslaught? Has it not been proved penny wise, pound foolish? Could a better instance be adduced of a contrast between England as an emporium and Great Britain as a united empire?[120] In many respects I honour Mr. Bright. He at least had the courage of his honest convictions. He was against war altogether; but in being so he opposed the instincts of rising nationalities and tried to lull Great Britain into a fool’s paradise of international exhibitions. It is now asserted that Russia could not advance through Persia to India without a bristling series of bayonets. This is not to be wished, but is it to be feared? Of “Peace at any price,” Disraeli said with truth--and truth in the interests of general peace--that it was a “dangerous doctrine, which had done more mischief and caused more wars than the most ruthless conquerors.” What happened? Mr. Bright at a bound converted Mr. Gladstone. It was a mutual necessity. Neither of them without the other could have swayed the commercial classes and “the lower middles.” Mr. Gladstone was Don Quixote; Mr. Bright, Sancho Panza. Mr. Gladstone appealed to the nation; Mr. Bright, with sincere power and definite ideals, to a class. Mr. Gladstone appealed to the customs and institutions which he heroically assailed; Mr. Bright attacked more directly and without even the show of sympathy. Here Mr. Gladstone was Girondin; Mr. Bright, Jacobin. Mr. Gladstone’s conviction of being “the legate of the skies,” his electric temperament, devout genius, practical fervour and “connection,” both idealised and popularised the doggedness and the narrowness of Mr. Bright’s democratic doctrine.