WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE (1809-98) The Neutrality of Belgium (House of Commons, August 8 and 10, 1870) [By kind permission of Mr. H.N. Gladstone and Messrs. Wyman & Sons, Ltd.] Right Principles of Foreign Policy (West Calder, Midlothian, November 27, 1879) The Aggrandizement of Russia (West Calder, Midlothian, April 2, 1880) [By kind permission of Mr. H.N. Gladstone.] BENJAMIN DISRAELI (1804-81) Denmark and Germany (House of Commons, July 4, 1864) BENJAMIN DISRAELI, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD (1804-81) Treaty of Berlin (House of Lords, July 18, 1878) [By kind permission of Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.] SIR EDWARD GREY (1862- ) Negotiations (House of Commons, August 3, 1914) [By kind permission of Sir Edward Grey and Messrs. Wyman & Sons, Ltd.] HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH (1852- ) Infamous Proposals (House of Commons, August 6, 1914) [By kind permission of Mr. Asquith and Messrs. Wyman & Sons, Ltd.] DAVID LLOYD GEORGE (1863- ) International Honour (Queen's Hall, London, September 19, 1914) [By kind permission of Mr. Lloyd George and Messrs. Methuen & Co., Ltd.] WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM MARCH 8, 1738 THE CONVENTION WITH SPAIN You have been moved to vote an humble address of thanks to His Majesty, for a measure which (I will appeal to gentlemen's conversation in the world) is odious throughout the kingdom. Such thanks are only due to the fatal influence that framed it, as are due for that low, unallied condition abroad, which is now made a plea for this convention. To what are gentlemen reduced in support of it? First, try a little to defend it upon its own merits; if that is not tenable, throw out general terrors--the House of Bourbon is united--who knows the consequence of a war? Sir, Spain knows the consequence of a war in America; whoever gains, it must prove fatal to her; she knows it, and must therefore avoid it; but she knows England does not dare to make it; and what is a delay, which is all this magnified convention is sometimes called, to produce? Can it produce such conjunctures as those you lost, while you were giving kingdoms to Spain, and all to bring her back again to that great branch of the House of Bourbon which is now thrown out to you with so much terror? If this union be formidable, are we to delay only till it becomes more formidable, by being carried farther into execution, and more strongly cemented? But be it what it will, is this any longer a nation, or what is an English Parliament, if, with more ships in your harbours than in all the navies of Europe, with above two millions of people in your American colonies, you will bear to hear of the expediency of receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatisfactory, dishonourable convention? Sir, I call it no more than it has been proved in this