‘The strategic importance of the Euphrates valley railway’ [‎6] (17/204)

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absorb Constantinople, and destroy our old ally the Empire
of Austro-Hungary. And they would as calmly look on if
France occupied Belgium and Antwerp to-morrow, ever with
the cry on their lips, " Oh, it's no concern of ours; it's all
right, it will last our time, and aprbs nous h dAluge." And
yet these men venture to call themselves statesmen ! !
I admit statesmanship in a constitutional country is not
an easy role to play well. Statesmanship means a policy
which is far-seeing, and the doing certain things apparently
useless or disagreeable at the present moment for a great
benefit hoped to be obtained hereafter. Sound statecraft is
good husbandry,—you sow as you hope to reap in the fulness
of time. The present policy is sowing the storm, for we
shall reap the whirlwind. The government of a constitutional
country is often too apt to think of what will make them
popular to-day at no matter what cost to the State hereafter;
hence, instead of educating public opinion so as to enable it
to rise to the level of the importance of a subject and to be
a competent judge of a question, they lower themselves
and their acts to the level of popular ignorance. This is
most pernicious, and pandering to ignorant clamour, led
and fostered by professional agitators. I hold it to be
the bounden duty of the Government of a country constituted
as England is at present, where the popular element is so
strongly represented, to systematically inform the public, by
the various means they possess, of the previous history of, the
actual points, advantages, and disadvantages, together with
future probable results of, any great question of foreign
policy. The common sense of the English people, if properly
informed on the facts, will rarely go wrong, and will be a
beacon of light to guide the bark of State through the
troublous waters of foreign policy. But this sort of course
does not suit the class of statesmen and politicians to whom
I refer—they have their own ends to serve—or those of their
party, and the real good of the country, and its national
honour and prestige are sacrificed. The country is paraded,
and these gentry go on the stump, and by garbled statements
of the case, suppressing facts here, and adding flights of
imagination there, they so mislead the public, who have no