ole controversy that was now
drawing to an end:--

I think we have lost greatly by the conclusion of this convention;
I think we have lost very greatly indeed the sympathy and respect
of the nations of Europe. I do not expect or believe that we shall
fall into that sort of contempt which follows upon weakness. I
think it to be one of the most threadbare of all the weapons of
party warfare when we hear, as we sometimes hear, on the accession
of a new government, that before its accession the government of
England had been despised all over the world, and that now on the
contrary she has risen in the general estimation, and holds her
proper place in the councils of nations. This England of ours is
not so poor and so weak a thing as to depend upon the reputation
of this or that administration; and the world knows pretty well of
what stuff she is made.... Now, I am desirous that the standard of
our material strength shall be highly and justly estimated by the
other nations of Christendom; but I believe it to be of still more
vital consequence that we should stand high in their estimation as
the lovers of truth, of honour, and of openness in all our
proceedings, as those who know how to cast aside the motives of a
narrow selfishness, and give scope to considerations of broad and
lofty principle. I value our insular position, but I dread the day
when we shall be reduced to a moral insularity.... The proceedings
have all along been associated with a profession as to certain
British interests, which although I believe them to be perfectly
fictitious and imaginary, have yet been pursued with as much zeal
and eagerness as if they had been the most vital realities in the
world. This setting up of our own interests, out of place, in an
exaggerated form, beyond their proper sphere, and not merely the
setting up of such interests, but the mode in which they have been
pursued, has greatly diminished, not, as I have said, the regard
for our material strength, but the estimation of our moral
standard of action, and consequently our moral position in the
world.

(M188) Lord Beaconsfield lost some of his composure when Mr. Gladstone
called the agreement between England and Turkey an insane convention. "I
would put this issue," he said, "to an intelligent English jury: Which do
you believe most likely to ent