chise should be
discussed till the whole scheme was before the House. This amendment
was seconded by Lord Stanley in a speech which Lord Malmesbury
pronounced to be 'the finest and most statesmanlike speech he ever
made.' In June the Government were beaten by a small majority on an
amendment of Lord Dunkellin substituting rating for rental; a few days
later Lord Russell resigned and Lord Derby for the third time became
Prime Minister.

As on the two former occasions he was in a minority, though the
temporary secession of a portion of the Liberal party gave him a
precarious power. Once more, too, he took office amid the convulsions
of a European war, for the war of Prussia and Italy with Austria had
just begun. In the new Ministry Lord Stanley was Secretary for Foreign
Affairs. In his election address he gave the keynote of his policy by
insisting in the strongest terms that England should observe a strict
neutrality in European controversies. Her vast Indian and Colonial
Empire, he said, made her a world apart and threw upon her duties and
responsibilities that taxed all her energies. She had duties also to
her poorer classes at home, whose condition was not what we could
desire; and by simply existing as a free, prosperous, and
self-governed nation, we should do more for the real freedom of Europe
than by any policy of meddling or war.

As far as his own department was concerned Lord Stanley's
administration during this short Ministry was both eminently
consistent and eminently successful. It is true that this pacific
Minister made the Abyssinian war for the release of some imprisoned
British subjects, but he only did this after every peaceful effort to
procure their release had proved abortive, and it was almost
universally recognised that there was no honourable alternative open
to him. During his ministry the Luxemburg question brought France and
Prussia to the very verge of war. It fell to the task of Lord Stanley
to mediate between them, and he did so with a success which certainly
adjourned, though it could not ultimately avert, the great catastrophe
that burst upon Europe in 1870. No success could have been more
gratifying to him, and he was fond of repeating the saying of Canning
that 'If a war must come sooner or later, for my part I prefer that it
should come later than sooner.' Lord Russell bore an ungrudging
testimony to the 'tact and discretion' Lord Stanley displayed in this
negotiation. In the same sp