§ BARON HENRY DE WORMSasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he still adheres to the opinion expressed by him in his speech at Glasgow on the 6th December 1879, that the purchase of the Suez Canal shares was a "delusion," and a "financial operation of a ridiculous description;" and, whether, seeing that the present value of the Suez Canal shares is officially stated to be £8,826,000, he proposes to take steps for realising by their sale the accrued profit of £4,826,000?
MR. GLADSTONEThe manifest object of the hon. Gentleman's Question is to obtain from me a confession, which I am sorry to say he will fail in obtaining. I am not disposed to make any confession whatever on the subject. I do not wish to repeat all that was said in a very important discussion. My objection to a Question of this kind is, that if a person is not prepared to confess, he cannot do otherwise than seem to revive matters on which I have no desire to go back. I will simply draw this distinction—that all the censures I bestowed on the operation at the time, or the period of the Election, had no reference to the financial operation, considered as a financial operation, conceived and executed by a stockbroker. I took no objection of that kind. I have been from the first a recommender and promoter of the Suez Canal, and was one of those who first encouraged M. Lesseps when he came to this country to persevere in the face of all opposition. The objection I had was that the operation was a complex one, and I cannot recede from that opinion, though I think it would be invidious now to repeat the reasons on which that opinion was based.