§ MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT,who had given Notice of the following Motion:—
That, in the opinion of this House, an alliance between Her Majesty's Government and the German Powers will afford the best guarantee for the interests of Great Britain and for the peace of Europe,said, the community in India would read with alarm the concluding words of the right hon. Gentleman. It was a bold thing to say that hon. Gentlemen in the House of Commons were better acquainted with the needs and dangers of our great Empire in India than those who had spent their lives among the people of that country, and who were enriching it with their enterprize and their capital. It would be unfortunate if the Ministry who had produced anarchy in Ireland, and anarchy in the Transvaal and in Zululand, and anarchy in Egypt, and anarchy wherever their policy had had effect, should produce anarchy in India. That certainly would be the legitimate result of their policy. The right hon. Gentleman made some unfortunate allusions to the question of slavery and the Ionian Islands. He might have remembered that it was himself who demanded compensation for the slave owners of the West Indies, while he refused it to the landlords of Ireland; and that Prince Bismarck had stated that the cession of the Ionian Islands by the right hon. Gentleman marked the beginning of the decadence of the Empire. The right hon. Gentleman's speech was based on fallacies from beginning to end. The right hon. Gentleman indulged in some glorification with regard to the conduit of the Greek 1540 negotiations. The Greek nation had been involved unnecessarily in an expenditure of £7,000,000 and a dangerous mobilization, and then compelled by the British Government to accept three-fifths of what they had promised to Greece. As a matter of fact, the settlement of that question was brought about, not by Her Majesty's Government, but in spite of them. The extraordinary claim of the right hon. Gentleman in that respect was only equalled by his reference to Ireland. He told the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition that he had forgotten what the Government had done for Ireland. The Prime Minister himself seemed to have forgotten that the Conservative Party left Ireland in a state of peace and prosperity. ["Oh!"] Well, there were only 63 crimes in Ireland in the month preceding that in which the present Government took Office; but in the last month of the same year—December—there were no less than 867 crimes—that is, a greater number than in the whole 12 months of 1879. ["Oh, oh!"] If the hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds) found his remarks offensive, he would suggest that the hon. Member should go and dine.
§ MR. SPEAKERI must draw the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that he is not addressing the House upon the Motion which he has placed upon the Paper.
§ MR. ONSLOWsaid, he rose to a point of Order. He wished to ask the Speaker whether he had heard the frequent interruptions of the hon. Member for Stockton indulged in, not only on this occasion, but on many others? It was out of respect to the Prime Minister and the House that hon. Members on his (Mr. Onslow's) side had not risen to call attention to the matter before.
§ MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, for his part, he always treated the hon. Member for Stockton with the contempt his discourteous interruptions deserved.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe conduct of the hon. Member for Stockton is not the Question before the House.
§ MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, he would take no further notice of such interruptions. The reason why he put on the Paper the Notice to which the Prime Minister referred in contemptuous terms was because there was a failure on the part of the Government to 1541 carry out the policy of their Predecessors. His Notice was to the effect that an alliance between England and Germany afforded the best guarantee for the interests of Great Britain and the peace of Europe. For a country like ours, with its extended Empire, its small Army, and the temptations it afforded to ambitious Governments, the question of alliance was a vital one. But alliances must be based upon mutual interests; and the wisest policy was to seek that alliance which should prove the strongest. England, Germany, and Austria, the three great pacific States, were threatened, on one side, by the ambitious despotism of Russia, and, on the other, by the restless democracy of France. Although he was by no means hostile to France, it must be acknowledged that she was a natural rival of ours in the Mediterranean and Egypt; and there could be no doubt that Russia occupied a still more hostile position towards us in Asia. Recognizing this fact, Lord Beaconsfield formed, at Berlin, an alliance with the German Powers, and upon that he based his policy; but, at the same time, he maintained good relations with France. Could the same be said of the relations of the present Government with Franco, whose efforts at aggrandizement were threatening our power and influence from one end of the world to the other? Her Majesty's Government had brought things to this pass; they had abandoned the strong German alliance received from their Predecessors, and had thoroughly alienated Franco. The President of the Local Government Board—
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member has a Notice of Amendment on the second reading of the Bill. In order to bring himself in Order in moving this Amendment, it is necessary that his observations should be relevant. The hon. Member's observations have not yet been relevant.
§ MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTventured to point out that, in previous years, great range had been allowed on the second reading of the Bill, and that, on that occasion, the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War, and the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, had raised important questions of general policy. The anxiety to substitute a working alliance with France for the alliance with the German Powers was 1542 very largely, if not entirely, due to the unfortunate influence of the President of the Local Government Board, whose French proclivities were so well known, and whose removal from the post he formerly occupied as Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was of great advantage to the nation. In spite of the assurances of the right hon. Gentleman, the course of events proved that there was no effectual understanding between the two countries. Owing to the anxiety of the Government to work with France there had been a great weakening of our power and influence in Europe. And yet our relations with France could be described only in the words of the Prime Minister as "grave and painful." The Prime Minister, for purposes of his own, had put the country in possession of certain vague statements in support of the views he wished people to entertain; but he had refused to give information with respect to the recent insults offered to British subjects in Madagascar. The condition in which we were left with regard to that question was most unsatisfactory. The first point to which he wished to call attention was, that the flag of our Consul at Tamatave had been hauled down by the French. Another point was, that the French Admiral had boarded a British packet ship without declaration of war, seized her mails, and had endeavoured to seize our Consular despatches; and a third, that British subjects had been arrested. It had been clearly shown that Mr. Shaw was not permitted to see his wife, or to communicate with the Commander of the Dryad, who was acting as Vice Consul. That being so, he was much surprised that the Prime Minister should say that there was nothing to show that Mr. Shaw was denied any means of defending himself. The state of affairs in Madagascar ought to give us serious concern, because the action of the French might affect our trade with Mauritius. Such matters were of vastly more importance than many of the clap-trap questions which Ministers had placed in the forefront of their policy. In other quarters of the world our trade was also threatened. For example, if the French were to conquer and hold Annam and Tonquin, our interests might suffer greatly. Whether or not British trade between Tonquin and Annam was to be impeded, and whether or not our trade 1543 with Mauritius was to be paralyzed, were very serious questions. Then, on the West Coast of Africa——
§ MR. SPEAKERI must again point out to the hon. Member that he is not addressing himself either to the Bill before the House or to the Amendment of which he has given Notice.
§ MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTexplained that he had begun his remarks with the proposition that the subserviency of the Government to the French alliance had involved this country in troubles all over the world; and he now desired to point out how much injury the aggressive policy of France was doing to the country, and that they ought to have preferred an alliance with the German Powers. Such an alliance would have prevented the troubles which had arisen from a different policy, and would have enabled the Government to deal effectively with French insults and aggression. He would now sum up the results of the European policy of the present Government. The alliance of the Government with France had enabled that country to obtain Tunis, and had led to the refusal of the Commercial Treaty, to the Egyptian War, and to the aggression of France in Tonquin, in the Congo, and in Madagascar, to which he had already referred. By all of these our trade had been detrimentally affected. He advocated a close understanding, and, if possible, an alliance with the German Powers, who really controlled the policy of Europe at the present time, and were likely to control it for the next 20 years. Never was Germany so strong, so pacific, so secure at home and abroad as at the present time. She had repressed revolution within her land, and had won an almost invincible position in Europe. Our interests were more nearly coincident with those of Germany than of any other Great Power. The Government had now an opportunity of securing the good-will of Germany, Austria, and Italy. As an alliance with those countries would be the best way of safeguarding our interests and securing the peace of Europe, he hoped they would take advantage of that opportunity, instead of continuing their ineffectual and mischievous alliance with the shifty and unstable Republic of France.
§ MR. SPEAKERDoes the hon. Member move his Amendment?
§ MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTI will not, under the circumstances, trouble the House by doing so.