Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/87

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SIR WILFRID LAWSON.
73

have themselves to blame if at last they find themselves at deadly feud with the whole Liberal party. It is perfectly intolerable that such a body of licensed monopolists should be permitted longer to make and unmake governments. To this conclusion has Sir Wilfrid Lawson's persistent efforts brought us; and who shall say it is not a long way?

With regard to Sir Wilfrid's enlightened advocacy of peace principles, no exception whatever need be taken. He is not, so far as I know, a "peace-at-any-price man;" but he is the very incarnation of the righteous spirit of anti-Jingoism. Historically Jingoism is a ghastly recrudescence of all the brutal, bloodthirsty passions of bygone generations. Sir Wilfrid was one of the few members of the House, who, at the moment that we seemed on the very brink of committing the incalculable folly and unforgivable crime of rushing into a second Crimean war, most clearly apprehended the true character of the impending calamity, and courageously pointed it out to Parliament and the country. It is in such crises that true Radicals, genuine patriots, come to the surface. It is not every man who, when such tried friends of freedom and national rectitude as Mr. Joseph Cowen are found fervently preaching the immoral and parochial doctrine of "my country right, or my country wrong," has the fidelity to affirm, "I have a mightier country than you, and a larger interest to protect. The globe is my country, and its entire inhabitants are my countrymen. Eternal justice is the interest which I desire to see conserved." This was the spirit in which Sir Wilfrid spoke when nearly every one else feared to utter words of truth and soberness; and his constancy ought not to be forgotten.