not be worth twenty-four hours' purchase. I protest against that statement. With all my heart and soul I protest against it. A statement more exaggerated, a statement more extravagant, I never heard fall from the lips of any member in this House. (Mr. Osborne: Napoleon said it.) Whatever my hon. and gallant friend's accurate acquaintance with the correspondence of Napoleon may induce him to say, I may be permitted to observe that I am not prepared to take my impression of the character, of the strength, of the dignity, of the duty, or of the danger of this country, from that correspondence. I will avail myself of this opportunity of expressing my opinion, if I may presume to give it, that too much has been said by my hon. and gallant friend and others of the specially distinct, separate, and exclusive interest which this country has in the maintenance of the neutrality of Belgium. What is our interest in maintaining the neutrality of Belgium? It is the same as that of every great Power in Europe. It is contrary to the interest of Europe that there should be unmeasured aggrandizement. Our interest is no more involved in the aggrandizement supposed in this particular case than is the interest of other Powers. That it is a real interest, a substantial interest, I do not deny; but I protest against the attempt to attach to it the exclusive character which I never knew carried into the region of caricature to such a degree as it has been by my hon. and gallant friend. What is the immediate moral effect of those exaggerated statements of the separate interest of England? The immediate moral effect of them is this, that every effort we make on behalf of Belgium on other grounds than
