LORD BECON FIELD ON ENGLAND'S ATTITUDE.

Inangahua Times, Volume III, Issue 73, 5 February 1877, Page 2

LORD BECON FIELD ON ENGLAND'S ATTITUDE.

Wo think most Englishmen outside the sphere of party politics at Home, and sufficiently cool beaded, to look at tbo aspect vt affair»in Europe through other than scnumeutal spectacles, will be proud of tlio language uttered by the Earl of Beaco-isiield at the Lord Mayor's banquet, and vfl feel that it has the old national ring in it, and that it is worlliy of a people with a thousand years of illustrious history behind it, and with an empire to guard and keep which imposed upon it responsibilities 'commensurate with its greatness and a tone of feeling as lofty as (lie eminence to which it has attained. <( England," said he, " is the country of all others whose policy is peace. We have nothing to gain by war. Wo are essentially a non-aggressive power. There are no cities and no provinces that Ke desire to appropriate. We hare built up an empire of which we are proud, and our proudest beast is this, that the empire subsists as much upon sympathy as upon, fprce. But if the struggle comes, it should also- be recollected thai there is no country bo prepared £er wrr as Eogbmd— (toui

and reHewed clieers)— because there is no country whose r^soaroes are so great In a righteous causo— and I trust it will never embark in war except in a righteous causo, a cause that concerns her liberty, her independence, or her empire—England is not « eooutry that will have to enquire whether she can enter upon a second or third campaign ; in a righteous cause England is commence a fight that will not end until right is done." These are words that are calculated "to show the rulers and statesmen of Europe that England is something more than a nation of shop-keepers.} that the ledger I and the day book wre not all |n all ; and I that the English people have not yet severed themselves from the traditions of the past, nor renounced the determination to remain one of the leading powers of the world for the time to come.