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Only at the end of last week a writer in the Pall Pall—said that there was no war-party: how we must all wish that this were true even though many of us should seem to have been striking strokes in the air of late if it be true: but it is of no use deluding ourselves; it is worse than no use, it is dangerous: and I must needs say it is untrue that there is no war party in England, and that we all know it as well as the man who wrote that article in the P.M. or the editor that allowed it to be published.  I say that there is a war-party—nay a party of war at any price: let us look at it sirs, tearing from our eye any veil of hypocrisy that might hide the real aspect of things from us: let us see what composes this party so that we may know where & what our strokes are falling: trust me not on air, but on a danger real and substantial enough: let us look on our foes & count them: not that we may be discouraged but that we may be encouraged, that we may strike heartily against the thing we hate, and now at last it may be make an end of it for ever: let us make those words of the Pell Mall G as true of the future as they are untrue of the present or the past—let us return good for evil, & make that gentleman of the PMG a prophet.  Could we but first push out of our way a sort of friends; good friends or radicals, who are still living in the year of 48, & think that Russia is no less; who still perhaps have serious hope of the regeneration of Turkey by means of the Ottoman and are the only people in the world, I suppose, who do: what can we say to these men who wish to see Russia the great absolutist power humbled, even at the expense of their allying themselves to all that is reactionary in this country, to men who for their part have no doubt whither their instincts should lead them: I say what can we say

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to liberals who would involve us in a Tory War, the successful result of which would be the restoration of absolutism over peoples arisen in just insurrection, in a Tory War in order that Russia might be humiliated: I think they ought to listen to us when we say, we who wish that we may never speak again rather than say one word in favor of absolutism in any country, in Russia, in Turkey or in England, we liberals we radicals, do not wish to humiliate the Russia [section crossed out] that is now freeing her brethren from anarchy sustained by massacre which is carrying order and civilization into wasted and barbarous Asia: and once more I think they ought to listen to us when we bid them look [crossed out] who are their fellows, and what motives what tactics they have: for the others compose [illegible] parts of the war party, the resistance of which the Pall Mall devils are soon told over: 1st I blush to have to name them a set of men whose interest it is either that we should sustain Turkey at any price, or that we should have a war with some one or another: a trust of men whose mouthpiece is the D.T. These are the men who have allied themselves with all that is ignorant and senseless in the country deluding them with bawling out about the decadence of England & the like: these are they whose tireless industry has so sickened us for the last eighteen months, who are so devoid of any show of reason in their arguments that we have all been inclined to pass them by in contempt; thinking can such rubbish as this be dangerous?  Unluckily it seems it can be: it appears that there is still a lingering feeling in the country capable of being whipped up into a froth by the geniuses of the D.T. a feeling that it is necessary for England to have an enemy

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and which seeing no other country that it can put in that position must needs fit upon Russia: I do believe that the loudly expressed hatred of Russia so common in peoples mouths, people of all the ignorant classes you understand has just this base to stand upon, and nothing firmer: and yet we must not think it otherwise than dangerous for all that: Sirs it is this many voiced instrument that the D.T. plays upon daily making such sweet music as you all know, and doubtless deceiving people abroad who believe that sound to be the voices of England. 

Again sirs this ignorance and—rampant lionism if I may so call it that cries out for an enemy a rival on any terms is played upon by another set of men: [crossed out] the set of the cultivated reactionists: they I think believe in the singular virtues of the Ottaman the irreclaimable views of the Russian to exactly the same extent as those who are fanning the flame of war for the sake of interest but they are genuine in one matter I suppose: that is a deep hatred for all that is on the face of things generous & high-minded & at the same time popular: I suppose a great many of us must have acquaintences among these men nor will it be a great effort of our memories to recall the hatred & loathing they were eager to express at the outburst of popular indignation that followed the revelation of the horrors of Batak & the rest: they were forced to keep pretty quiet in the public prints they revenged themselves & let out their bile in private: these are the men whose hatred for a great & single-hearted statesman for our leader M. Gladstone rises to the dignity of a passion nor can I wonder at it, remembering his career, and how he had cast aside prejudice after prejudice in favour of naked truth & justice: for these men these Pall Mall Fanatics seem to be influenced by no hereditary prejudice, but have been drawn into their position, by a littleness of soul & narrowness of vision, that I know no parallel 

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for. perhaps I am saying too much about them: perhaps they are not very dangerous enemies: their influence is chiefly over a class of society too cowardly & shamefaced to be either of much harm or good: you remember their representative journal is written by gentlemen for gentlemen. nevertheless their malice wounds me, & I think it is a shame for us all that we should have to bear it 

Ah well I suppose tis wrong to wish an artificially long life even to ones enemies: and yet I sometimes wish some of them could live for a few hundred years to see what will happen to the world after our time. 

So much for the blind liberals, for those whose private interests, lead them to cry out for war, for those whose little-minded and narrow pride of would be intellect constrain to take up that cry: there are left us the great party of the Tories, who, with some, nay I daresay many, honourable exceptions, who as a party no short have taken up what has turned out to be the side of war.  One says sometimes that they need not have made it a party question: and yet their instincts are right; if they had foregone the occasion, they would no longer have been Tories, they must have fraternized with the liberal party: take rather the general behaviour of their rank & file in Parliament; or better still the common talk of the people they represent: and I repeat you will soon find that their instinct was right, that they were bound to love the poor Turks (as I have heard them called of late) unseemly as that love appears to us: I believe & rejoice in believing that the fall or the curtailing of the Ottoman power in Europe, [crossed out] the successful insurrection of oppressed peoples will be a blow to that spirit which still exists among us; nay is so strong that it is possible to have in parliament not merely a cautious & conservative 

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party, but even a majority of the very residuum of reactionists, a party whose action if they durst could be represented by the words keep them down: I say that to such a residuum the fall of irresponsible and corrupt rule in Bulgaria, the confirmation of the freedom of those peoples who have already revolted will be a heavy blow, and if they could prevent the blow falling they would do so as we know by entangling us in foreign war: all the more as they and we well know that amid the confusion & excitement of such a war many things will be forgotten here at home many reforms put off: nay they may well hope that reaction will flourish amidst the rank growth of unreason and violence that is sure to spring up amidst the heat of an unjust foreign war. 

One more element I must mention as composing the war-party, since I have engaged to speak without hypocrisy; that element is the court; [crossed out] I say we must face the fact, not to me a very dreadful one, that it has thrown what influence it possesses into the scale against the intelligence against the thoughtfulness of the English Nation. 

Let me recapitulate for a moment: let us see what we have against us: 1st those liberals who fear & hate Russia unreasonably.  next all those whose are private interests [illegible] them to drive us into a war:  next the would be intellectual oligarchy the cultivated reactionists—then the mass of ignorance and Philistinism that the industry of these two last have worked upon.  then the Tory residuum, the confessed reactionists: finally what is called society & the court. 

This is a long list and comprises I doubt some very stubborn & thick-skinned persons: yet I do believe there is so great a body of intelligence in this country, so many people that can be moved by an appeal to their love of freedom and sense of justice, that formidable as our list

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sounds it would not have been very dangerous but for one circumstance: indeed the greatman of that ignorance prejudice would scarcely like to take the responsibility of making war on their own shoulders pleased as they would be if somebody would declare war for them: now that dangerous circumstance is that our stupidity has put a man over our heads who is perhaps of all men with any pretensions to be called statesmen the most unfit to be there at a critical time: a man with scarce any qualities in him but shiftiness & ambition: a man without genius but with a sort of galvanic mockery of it, that makes him the most fantastic object in Europe: it is a shame to us to have to have to talk about such an inconsiderable man: but I say our own stupidity our own sloth have set him where he is, and in that position it is he [illegible] the heart of the war-party: if he says yea all his henchmen in the papers write flaming war articles; if he says nay then there is no war-party & all the rest of it: [crossed out] it is hard to believe that he really has any policy in spite of all the hints that have been thrown out from time to time: any policy but one—to wear us out and our resistance to folly by shifting about the same ring of grounds for ever coming back to the same point again—that is the point of the whole thing: it is just that which I chiefly want to say to say to you: we have nothing for it but to oppose steady patience in resistance to his shiftiness: neither he nor any other minister I believe would dare to make war with even a large minority strenuously [crossed out] resisting it: but if we tire and show an appearance of not caring about it; out will fly insults to Russia: she will be virulated into something rash; some cause of quarrel will be formed something that Lord B will get people to raise a shout over—and—the worst will come perhaps: and who will be able to mend matters after the first shot is fired? who knows where we shall drift to them.  But you above all things I beseech you not to drift: make up your minds to what 

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is fair & right, and stick to that: above all things let us have courage, and believe that every man whether he be what is called political or not may be of some use: do not let any of us allow either down-heartedness or false shame stop him from doing his utmost to get rid of the burden our own folly has laid on our backs: [crossed out] I hope I think that all those meetings held all over the country [crossed out] ending with what we are doing today, what we shall do this evening will do their work and finish with the party of war at any price: what dangers that we have passed throug during the past 3 weeks we shall probably never know the dangers that lie ahead we shall know in a few days: let us meet them calmly and with all determination in the name of peace good will & justice

Transcribed by E. Vande Krol, University of Iowa