We
do not go to make war on its people, but to rescue them from the
oppression of a military tyranny which at present extinguishes every
free voice and chains every man of the people of that country. We do not
go to make war on the Mohammedan religion, for it is amongst the
proudest distinctions of Christianity to establish tolerance, and we
know that wherever the British rule exists, the same respect which we
claim for the exercise of our own conscientious convictions is yielded
to the professors of every other faith on the surface of the globe. We
do not, my Lord Mayor, go to repress the growth of Egyptian liberties.
We wish them well; for we have no other interest in Egypt, which cannot
in any other way so well and so effectually attain her own prosperity as
by the enjoyment of a well regulated, and an expanding freedom."
Mr. Gladstone's confidence respecting the early termination of the war
in Egypt was somewhat justified by Sir Garnet Wolseley's victory at
Tel-el-Kebir, but the future relations of England with Egypt were still
left an open subject of discussion and speculation. Again, November 9th,
at the banquet at the Guildhall, to the Cabinet Ministers, Mr. Gladstone
spoke. He called attention to the settlement of the troubles in the East
of Europe, congratulating his hearers on the removal by the naval and
military forces of the Egyptian difficulty, and calling attention to
Ireland, compared its condition with that of the previous March and
October, 1881, showing a diminution of agrarian crime to the extent of
four-fifths.
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