Lancaster Standard and County Advertiser. — 1898-02-11 (Lancaster, Lancashire, England)

THE DEBATE.  Any a_ss can be a Little Englander. The neee%ary quabfiestions, so far as we ,an judge, are a small brain, an attenuated intellect, a positive dislike to the growth and expansion of our empire, a sublime indifference to the retention of our forv:p trade and national prestige, and a ready flew of language bitterly hostile to the present Ad. ministration. But it requires a man cf b,ain and intellect, of enlarged perceptions and widened views, and with the gift of dipkinaey to a rare degtm, to preserve the balance ~f the nations, to steer Britain's interests safely thrcugh tler shoals of international statecraft, to uphold our own interests and yet not ta weaken those of rival Powers, and to do d all with infinite tact and boundless pArl humour. If any reader doubts these asscr. Lions, he has but to read the report of Tuesday's and Wednesday's debates in Impend Parliament. "Imperial." forsooth, when its walls were made to listen to the wail: awl petulant cries of those who would sell thc.r country's best interests for less even than that for which Esau sold his birthright! Think of the spectacle of men like Lord Kimberley, Sir William Harcourt, and others who take their cue from them, lift* up their hands in affected horror and crang down the direst retribution upon the Guarnmeat for the just, the humane, and the truli British policy which they have been carrying cut these last few months ! They wculd have had us go to war with the whele ,f Europe for the sake of the Armenians ; they would have had us withdraw from the Gmoert of Europe and leave Crete to her fate; they would have had us fling down the gauntlet to Turkey and espouse the muse of Greece, whose people deserved everything they got because of the insufferable of the nation at large; they would ha. • I:ad us stand and sec the Frontier tribes if 1;,.1ia break every promise, violate every pledge, and harass our outposts without a single re monstrance from us; they would have had us give over the rich Soudan and its millions of persecuted inhabitants to a tyrant whose soul is steeped in blood guiltiness and lecherousness, and whose infamy transcends that of Nero; and finally they would h , had us, at the moment when Russia I Germany made an advance in the Far E.haul down our flag, pack up our boxes, .: I beat sat ignominous retreat from a 1.1 whose ports were opened to tha trade if world by British influence, with 131-,:.,n arms, and with British blood!  And these people, these craven-soulcti cr  . . tures, are members of an " Imperial" Parlament, and have the effrontery to stand AI in public and gibe and sneer at those w;r,,e souls are above these meanness:es and who..t conception of Imperialism is to preserve in. tact the heritage won by so much BMW' blood and treasure! The history of the decline and fall of Great Britain will not-I lo be written front the day when power pa's into the hands of the Little England pray. Happily, they are not yet in power. Loid Salisbury and .11r. Balfour still cenimand the situation. and, judging frem thor speeches of this week, so long as they nln.;:u at the head of affairs, so long will British interests thrive. Lord Salisbury, for instance, adheres to his intention to remain the Conceit He admits its weakne,s. 1,55 then, it was not his fault. Britain was Ina one, and had one vote, and if the maj,rity were craven enough to refuse to mercy I:1C Sultan, the minority had to SI:IX:lit. Ti have rebelled and taken up the work singlehanded would have been the road to salt. suicide. As to the Soudan he justifies the advance upon the Khalda, and hopes the day will not be long before Khartoimi is 1,covered. We join in that, and hope that recovering it our troops will remember that they are striking a blow at the murtierem of Gordon. and are helping to rid the earth of one of the vilest usurpers who ever claimed dominance over the minds of men. Then came the China question, which is perbar of chief interest at the present nicinent. The foolish fears of those timorous people ~ht` have believed the absurd rumour that tho British Government had resolved upon a policy of scuttle will now be eahnett N" such intention ever existed. "We have not surrendered one iota of our foreign rights:, and we do not intend to surrender Meat So says Lord Salisbury. Then Mr. Ralfeur, in the Lower House, goes more into detail, and winds els by saving that the Government " had had an explicit declaration both fret' the Govenunent of Germany and that of Russia that they agreed with the view the English Government took." So that all this talk about Germany n.l Russia conspiring to drive us out of China is mere moonshine. So far front wanting t"