Politics & government > Political speeches in Scotland in 1890

FOURTH SPEECH
my belief is that, considered as a whole, it does credit to Lord Salis¬
bury. I do not say that critics may not pick holes in it. I do not
say that everything in it is satisfactory, or that it will of necessity
work satisfactorily; but I say that, upon the whole, I believe he did
the best that the circumstances of the case permitted. Well, there
are two subjects, both of them standing difficulties—one of them is
the Newfoundland fisheries, and the other is the military occupation
of Egypt. We have carefully abstained from saying a single word
that could create difficulties for him either in the one or the other,
and so, gentlemen, you may depend upon it—so we shall continue
to act. It is impossible, unfortunately, when you have touched
foreign policy, to pass away from it without looking to the east of
Europe.
Russia.
And here I am not going to blame the Government, but I am
going to speak some words of regret and dissatisfaction with regard
to what we hear of things passing in the Empire of Russia : I am
convinced that some part of what is going on in that empire would
be abhorrent to the feelings of all its best subjects—of all such men
as the Russian Ambassador in England, of all such men as the
Russian Foreign Minister in St. Petersburg, and of all such men as
the Emperor of Russia himself. But I am grieved to say that the
accounts we receive of the civil oppression that is now apparently
being practised upon the Jews, and the accounts we receive, even of
personal and corporal cruelty in certain cases, inflicted upon them,
are to the last degree painful and repulsive. I earnestly hope
that we may be of use in bringing some knowledge of these questions
to the authorities in Russia—for remember, gentlemen, that perhaps
the capital merit among all the merits of free government is that it
ensures publicity, whereas the greatest of all the disadvantages of
despotism is that it is almost essentially and inseparably allied with
secrecy, and that the ruler seldom knows of the abuses that arc
going on under his official sanction. I do trust that we may be
favoured with better accounts from that quarter in matters with
respect to which we have a strong sentiment, for although, gentlemen,
you have not many Jews resident in Scotland, yet you have some.
One of that race at the present moment excites your warmest and
liveliest sympathy. In England we know them well, and I am
bound in truth and frankness to say that we have every reason to
esteem them highly. Well, now, there is another great political
question in Russia. You have heard of Finland. Finland is a State,
small comparatively with Russia, but Finland has long enjoyed—