XVI - THE CESSION OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS

Summary

TO THE EDITOR OF THE “DAILY NEWS.”

Sir,—The cession of the Ionian Islands may now, I presume, be regarded as a settled thing, whatever difficulties of detail as to the mode and conditions may remain to be surmounted. One useless dependency is taken from our burden of empire; one issue of wasteful expenditure is staunched; one act of moderation has been freely performed; and now, I suppose, the prestige, the glory, the power of England are gone for ever. Those who love England and her cause hang down their heads; her enemies and the enemies of her cause exult. We are sunk in the scale of nations.

Let the advocates of aggrandisement tell us whether in the whole history of English diplomacy a more successful stroke has been made than this. People talk of moral force, of its superiority to physical force, and of the advantage of having it on your side. Now they see what moral force means. Now they see what it is, in an age when opinion is mistress of the world, to touch the heart and the reason of mankind.

“The case of the Ionian Islands,” said Sir W. Molesworth, “is a capital instance of the manner in which public money has been thrown away upon worthless Colonies on the absurdest pleas. In 1815 the great Powers of Europe, not knowing what to do with the free and independent states of the Ionian Islands, placed them under the protection of Great Britain.