the subject of Extradition, of the Fugitive Slave Circular, the Maritime Contracts Bill, and Local Government, and charging the Government with systematic neglect of the question of local taxation, the Marquis proceeded to discuss the paragraphs relating to the Eastern Question, promising that as this was an inconvenient moment for going into details, in the absence of the papers, and for raising issues which might yet be distinctly raised, he would confine himself to indicating certain points on which the country earnestly desired explanation. At the end of the Session the attitude of the Government might be described as one of active non-intervention, of keeping the ring, and watching the progress of events, "not interfering, and preventing everybody else from doing so.' Then came the remarkable agitation of the recess, as to which the Marquis declared the Ministerial declaration and the Aylesbury speech were mainly responsible for its possible exaggerations. From this attitude of non-intervention the Government departed in September, when Lord Derby wrote his Atrocity despatch and offered mediation, and on this point he asked what steps had been taken to comply with the demands for reparation and punishment made in that despatch, which he said was identical with that proposed by Count Schouvaloff in June, and rejected by the Government in a way which brought on them some responsibility for the Servian War. In tracing the events of the Session up to the Conference, he spoke in terms of severe censure of the Prime Minister's Mansion House speech, and argued that before going into the Conference the Government ought either to have ascertained that Turkey was willing to grant certain reforms, and to secure them by guarantees, or to have come to some understanding with the other Powers as to the ulterior steps they would take in case of Turkey's refusal. As to the Conference, though it had failed in its main object, he agreed that Lord Salisbury deserved, and would receive, the thanks of the country, especially for having restored a good understanding between England and Russia, and for having stated clearly and distinctly to Turkey the relations in which she stood to this country and to the European Powers under the Treaty of 1856. He complained that the refusal of Turkey to comply with the proposals of the Powers was not spoken of in the speech in sufficiently strong terms, and that the withdrawal of our Ambassador was not mentioned in it. What was to follow, he asked, on this rejection of the European proposals? After the recent fall of its author, the Turkish Constitution could not be set up as an answer to the question. The Government could not declare that its responsi bility and duty ceased with the Conference, because the Chanceller of the Exchequer and Mr. Cross, from whose speeches he read extracts, had committed themselves to a contrary doctrine. Neither could it be said that any peace worth having had been secured. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had himself stated at Bristol that, unless the better administration of the provinces was secured,

such a peace would be but a "piece of sticking-plaister over a festering wound." Nothing could be more contrary to the interests of England than that Russia and Turkey should be left face to face, or that Russia should be permitted to take upon herself the duty of enforcing the decisions of the Conference. He was unwilling to believe that the resources of diplomacy had been exhausted; but, above all, he urged on the Government to strengthen in every possible way its concert with the other Powers to obtain the beneficent objects for which the Conference was summoned, reminding the House how the danger to English interests of a war between Russia and Turkey had increased rather than diminished since the time of Canning.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Northcote, making his first appearance as leader of the House of Commons, vindicated the Government on the same principles as Lord Derby. He assured Lord Hartingtou that they did not mean to neglect the minor matters of which he had spoken, and then, as to the Eastern Question, proceeded to maintain that their policy was that of the country. He complained of the systematic misrepresentations of the speeches and declarations of Ministers, denying that they had ever even thought of fighting for Turkey, charging the Opposition with emphasising all that could tell against their own country,(For country read Government, said Lord Hartington, eliciting from Sir Stafford a challenge to test the country on the point), and indicating the purpose and results of the Conference. He recognized the duty of England to the Christian population of Turkey, but warned the House of the difficulties of intervention and the dangers of coercion, insisting that whatever could be done should be done by the common action of the Powers. He spoke of the interests of England as the interests of Europe, and both as the interests of peace, maintained the respect due to treaties, and argued that Turkey's disregard for them was no plea for England, though on the Powers was thrown all responsibility for the rejection of the proposals of the Conference, as he proved by reading a passage from Lord Salisbury's instructions-in spite of a protest from Mr. Gladstone-and said that, while they credited the Porte with a desire for self-reform, the Government and their allies must now consider what course to take in consequence of that rejection.

Mr. Gladstone's speech was a brief vindication of the autumn agitation, which he said had showed the real currents of English opinion, and he declared that he would stand by every word he had said or written on the subject. He regretted that Sir Stafford should still think that the Turks might reform themselves, argued that they had placed themselves outside the treaty of 1856, said that only long and painful investigation had led him to his present conclusion about the state of the Turkish Provinces, and that any scheme which could recognize the independence of the Porte in governing them was a mere delusion. He eulogized Lord Salisbury's conduct sincerely, specially honouring him for his declaration that

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their refusal of the proposals of the Conference must change their position in the face of Europe-and gladly recognized any acknowledgment of England's great responsibility in this, "without exception the most solemn question we have ever had to discuss."

Mr. Gladstone retorted upon Sir Stafford Northcote for his implied suggestions to Lord Hartington to test the opinion of the country by a vote of censure, by suggesting on his side that Sir Stafford and his friends should appeal to the constituencies on the question, which elicited from Mr. Hardy, who in a few words closed the debate (and declined to enter into a detailed discussion till the papers should be produced), the remark that he had no doubt that Mr. Gladstone hoped that such an appeal might have the same result that a similar step on his own part once had.

For some days after the opening of Parliament a sort of armed neutrality prevailed between the two parties in the House on the Eastern Question. Opposition leaders felt their way with careful questions and cross-questions, and efforts to shake the Ministerial position. But such reconnoitres only served to elicit what the production of the despatches and papers proved, that the Government had been really doing their best to keep the peace and to steer the middle course, which on the whole seemed best to meet the wishes of the country, and so disarm the Opposition, though there were many among the Government supporters who regretted that Lord Derby had written during the recess words which agreed with the attitude adopted by the Liberal leaders. The Conservatives continued to claim for their Conference the moral results of improved European understanding, and of the infusion of "common sense" into the Turks. Not so thought the Duke of Argyll, who in a second eloquent speech in the Lords asked the Government if they intended to take active measures to attain the proposed ends of the Conference, security for reform in Turkey, and for peace in Europe, which had been specified in the instructions to Lord Salisbury, which by that time had been laid before the House as the two great ends to be kept in view, and which had been utterly lost. The Duke urged strongly upon the House the danger of leaving the Turkish Question to Russia only, and maintained that to make it a question of European policy, the Government of which he had been one had fought the Crimean War. In its present aspect Turkish independence, not integrity, was at issue; for the rest of twenty years had only developed in Turkey a "Government bad with utter badness," destructive in its Christian Provinces of life, of the fruits of industry, and the honour of families, and the Duke summarized the evidence of the Blue Books as proving it to be a permanent government by Bashi-Bazouks, as far more than enough to account for the present crisis without any of the talk of "Russian intrigues," which was so popular in the mouths of many. Against such a Government he maintaine 1 the right of insurrection, stigmatized the policy of strengthening it as unjust and immoral, and taunted the Cabinet with holding up their hands in depreca

tion of interference in the presence of one of those great movements which determine the history of the world. The result of their faint-hearted negotiations had come to this, that the Porte still believed in England as a friend who meant to do all she could for them, while the European Powers regarded her as a vacillating and timid State without a backbone or a policy. Of Lord Salisbury's mission, the Duke spoke as foredoomed to failure of his suggestion at the Conference of a preliminary Conference from which Turkey was to be excluded, as curiously combining every possible objection, more fitted than anything else could have been to raise the suspicions and to offend the pride of Turkey—and this is the upshot of all our feeble policy, said the Duke, to leave Turkey in the hands of Russia! Austria had always been ready to join England in measures of coercion, but the one obstacle throughout these transactions to a firm and effective concert of the European Powers, has been the determined opposition of Her Majesty's Government to every proposal for effective action.

The Duke ended an effective diatribe with an appeal to Lord Beaconsfield to connect the history of his Government with the memory of some determined measure in favour of Turkey's Christian subjects, and begged him to employ the great influence and power of England to guarantee them, not only, said he, against the odious barbarism of the Turks, but also against the crushing autocracy of the Russian Czars.

Lord Derby's answer to this speech was a renewed plea for a peaceful policy, as the only possible preliminary to the attainment of the second object of the Conference, the carrying out of the internal reforms, which in the face of a threatened war must be impossible to Turkey, and vindicated all that had been done, as having been done consistently with a view to calm the excited feelings of Russia, and in the interests of Turkey and of Europe, to put down insurrection, and to give those reforms a chance.

Among the other speakers of the evening was Lord Campbell, who appealed to sympathy with a nascent constitution as one of the permanent traditions of the Liberal party, and Lord Kimberley, who in a remarkable speech entered a protest in behalf of the old school of statesmanship, and, while expressing his utter horror of the Bulgarian atrocities, argued that in spite of them, English interests in the Eastern Question are great and abiding, and are not to be affected by passing events, however shocking. "I may be, perhaps, somewhat old-fashioned in my views, but I hold the doctrine that it is the interest of this country not to be indifferent to a change which would throw the Turkish dominion into the hands of any European Power. Next to Egypt we have, I think, the greatest interest in Constantinople, which ought not to be allowed to fall into the hands of any preponderant power, for that would impair our position in the Mediterranean, and might threaten the security of our communication with India. We have no need to turn our back upon our

old policy in the East, of which the most typical representative was Lord Palmerston, who, while he steadily maintained the independence of Turkey, strenuously urged on the Porte to reform its administration, and secure justice and good treatment to the Christian population."

In Lord Kimberley's opinion the chief fault of the present Government was the uncertainty of their cause throughout the negotiations—not knowing whether to decide on a policy of intervention or of non-intervention---and perpetually hesitating as to the "designs" of Russia. The same want of dignity he found conspicuous in their management of the Conference, on which they had entered without any idea of what they should do if, as turned out to be the case, Turkey should reject their proposals. "In your despatches," said he, "there is a great deal too much of the contingent policy of inaction. If it is imprudent to announce a contingent policy of action, it is still more mischievous to announce a contingent policy of inaction, just as it is more difficult to prove a negative than an affirmative." Expressing his hope that Lord Derby might be more successful than Lord Salisbury had been, coupled with his utter disbelief in the constitutional reforms of the Porte, he concluded by saying that if affairs in Constantinople were to revert to their position previous to the Crimean war, there would be an upset of the whole condition of the Levant.

Lord Salisbury protested at once against the idea of coercion and the futility of threatening what it was never intended to carry into effect. "This country," he said, "works in a glass hive. On any vital point of English policy, secrecy is non-existent. Therefore, any attempt to conduct our negotiations in such a way as that, while all the time firmly intending not to coerce, we should conceal that intention altogether from the world, would have been far beyond our honesty, and certainly beyond our power." Our present difficulties Lord Salisbury maintained to be the legacy of the Crimean War, which attempted to solve an impossible problem, in the hope that Turkey would reform herself, and explained the Government policy as having been based upon the undoubted affection of England for the old ally whom she had encouraged so long, and her bounden duty to exhaust appeal, remonstrance, and exhortation, before being led even by the terrible events in Bulgaria to turn absolutely round upon her, and assume an attitude which would have been hard even on the part of Russia. "It is our duty," said Lord Salisbury," to be the last of the nations to desert the cause which we formerly maintained." He asked the Opposition, moreover, what sort of "coercion " they wanted, and commented on the absence on their part of any indication of a tangible policy. Our policy, he said—after frankly admitting that he had little faith in his own mission when he started for the Conference, as, owing to the peculiarities of the Turkish Government, any hope of producing good government by