threats was perfectly idle, and he, for one, would be ashamed of threatening a courageous race--is simply this-to try by all possible means in our power to induce Turkey to open her eyes to the danger which surrounds her. It is still our hope, said he, that within the brief time, it may be, of respite, the Porte may be guided by wiser counsels, and in giving the barest rights to those who have suffered so long under its dominion, it will open an era of fairer hope and nobler prosperity to one of the most ancient empires of the world.

Earl Granville again disclaimed all desire to embarrass the Government, but contrasted with Lord Salisbury's attitude towards Turkey his own behaviour at the Conference of London in 1861, when he had drawn a distinct retractation from Russia by declining to let her believe for a moment that England was not prepared to back her demands by action; and Lord Beaconsfield, in concluding the debate, enlarged at some length upon the force and meaning of "independence and integrity," as applied to the Turkish Empire, which he called the distinct—almost traditional-policy, not of England only, but of Europe; while he seemed to imply that Russia had throughout set her heart upon counteracting that policy. It embodies, said he, a principle which always has been accepted by statesmen. The Premier passed in review the various treaties which recognized this principle, the force and justice of which remained to his mind unaltered, and cited Lord Russell in 1862-when the state of affairs was similar to the present-and then Mr. Gladstone, as among its foremost supporters. He then spoke of the Congress of 1871, summoned on account of Russia's declared intention to violate the treaty of 1856, and maintained that nothing had happened since that date to change or modify the situation. He vindicated the prudence of the Government in the recent negotiations, and protested against any course which could lead to the military occupation of European Turkey, and against the Russian scheme of a chain of tributary but independent states, which, as he argued, was just what existed when Turkey first entered Europe. The Premier proceeded to identify himself with Lord Salisbury and his colleagues in the management of past negotiations, but maintained in the House of Lords the substance of his Guildhall speech, by which he was as ready to stand or fall as Mr. Gladstone by his autumn declarations. He had meant neither sneer nor sarcasm when he said that England's was a policy of peace, because she wanted nothing; but that she was as ready as ever to fight for anything that could touch her liberties, her honour, or her Empire, and he believed that was the deep-rooted sentiment of the country and of the Lords. As to Lord Granville's action in 1871, he laughingly remarked that whatever his valour and determination, they offered no parallel to the present case, as Lord Salisbury had gone to Constantinople to mediate and not to threaten, and it would have been idle duplicity to conceal it.

Thus ended the Premier's last vindication of the Government policy, a task which from that time was undertaken in the Upper Chamber by Lord Derby only. From time to time reports became prevalent that Lord Beaconsfield meditated retirement from office, which remained, however, for the present without confirmation.

In the House of Commons, Lord Beaconsfield's distinguished rival made at the same time an attack upon the Government which again tended to prove that they occupied a position now practically unassailable. He charged them again with having intended to fight for Turkey, and having practically led the Turks to count, in extremity, upon the support at least of Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Derby. He argued for the entire freedom of England from any obligation whatever to the Porte; conténding, on the authority of Lord Palmerston himself, that the guarantees of the Tripartite Treaty gave only the right, and not the obligation, of interference in behalf of Turkey; from the last shadow of which the conduct of that State in her revolted provinces had freed us. On the other hand, he altogether demurred to the doctrine which he charged Sir Henry Elliot with basing upon Lord Derby's despatch, that the treaty debarred us from the right of interference in Turkey's internal affairs, which Lord Palmerston called unquestionable; and evoked ironical ministerial cheers by talking of the pusillanimity of his own Government in not making war in 1871(perhaps you would have done quite otherwise, and a very pretty mess you would have made of it) when, however, he argued that there was no proof of maladministration in the Turkish Provinces, or of the breach of faith in regard to promised reforms, which now so completely changed the political situation of Turkey-not the moral, in which she could not change, either for better or for worse. He attributed to the contradictory declarations of recent negotiations, Foreign Office documents, Queen's Speech, and Ministerial orations, the variegated character of a flower-garden; and in conclusion, embodied in the form of a question his opinion that the net result of recent events, at home and abroad, was to leave the hands of the country absolutely untied, and free to act upon the dictates of policy, justice, and humanity.

Mr. Gathorne Hardy's answer to this rather vague indictment was as direct as could be given. He maintained that if Turkey were bound by the treaties of 1856 and 1871 Europe must be bound too. He warmly defended Sir Henry Elliot against any charge of indifference to the welfare of the Christian subjects of the Porte, cited Lord Ellenborough, in 1829, in proof that the Ottoman Empire existed for the benefit of Christian Europe, and argued that the integrity and independence of Turkey was the very basis and forefront of the policy of the late Government, as embodied in the treaties of 1856 and 1871, and of the present in the recent Conference. Mr. Hardy congratulated the country on having escaped from the humiliating position in which she might have found herself, of being called upon by France and Austria to

fulfil her obligations under the Tripartite Treaty, and being disabled from doing so by the feeling of the country; but he strongly maintained, on the other hand, that it would be utterly unjustifiable, in the existence of such treaties, to employ material coercion against Turkey, with whose Christian subjects he expressed his own deep sympathy; declaring nevertheless, in the clearest terms, the allegiance of England to the faith of treaties.

Lord Robert Montague, in a brief and effective speech, differed both from an Opposition which asserted that treaties existed no more, and a Government which did not intend to act upon them; declared that England was always disregarding treaties, and had succeeded in leaving herself without allies; and warned the Government that the end of their "middle course" would be that the Liberals would sink them.

Mr. Leonard Courtney, who followed, adopted a very opposite tone, in discussing the treaties, and maintained that between us and Turkey there existed under them no obligations, whatever there might be between us and France and Austria. If the guaranteeing Powers chose to retire, the obligation ceased; and the Conference was based on public morality and public law. "You need not," said the speaker, "have recourse to a contrat social to prevent people from going about unvaccinated." The Tripartite Treaty, no doubt, bound us to go to war if Austria and France called upon us, and such a danger must be averted, for such an obligation could not be perpetual. Mr. Courtney quoted Hefter in proof that any convention was void which stood in the way of the freedom of a civilized race; and Paley, to prove a similar doctrine in moral philosophy, that an immoral obligation must in itself be void. Let us, then, base our future action upon conscientious views, and have freedom in our dealings with South-Eastern Europe.

Mr. Grant-Duff commented severely on the utter absence of information in England as to the true condition of Turkey, and said that most of the recent miseries might have been averted by adopting a proposition of the late Lord Strangford, and strengthening the hands of our Ambassador at Constantinople by giving him the help of a few men whom he might send about to become thoroughly acquainted with the outlying Provinces of that composite Empire, so as to be able to know far more accurately what was going on in distant parts of it, than he could do by means of the existing diplomatic and Consular organization.

Mr. Percy Wyndham asked the Opposition to declare a policy, and expressed his belief in the existence of a war-party, recruited mainly from the Peace Society; and Mr. Evelyn Ashley, on the other side, declared the "alphabet of the whole thing" to be that nothing could be got out of the Turkish Government except by force.

Sir H. Drummond Wolff attributed half the misery of the Christian populations of Turkey to the neglect and insults of successive Liberal Administrations in England, and maintained that genuine indignation about the Bulgarian massacres had been a

common feeling with all. He dwelt on the change which had taken place in the two great parties on this question, quoted Mr. Gladstone in 1863 on the soundness of the principles of the Crimean War as a parallel to Lord Beaconsfield's arguments now, and described the present Conservative policy as that of the Liberals up to 1871. He contrasted the spirited words of Lord Beaconsfield at the Guildhall with the timid vacillation of Lord Aberdeen in 1853, raised a laugh by saying that Mr. Gladstone's speech and question meant nothing, and complimented Mr. Hardy on his ingenuity in answering them at all. Sir Henry Wolff declared for an armed neutrality, but he warned the House against Russian aggression, pointed the moral of Khiva and Sinope, quoted Lord Palmerston's warning against allowing Turkish Provinces to fall under a Russian sceptre, and challenged the Opposition to displace, if they could, a Government supported by country and Parliament.

Mr. Percy Smyth put in an eloquent plea for the interests of subject races, and the general principles which guided Canning and Palmerston in dealing with them, but his speech only added to the general feeling of irrelevance which had crept into the debate, when Mr. Chaplin suddenly introduced an entirely new element by a personal attack upon Mr. Gladstone, which at once brought out the veteran statesman in his old light. With marked gesture and severe tone the member for Leicester called Mr. Gladstone to account for his conduct in the recess, charged him with an utter misrepresentation of national feeling and opinion, with "flooding the country" with speeches and writings, and then shrinking from testing the fair opinion of Parliament between him and his opponents. Then he concluded with declaring that the only course open to Mr. Gladstone, as a man of honour," was to make good or to withdraw his accusations, and went on to move an adjournment.

66

Mr. Gladstone sprang up to second the motion, and burst into a rapid and vehement speech, worthy of his best days. He asked Mr. Chaplin why he had not himself met him at some of the meetings of the autumn, before accusing him of shrinking from a fair fight, the first time such an accusation had been brought against him during a public life of fifty years. He declared himself ready to deal with anybody who liked to attack him, reminded Lord George Hamilton, who hazarded an interruption, that the Conservative party had existed before his day, and declined instructions on his duty in public life from such a "knight of the shire" as Mr. Chaplin, to whom he entirely declined to reveal any of his thoughts or plans. Warmly Mr. Gladstone thanked the member for Leicester for attributing such an immense influence to his single efforts; but if his pamphlet had agitated Europe and the world, why did not Mr. Chaplin write another and set everything right? But, said he, public sentiment was ripe when I stepped into the arena of public discussion. Lord Derby's

despatch on the Bulgarian massacres came before my pamphlet. It was the nation that led the leaders, and not the leaders who led the nation. "We have, I think," said the Liberal chief in concluding his speech, "the most solemn and the greatest question to determine that has come before Parliament in my time. It is only under very rare circumstances that such a question-the question of the East-can be fully raised, fully developed and exhibited, and fully brought home to the minds of men with that force, with that command, with that absorbing power which it ought to exercise over them. In the original entrance of the Turks into Europe, it may be said to have been a turning-point in human history. To a great extent it continues to be the cardinal question, the question which casts into the shade every other question, and the question which is now brought before the mind of the country far more fully than at any period of our history, far more fully than even at the time of the Crimean War, when we were pouring forth our blood and treasure in what we thought to be the cause of justice and right. I endeavoured to impress upon the minds of my audience at Taunton not a blind prejudice against this man or that, but a great watchfulness and the duty of great activity. It is the duty of every man to feel that he is bound for himself according to his opportunities to examine what belongs to this question, with regard to which it can never be forgotten that we are those who set up the power of Turkey in 1854, that we are those who gave her the strength which has been exhibited in the Bulgarian massacres, that we are those who made the treaty arrangements that have secured her for twenty years from almost, a single hour of uneasiness brought about by foreign intervention, and that therefore nothing can be greater and nothing deeper than our responsibility in the matter. It is incumbent upon us, one and all, that we do not allow any consideration, either of party or personal convenience, to prevent us from endeavouring to the best of our ability to discharge this great duty, that now at length inthe East, in the midst of this great opportunity, when Europe has been called to collective action, and when something like European concert has been established-when we learn the deep human interests that are involved in every stage of the question, that, as far as England, at least, is concerned, every Englishman should strive to the utmost of his might that justice shall be done."

After the applause which greeted this fine display, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Hartington, and Sir William Harcourt found it hard to bring the House back to the question of national policy; though Sir Stafford Northcote won the cheers of his party by endorsing the matter, though not the manner, of Mr. Chaplin's speech, and telling Mr. Gladstone that he was bound to challenge the conduct of the Government if he thought it ought to be censured. We do not object, he said, to the most jealous scrutiny of our conduct. We hear sometimes of two Russias and of two Austrias; but do not let us have two Englands.