[Lord Shaftesbury] declared the Turks to be incorrigible, and ended with a sentiment so bold with regard to the presence of the Russians on the Bosphorus that it provoked a remonstrance. We have no doubt that the feelings expressed by Lord Shaftesbury will find an echo in the hearts of a great majority of the British public. [The independent administration of the Northern Provinces under the suzerainty of the Sultan is the smallest change which can be proposed in the internal disposition of the Turkish Empire, and some such arrangement will probably be adopted, but we must remember the jealousies the proposal arouses-especially in Austria.] As to our own country it would be hypocrisy to pretend that the jealousy of a Russian advance towards Constantinople does not affect the judgment both of statesmen and the public.-T. July 28th.

The Saturday Review thinks the popular feeling represented by the meeting may possibly determine the future policy of the country; but the irrational violence and exaggeration of the majority of the speeches is not calculated to influence a sober judgment. The change of popular feeling in England since the Crimean War is oddly illustrated by the meeting.—(July 29th.)

The great thing needed is that our statesmen should perceive clearly now what Lord Derby saw very distinctly in 1864.1 A year ago we should have thought the business as safe in Lord Derby's hands as in those of any statesman who could fill the office which he now holds. No one had spoken more frankly and distinctly than he had done. He stood committed, by the language of a speech which we have on previous occasions quoted, to a very clear and decided view of the duty and interest of England in the affairs of Turkey.-D. N. July 24th.

Two or three principles of policy in dealing with the disturbances in the East have gradually become defined in recent months. . . In the first place, we have all come to agree that it is neither our duty nor our desire to protect Turkey from the operation of internal disintegrating forces. . . . The second position, which has been made clear by the Blue-Book presented to Parliament, is that the insurrectionary movement now developed into war derived no countenance or support from any foreign Power. . . . It becomes a question whether we should not make it a principle of action to try to make [the inhabitants of the TransBalkan Provinces] friendly to us and to assist them in standing on their feet, instead of throwing them into the arms of others. This we take to be the third principle which has gradually become clear.-T. July 31st.

The question to be decided, therefore, is whether the country will accept the policy of compromise through the creation of vassal States decidedly enough to compel the Government to allow of such a solution. That Mr. Disraeli will accept it willingly, we do not

1 See ante, p. 204.

.

believe That Lord Derby will accept it heartily we do not believe. . . But neither Mr. Disraeli nor Lord Derby hold their ideas in a way which would induce them to enter on a war with English opinion, to risk the safety of their Government, or even to endanger the quiet majority now possessed by their party. They will not perhaps act rightly, and help to enfranchise the Christians, under any provocation, but they may be induced, if the public voice is unmistakable, to remain quiescent. It rests, therefore, with the country and its representatives to decide whether the Christians of European Turkey shall be peacefully freed, or whether this country shall assist, probably at the cost of a long and most costly war, in once more whipping them back to bondage. In the representatives we have very little confidence. They were elected to support Mr. Disraeli, and they will do it whatever the consequences may be. . . . But we have more confidence in the country, when once it sees that the decision is in its own hands. Average Englishmen, when once aware what Turkish rule is, are not the men to go to war to support it, and some faint idea of what it is, is gradually filtering down among them. It is necessary, however, to speak out.-Spec. July 29th.

It is all very well for the English Cabinet to say that it is not supporting Turkey. Its attitude has led to a contrary belief in Europe and especially at Constantinople. . . . The best, nay, the only means of anticipating the triumph of Panslavism is to emancipate the southern Slavs.-Fort. Rev. Aug. 1876.1

§ 4. Parliament fails to afford Guidance.

There were many causes that contributed to delay to so late a day in the session as July 31st the debate on the Eastern policy of the Government. Among the official leaders of the Parliamentary Opposition, there was the conviction that a victory was impossible if they challenged a regular party division, such as would decide the fate of the Cabinet. Among many independent members there was a desire to pledge the Government against a "red" and in favour of a" violet," policy; and there was the wish to avoid exposing the "violet" policy to a direct negative on the part of the Government from which it might be difficult for them afterwards to withdraw. These considerations may partly account not only for the long delay, but also for the reluctance to come to close quarters exhibited in the Parliamentary debates when they did occur, and for the fact that the debates were far less effective than they might have been in forming Public Opinion.

1 "Home and Foreign Affairs."

Thus during the critical period of "waiting for guidance," Parliament to a certain extent abdicated its great secondary function of instructing Public Opinion. The effective guidance came chiefly from extra-parliamentary sources.

As we have seen, although the subject of the atrocities had been mentioned several times in Parliament, the regular debate, invited by Mr. Bruce's notice of motion, had been postponed from time to time.

Mr. Disraeli on July 10th, while refusing to give up a night for a private member, significantly added that perhaps the leader of the Opposition might wish to challenge the Government policy, but Lord Hartington did not respond.

It seemed doubtful whether, after all, an opportunity for discussing the papers which had been presented would be afforded to the House of Commons before the Prorogation, but at last after some preliminary fencing July 31st was fixed. Various notices. of motions and of amendments were given, but all by private members, from both sides of the House. Mr. Bruce's motion, as originally drawn, expressed approval of the Government policy, as disclosed in the recently published correspondence. Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice gave notice of an amendment censuring the past action of the Government. But Mr. Bruce modified his resolution by confining it to the expression of a hope as to the future action; and Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice met him by omitting the censuring clause of his amendment. As finally settled Mr. Bruce's motion expressed the hope that Government would use their influence to secure the common welfare and equal treatment of the various races and religions subject to the Porte. It was understood that the Liberal leaders could acquiesce in this aspiration, and thus any party issue was eliminated.

Mr. Forsyth gave notice of an amendment which affirmed the duty of England, as one of the parties to the settlement of 1856 to obtain adequate guarantees for the good government of the disturbed provinces. Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice's amendment unequivocally affirmed the expediency of adopting the "violet" policy of making proposals to the Powers who had treaty engagements with Turkey with a view to securing the advantages of self-government to the insurgent provinces.

In effect, Mr. Bruce pointed to the "red" policy of strengthening and vivifying Turkey by general measures of reform applicable to the whole of the empire. Mr. Forsyth recognised

the difficulties of Turkish rule over Christian provinces, and spoke of exacting guarantees for good government. Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice, going a step further in the "violet" path, affirmed that the only effectual guarantee for good government would be to render them practically independent of the Porte. But these distinctions were perhaps hardly fully comprehended out-of-doors at the time.

Every one must hope that the debate which begins to-night will be useful in indicating to the Government the determination of the national judgment on the aims to be pursued by the Foreign Office in dealing with the present phase of the Eastern Question; but this hope is dashed with many fears that the result of the discussion will be little more than an effusion of purposeless and desultory talk. . . . The terms of the Motions are such that the effect of any one of them must depend greatly on the temper in which the Government receive it, or the significance which is imported into it by the speakers on either side. . . . The temper of the House and the country may be discerned in the character of Mr. Bruce's Motion and its Amendments. They all practically tend one way—that is, towards a recognition of our duties as a humane and civilised people. If the Government will satisfy the public feeling in this respect, it will strengthen itself even more than by its happy stroke with regard to the Berlin Memorandum. -T. July 31st.

The apparent unanimity conveyed by a common assent to Mr. Bruce's resolution covers wide and deep divergencies of opinion. -D. N. July 31st.

It was understood in advance, as we have already explained, that there was no inclination to censure the action of the Ministry, even if there had been the amount of strength in any party opposed to the Government which would have rendered it possible to pass a condemnatory resolution. . . . Let us understand; do not go any farther without seeing that we comprehend each other; do not leave our intelligence and our cooperation out of your plans-such is the meaning of the appeal, and such certainly was the general object of yesterday's debate in both Houses, regarded as an invitation to the Government.-D. N. Aug. 1st.

At last, on July 31st, the long looked-for debate took place, and it so happened that on the same night the subject was discussed in the Lords.

In the Upper House, Lord Stratheden and Campbell, the persistent and unwearied advocate of an active" red" policy founded on treaty legalism, moved a resolution which promised the Government support for measures for upholding the treaties of 1856. Lord Granville hinted that the Russian proposal of securing

administrative autonomy for Bosnia and the Herzegovina might have been more favourably entertained. Lord Derby opposed the motion on the ground that there was no imminent danger that those treaties would be infringed, and took the opportunity to disclaim any hostility to autonomy in the abstract.

In the House of Commons Mr. Bruce's motion was seconded by Mr. Hanbury. In moving his amendment, which was seconded by Sir H. D. Wolff,

Mr. Forsyth said :-He had been much disappointed by the tone of the speeches that had been delivered. His object in putting an amendment on the paper, was what he took to be the policy shadowed forth in the resolution of the hon. member for Portsmouth,—namely, that the time had come for England no longer to put faith in the professions of the Ottoman Porte, but to insist upon substantial guarantees of good faith. Judge his surprise, then, when he heard his hon. friends making speeches which were nothing more nor less than apologies for the Turkish Government, speeches which might have been delivered by Turkish ministers who were interested in throwing discredit upon the poor Christians who happened to reside within the Turkish Empire.-H. of C. July 31st. As both original motion and amendment were withdrawn without a division, the other amendments could not be formally proposed; but Lord E. Fitzmaurice spoke in favour of the "violet" policy to which the amendment of which he had given notice pointed.

It was this debate which Mr. Gladstone afterwards assigned as marking the date when he first assumed anything approaching a hostile attitude to the Government.1

He said he preferred the amendment to the resolution because he would deal with the disturbed provinces and not with the whole of the Ottoman Empire, thus lightly touching on the everrecurring antithesis between Emancipation and Reform. He deduced from the Crimean War England's title to insist on something more than mere promises, and declared himself in favour of

1 "I certainly had no disposition to signalise myself in leading an Opposition to the present Government, and for the first three sessions of the existence of the present Government, or at least until one of the very last days of the third session named, the 31st July, 1876, although I had occasionally objected to their measures, yet the occasions had been very few, and I had been glad to remain in the shade. It was the peculiar nature of the Eastern Question which first made me feel it an imperative duty to modify the resolution I had arrived at and when I first shared in the Eastern Question it was not to oppose, it was to support Her Majesty's Government; it was to encourage them, if I may say so without presumption, in the course which I fondly hoped they were about to take. . . . That was my first step in the Eastern Question. (Hear, hear.) Nor was it till six months after, at the end of July, 1876, that my second step was taken."-Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden, on his seventieth birthday, D. N. Dec. 30th, 1879.