had had its perfect work, rose and gave notice that he would meet them in that way-nearly all Mr. Gladstone's colleagues and subordinates in the late administration, with Lord Hartington at their head, assuring him of their support.

Then followed a week of agitation and anxiety. The section which desired to interfere side by side with Russia to coerce Turkey did its best, with some success, to revive the agitation of the autumn. The public mind was troubled by wild rumours. The aged historian, Mr. Carlyle, actually wrote a letter to the Times, in which he stated, not as a matter of speculation, but as one of fact, that the Premier was trying to involve the country in war with Russia, and gossip freely credited a member of the present Cabinet with being the indirect inspirer of that remarkable composition, as it credited another with being the indirect cause of Mr. Gladstone's action. Probably both these stories had their origin in the compliments which had been paid from the Liberal side to the two persons alluded tocompliments which, however, can be readily explained without supposing for a moment that they had been advisedly indiscreet.

The situation was further complicated in two ways. First, great number of persons in the country had never got fairly into their heads that Mr. Gladstone had absolutely and finally resigned the leadership of his party. They thought of him as merely lying by, ready to return when he was wanted. Such an impression was no doubt most unjust to Mr. Gladstone, who would be the last man in the world, after having, to the great regret of others, abdicated in the most deliberate manner, to wish once more to grasp at power. Distant observers, however, in the country, did not know the facts, and when they saw that Mr. Gladstone had given notice of certain resolutions they jumped to the conclusion that these must represent the views of the Liberal party, and be in accordance with its traditionsan error in which they were encouraged by the telegrams of busy parti sans. Secondly, it would appear, from the haste with which the Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Control came forward to address him, that an able and active knot of politicians had persuaded themselves that Mr. Gladstone would be just the man to lead them in a great agitation against the Established Church of England, which they, differing in this from the bulk of the party, believe to be nearer its fall than it is usually supposed to be even by those who, unlike Mr. Gladstone, never had a word to say in defence of the principle of establishments, and would never have raised a finger in their defence. These gentlemen pay a bad compliment to the eminent statesman they profess to honour in supposing that he is willing to build his castello delle ultime illusioni out of the ruins of everything he most cherished when he began life; but still they repeat, 'He has changed before now, why not once more?' and this hope, strange to say, was one of the most important factors in inducing a portion of

the Liberal party to support Mr. Gladstone's resolutions on the affairs of the East. Solvuntur risu tabula, a foreign critic may say, but the statement is true nevertheless.

Towards the end of the week it became clear that Mr. Gladstone would take with him about a hundred votes, made up partly of men who really wished to coerce Turkey, but chiefly of those who, for one or other of the reasons I have alluded to, thought the flag which he carried was on the whole the best to rally to. The majority of the party agreeing entirely with its leaders of course remained staunch to its allegiance.

On Monday, the 7th of May, when members came down to the House, they found everything in confusion. A rumour had spread that Mr. Gladstone (seeing the position of affairs, and aware, perhaps, of the ulterior views to which he was indebted for some of the support of the able and enterprising politicians whom I have described) had drawn back, had agreed to allow his second resolution to be entirely altered, and to abandon his third and fourth for all purposes except that of making a speech about them. The result was that, instead of the resolutions originally placed on the table, the House was to be asked to assent to the following:

1. That this House finds just cause of dissatisfaction and complaint in the conduct of the Ottoman Porte with regard to the despatch written by the Earl of Derby on the 21st day of September, 1876, and relating to the massacres in Bulgaria.

2. That this House is of opinion that the Porte, by its conduct towards its subject populations, and by its refusal to give guarantees for their better government, has forfeited all claim to receive either the material or the moral support of the British Crown.

To say that Mr. Gladstone's speech was good, and very good, is, of course, merely another way of stating that it was made by Mr. Gladstone, who, if he must yield the first place to Mr. Bright as an orator, is doubtless the best English parliamentary speaker living, not to say the best that ever lived. The occasion, however, called for something more than a good or even a great speech. It called for the kind of speech that might enlighten the opinion of England and of Europe—the kind of speech that is at once a great rhetorical effort and a great State paper. This latter element, however, was wholly wanting. It would have been extremely agreeable to many alike of Mr. Gladstone's supporters and opponents if he had after a short introduction come straight to the point, and, taking the five resolutions seriatim, had explained why he had put them upon the table. A short clear statement in support of each would have been eagerly welcomed. Friends would then have known what they were expected to defend, and foes would have had something to grapple with. It was not, however, till the orator had charmed those hearers who agreed

with him in sentiment, and did not care about the business side of the discussion, for a period represented by four columns of the Times report, that he used the words 'Passing to the second of my resolutions.' Something like an hour and a half was devoted to the first, the truth of which really no one disputed-the difference between the two sides as to it turning only on the question whether it was expedient at this particular moment to put it upon record in the journals of Parliament.

Mr. Gladstone, continuing his remarks through, say, forty minutes, argued in favour of his original second, of his third, and of his fourth resolutions. He said much that was true, but he did not answer one of the difficulties which had presented themselves to my mind. With regard to his second, for instance, I agreed with those to whom I have above alluded, who wanted to know amongst other things why, if Turkey at the eleventh hour mended her ways and gave such guarantees for the good government of her subjects as the House of Commons might think sufficient, England should, in the month of May 1877, be bound by a deliberate vote to go to war for her. I and some others thought the Palmerston Government, of which, be it remembered, Mr. Gladstone was a prominent and most powerful member, was under a complete illusion about Turkey. We considered even in those days that the long continuance of Turkish power in Europe was hopeless, and while we were ready to do all that we were bound by treaty to do, and to discountenance as much as possible intrigues directed against Turkey from the outside, we believed that the Ottoman rule was mined.

We are unwilling to bind ourselves, in 1877, to repeat Lord Palmerston's policy without having securities against Lord Palmerston's illusions, and these Mr. Gladstone did not and could not promise us.

With much that Mr. Gladstone said about the Crimean war having entailed on us certain duties with reference to the Christians of Turkey, we entirely agree. I used as far back as 1862, with reference to the Government of which Mr. Gladstone was, as I have before said, so powerful a member-the Government of Lord Palmerston-almost the very words he now uses with reference to the present Government. He says in 1877: It is a tremendous thing to infuse into the minds of this population the idea that they have no hope, no ally, but Russia.' The present writer said fifteen years ago:

That the Turkish power in Europe must ultimately succumb to the increasing strength of the Christian populations which it holds under its sway, seems to me so self-evident a proposition that I could wish that while we support Turkey against all foreign foes, and do all the duties of a faithful ally, we should not contrive to give Europe the impression that we are accomplices in keeping down the Christian populations for some interest of our own. We must take care, while

we try to checkmate (the intrigues which other nations are carrying on in the Eastern Peninsula, that we do not enable any of them to retaliate by bringing to bear against us the public opinion of liberal Europe.

But Mr. Gladstone says that it was impossible for Liberal Governments to raise the Turkish question. No one would have wished them so to do, I least of all; but the view of my friends and myself was, that if successive Governments took proper care to keep themselves informed of what was really going on, had an adequately manned embassy at the Porte, and fully sustained it in pressing wise action upon the Turks in their own interest,the Turkish question would never have been raised in our time.

With regard to his third resolution, I should have liked Mr. Gladstone to convince me that local liberty and self-government are the things most wanted for the disturbed provinces of European Turkey. I should like to have had explained to me what are the elements of good administration to be found in each of these; how far the village system is in vigour or capable of being revived; what number of decently educated Christians there are; how it was proposed to make the various religions and sects respect each other's newly acquired rights; how the aspirations of the Servians were to be reconciled with the very different aspirations of the Bulgarians, and both of them with those of the Greeks; how local liberty was to be worked in Bosnia, where you have a fierce feudal aristocracy of the strongest Mohammedan opinions, and a humbler population largely Orthodox and partly Catholic-all parties heartily hating each other, and all worked on by intrigues from the other side of the Save. I should like, in fact, to have had boiled down into a speech, and animated by the genius of a great statesman, the kind of information with which Mr. Mackenzie Wallace may be hoped to supply us, if, as I believe will be the case, he goes, when the war-cloud has cleared away, to study the Eastern Peninsula as he studied Russia.

Then I should have liked to know how these blessings of local liberty and self-government were to be brought about, when war had been already commenced. Of course it was assumed by Mr. Gladstone that we were to take part in the war. But when the existing Turkish Administration had been removed, what then? Were local liberty and self-government to be bestowed according to the ideas of Prince Tcherkasky, whose name has been so frequently mentioned in connection with the Russian advance south of the Danube, or, if not, how otherwise? Prince Tcherkasky would incline, I conceive, to make table rase of all existing superiorities. He is of that school of Russians which thinks that we English are a nation of aristocrats, and that the careful respecting of existing institutions and existing powers, which has characterised our best Indian rulers, is a complete mistake. Where would Mr. Gladstone find Englishmen to work on the lines of Prince Tcherkasky? Then, of course, according to Mr.

Gladstone's ideas, other nations would want to have their say in the war for the coercion of Turkey and the settlement of local liberty and self-government-Austro-Hungary, for example. Would her statesmen agree with Prince Tcherkasky and the Russian administrators generally? Would not the situation in Schleswig-Holstein which immediately preceded the war of 1866 be reproduced-and then and then? Did not Paskiewitch say that the road to Constantinople led through Vienna, and would it not be a sorry stroke of statesmanship to let sympathy for oppressed Bosnians or Bulgarians set the whole of Eastern Europe and half of Central Europe in a blaze?

Your high à priori politician, who only thinks of catching the cheers of a public meeting or being praised by the newspapers of his own way of thinking, may pooh-pooh all these base considerations about details, but a great statesman speaking to a listening worldsurely not. That was not the way in which Mr. Gladstone spoke, when only England was listening, about the taxation of charities.

Sir H. Drummond Wolff was the first speaker from the Conservative benches, and moved as an amendment

That this House declines to entertain any resolution which may embarrass Her Majesty's Government in the maintenance of peace and in the protection of British interests without advocating any alternative line of policy.

In supporting it he made several very important points by quotations from the despatches of Lord Russell and Lord Clarendon when they were Secretaries for Foreign Affairs-quotations which illustrated the old Liberal view on some of the matters now brought into controversy. With reference to the Treaty of Kainardji, Lord Russell wrote on December 28, 1854:

Russia, in renouncing the pretension to cover with an official protectorate the Christian subjects of the Porte of the Oriental rite, equally renounces as a natural consequence the revival of any of the articles of former treaties, and notably of the treaty of Koutchouk-Kainardji, the erroneous interpretation of which has been the principal cause of the present war.

Lord Clarendon, in his circular of June 19, 1855, expressed himself as follows:

By the treaty of Kainardji it is provided that the Sultan shall protect the Christian religion and its churches, and it was upon a complete misinterpretation of this treaty, but without even an allegation that its stipulations had been violated, that Russia claimed a right of interference between the Sultan and ten millions of the Sultan's Christian subjects. If the claim had been yielded to, and if a great wrong had thus been perpetrated, the authority of the sovereign within his own dominions would in a great degree have been transferred to a foreign power, and an important step would have been taken towards the overthrow of the Turkish Empire and the establishment of Russian supremacy on its ruins.

Sir H. Wolff was not happy in citing an alarmist passage from Mr. Palgrave about the Russian advance in the direction of the