'^JL: 1 4 THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND. EXTRACT FROM AN IMPORTANT SPEECH DEHVEEED BY SEPH COWEN, EADICAL MEMBER roK NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, Ox Satukdat, January 31st, 1880. ,'.VL, On Saturday, January 31, Mr. Joseph Cowen, M.P., addressed a meeting of Ms constituents in the Town Hall, Newcastle, on the " Foreign Policy of England." The hall was crowded in every part, not an inch of standing room in any part of the building being obtainable long before the hour for commencing the pro- ceedings. Many of the audience had to stand under great discomfort from shortly after the doors were opened till the end of the meeting, a period of nearly four hours. Mr. Cowen was listened to from beginning to end with close attention, and was continuously and heartily cheered throughout. The Chairman, in opening the meeting, said the occasion which called them together that night was one of great interest to Newcastle and to the country. Whenever Mr. Cowen expressed his views they were not confined to the limits of the district, but they travelled to wherever Liberal opinions had a home. He was glad to have the opportunity of introducing Mr- Cowen to them that night. It was to be regretted that the opportunity did not occur more frequently ; but when they remembered the great strain upon his physique in the discharge of his Parliamentary duties they must make some allowance, and recollect that if he was not with them in the North, he was in London fulfilling his responsibilities in the Imperial House of Parliament. Some few months ago Mr. Cowen had favoured them with his views upon home policy. He then gave them a retrospect of the past and a pro- gramme for the future guidance of the Liberal party. It was not of the barren character of Lord Hartington's programme, but it indicated the lines upon which the Liberal party should run. That night Mr. Cowen was to discuss the foreign policy of England. No man was more competent to debate that great question than their distingufslicd friend, Mr. Cowen. No question had occupied more public time tlian our Foreign policy, and he was sure that Mr. Cowen would be able to give a defence of the policy he had upheld that would be generally approved. He had not the least doubt that Mr. Cowen would be able to suggest to the gentlemen who had taken a contrary view the propriety of mending their ways. He had not the least doubt, further, that after having heard a full explanation from Mr. Cowen, the ties which united him to the affections of the Newcastle people, would be cemented instead of weakened. Mr. Joseph Cowen, M.P., who was received with loud and enthusiastic cheers, said : Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have rarely addressed a meeting with more misgivings than I do this one. My hesitation does not arise from any doubt I entertain as to the correctness of the statements I am about to make, of the strength of the argument I purpose sustaining, or of the soundness of the deductions I intend to draw. On all these points I am thoroughly persuaded in my own mind. My reluctance to speaking springs from the conviction I entertain that anything I can say will be valueless, and may be locally mischievous. International problems of great intricacy and importance have come up for settle- ment since the last General Election. Many of the issues started are old ones, some of them centuries old, but they were not then before the electors. The Liberals, as a body, have assumed towards them an altered attitude. They have abandoned, no doubt for reasons which appeared to them good, the historic policy of the country, if not the traditional principles of the party. There is necessarily difficulty in fixing with precision the position of a complex body in a state of change. But no injustice will, I think, be done to anyone by saying that many Liberals, on foreign questions, have espoused in spirit, if not in substance, the doctrines which were held with such tenacity and expounded with such earnestness by that band of capable men who made the world 5 their debtors by tlieir labours for Free Trade. I have not been able to become a convert to this new faith. I am not, and never was, an adherent of what is popularly known as the "Manchester School." On this subject there is between myself and some of my friends a distinct divergency, which I have no desire either to minimise or ignore. I am in favour of an European and national, as against an insular and — I use the word in no offensive sense — a parochial policy. There is nothing that I have said on this question that I wish either to modify or retract. There is nothing that I have done which I regret. I may be mistaken— I am not infallible ; but I believe that the course of policy I have supported has been the best for England and the best for liberty. I fear my convictions are too strongly fixed to be shaken. I am not either so sanguine or so egotistical as to suppose that anything I can say will turn my friends from the faith they have accepted with so much devotion. Apart from political considerations, party passions, and personal predilections and prejudices, have been imported into the controversy, and in some instances these have been intensified by religious animosi^ ties. It is hopeless to reason against such a combination of active and angry sentiments. But the blast that blows loudest is sooa overblown ; and having lodged an earnest protest in support of my opinions, I am willing to bend to the storm and wait for the sobering effects of experience, and the modifying influence of time, to wear out the asperity of the political jehad which is now being preached against doctrines that, to my mind, have the semblance atleast of truth and justice to sustain them. But if I am to speak I will do so frankly, without reservation or equivocation. In a country where unfortunately speech is so much controlled by, . and so much based on, party interest, little favour is shown to the politician who ignores its consideration and ventures upon the dangerous practice of striving to be impartial. If he speak the unbiassed sentiments of his own mind he secures- the opposition of his former supporters, the slanders of his atrabilious opponents, and the sneers, if not the sus- picions, of some of his associates. But sincerity of utterance is the only channel of truth, and I believe that my fellow townsmen will listen to declarations of opinion which may involve opposition, and possibly censure of some of them, if these declarations are untainted, as I trust in my case they will be, with either levity or ignorance. I cannot cite a new fact, and no one can adduce a new argument either for or against the policy that this country has recently pursued. The subject has been written about and spoken of BO often, and at such length, that every argumentative thread is worn thin and bare. The literature on the interminable theme is a veritable political kaleidoscope in which every fomi of thought, every shade of opinion, is presented in all shapes of attraction and repulsion. But, if what I say is not new, it will only be in keeping with the speeches of more distinguished persons. We are not philosophers, speculating upon what might be, nor philanthropists dilating upon ought to be, nor poets chanting the dirge of a brilliant but buried past. We are matter-of-fact politicians, talking of the prosaic present. And politics, I fear, are too often controlled more by self-interest than by sentiment. We are not dealing with an ideal State. If we were, the fragmentary and composite Empire of Britain would not realise my Utopia. Greece, whose name has been for centuries a watchword upon earth, whose fame will never fade, from whose history mankind have derived inspir- ation and guidance, and which still rises upon our intellectual sight like a mountain-top gilded with sunshine, amidst the devasta- tions of a flood — Greece, I say, rather than law-giving, conquering, imperial, splendid, but savage Rome, would be my model. I would have a State in which every man is free, and where every man is fortified against superstition by edu- cation, and against oppression by arms ; where the arts and graces of Athens, and the martial independence of Sparta, would commingle with the mercantile and industrial enterprise and the naval prowess of Britain; and in which, while influence and authority are won by intellectual strength and moral worth, a proud defiance could be bid to despotism's banded myriads. But these are the dreams of the idealists. "We belong to the real and the active, and not the imaginary world. We are to deal with things as they are, and not as we can sketch them in our fancy. We are the inheritors of a Colonial Empire, the most widespread, scattered, and extensive ever known. It reaches to every region, and has its feelers and its feeders in every corner of the globe. Some of these possessions came to us in a question- able shape, and by means that no one can justify, and that I, at least, have no desire either to palliate or excuse. But the present generation of Englishmen are guiltless of the crime attending their acquisition. Our Colonies cover an area of three millions of square miles, and have a population of fourteen million persons following diverse pursuits, but all animated by one mind, aim, and tradition. In India we have a frontier of twelve thousand miles, an area of one and a-half million square miles, and 240,000,000 of people under our sway. Our insular position frees us from many of the dangers which surround Continental States, but our external empire makes us at the same time one of the most sensitive and assailable of nations. No serious move- ment can take place in any part of the earth without olir feeling its influence. No country ever occupied such a peculiar position as Britain and her daughter empires now hold. It is not egotism to say that, notwithstanding all our shortcomings, power so vast was never wielded with so sincere a desire to use it beneficially. Every tribe we touch acknowledges our supremacy, and looks to us either in conscious fear of weakness, or with brightening hope of participating in our elevation. To secure the existence — to rivet the cohesion of this vast dominion, blest with one of the highest forms of freedom that the world has ever seen, to cany to distant countries and succeeding ages the loftiest form of civiliza- tion, is our mission. To abandon the opportunity of usefulness thus conferred, to throw aside the hope of securing equal rights and impartial freedom, to destroy the means of establishing a feeling of fraternity and consciousness of common, material interests amongst so many millions of our fellow-beings, would be a narrow, a niggardly, a short-sighted, and a selfish policy for a great nation to pursue. If we left South Africa, what would bo 8 the result ? There are 350,000 British bora men and women — our own kith and kin — living there. Without some protection from the Home Government, the homesteads they have erected by years of patient toil, the centres of civilization and of commerce that they have created by their enterprise, would be endangered, if not destroyed. Their assailants would not be the natives of the soil, who are friendly and inoffensive, but savage invaders from the north, who are as much alien and aggressors as the English. If we abandoned India, a like, but more disastrous, result would ensue. The scores of different races and nations into which the population oi that country is divided would fly at each other's throats. In the earliest encounters probably the fierce, courageous, unteachable, and intractable Mohammedans, who are forty millions strong, would re-assert fheir supremacy ; but after years of inter- necine war and social disorder the country would eventually fall a prey to a foreign invader — possibly Russia. The 8,000 miles of railway, the 18,000 miles of telegraph, the canals, and other creations of English capital would be destroyed. The machinery for the administration of justice, and the protection of life and property, which England has created, and which has assured to the common people of India more security and greater personal freedom than they ever enjoyed under former rulers, would ^e upset. This country would suffer equally with the Indian people ; the £128,000,000 of Indian debt, would have to be provided for; civil servants and ofScers whose careers would be destroyed would require their pensions, and compensation would possibly be demanded by traders who j^would be ruined by our change of policy. India, England, and the world would all be injured. No Englishman could contemplate such a contingency with approval, or acquiesce in it with satisfaction. Now that we possess it, we are bound to protect and defend India — to hold it against any enemy as stoutly as we would hold Cornwall or Caithness. England is not so many square roods of land, but a nation whose people are united in love of soil and race, by mutual sympathy and tradition, by character and institutions. It is not a fortuitous concourse of individuals merely bound over to keep the peace towards each other, and, for the rest, following their own selfish objects, and crying outside their own cottage, counting- house, or country, let everything *' take its course." Our country is something more than the mere workshop of the world, a manu- factory for flashy clothing, and a market for cheap goods. We are pledged to each other as citizens of a great nationality, and by solidarity of life. We owe a duty to ourselves, to our families, and to our country, and also to our genera- tion and to the future. We have grown great, not merely by the extent of our possessions and the fertility of our soil, but by the prestrvatioii of our liberties and the energy and enterprise of our people. The present generation is the outcome of centuries of effort. The history of England is woven and interwoven, laced and interlaced with the history of Europe and the world for a thousand years. Wherever liberty has struggled successfully, or wherever it has suffered in vain, there our sympathies have gone. There is nothing in human affairs that can be foreign to us. Wealth almost beyond the dreams of avarice, territorial posses- sions, and education bring with them heavy responsibilities. Power, to the very last particle of it, is duty. Unto whom much is given, of him much will be required. As we have inherited, so we have to transmit. No one can look slightingly on the results which rest upon our national resolves. But if ever a nation, drunk with the fumes of power and wealth, makes an apotheosis of gold and material pleasure, prefers riches to duty, comfort to courage, selfish enjoyment to heroic effort and sacrifice, it sinks in- the respect of others, and loses the first and strongest incentive to human effort. Great work demands great effort, and great effort is the life and soul both of individuals and nations. I con- tend, therefore, for these two principles — the integrity of the Empire, and the interest, the right, s?id the duty of England to- play her part in the great battle of the world, as did our illustrious ancestors, the forerunners of European freedom. Let me apply these principles to the recent controversies in tho East and the action that has been taken by this country. India is one of ow most distant, as it is one of our most important dependencies. We hold it more as conquerors than as colonists. There are earnest and obvious reasons why our communication with it should 10 be rapid, easy and expeditious. Nature, mechanieal science, and commercial enterprise have contributed to make the best route to t through the Isthmus which unites the continents of Asia and Africa. The Egyptians, the Phoenicians and the Carthagenians, before the Christian era, travelled to India this way. In the Middle Ages the Danish and Venetian merchants went by the same road. The first envoy whom England ever sent to India also journeyed by this path — Bishop Sherborne, who was deputed by good King Alfred to undertake a mission to the people on the coast of Coromandel and Malabar. As before the Christian era, so to-day — the most direct route to the East is by the Isthmus of Suez and Asia Minor. The canal is the link which unites our Eastern and Western Empires. Through it we not only reach India but our dependencies in the Chinese Seas, our Australian colonies, the Mauritius, and the British settlements on the East Coast of Africa. It is the neck which connects the head with the ex- tremities of our Empire. It has been suggested that if we lost it we could resume our old road by the Cape of Good Hope. It is •quite true that this could be done. It is equally true that we might return to pack-horses and stage-waggons as a means of transit, but it is not likely that we shall do so ; it would be contrary to the genius of civilisation and the spirit of our times thus to recede. We have got the canal, and in the interests of •ourselves and of the world we will hold it free for every one at all hazards. If Russia were to obtain political supremacy on either side of the Bosphorus, she could stop the canal or intercept our way to India by the Euphrates Valley. North of the Danube she is comparatively harmless ; but with the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmora, and the Straits, she would have at her command a position unequalled in the world for commerce and for war. She could barricade the Dardanelles, and behind it she would have two inland seas, which would be at one and the same time harbour, arsenal, dockyard, and naval station. She could there with security and ease equip and arm her ships, and train her sailors, and manoeuvre her fleet. In the numberless islands and roadsteads of tlie Archipelago she would have protection for conducting either offensive or defensive warfare, such as 11 is to be found in no otlicr part of tlie globe in equal space. This position is the key to Europe — one of its life arteries. Its occupation by a conquering, ambitious, and despotic power would be a danger to England, to Europe, and to liberty. The aspirations of the Russian peasant are southward. He yearns to be clear of the Boreal regions of snow and solitude, in which he is enveloped for the greater part of the year. As naturally as the sap rises in the vine, so naturally does the desire of the Russian rise to reach more genial regions, and to burst the political and frozen cerements which rob him of life and of development. It is only the force of the iron yoke that makes him a labourer. By choice and by taste, he would be a wanderer, a boatman, a pedlar, or a travelling mechanic. Russia is not a nation like France, or Italy, or Spain ; it is not a dynastic aggregation of States like Austria; but it is a crushing and devouring political mechanism, which has annihilated full fift) distinct nationalities. It kills every spring of independence; it intercepts and has covered whole continents with the melancholy monuments of nations. Poland, the Niobe ot nations, whose gallant sons have been the knights-errant of liberty the world over, has been all but interred by her in Siberia. Circa ssia, the cradle of the human race, whose people are the manliest and handsomest in the world, has been converted into a tomb. And she is now seeking to engulph the desert steppes, the briny waters, and the shifting burning sands that lie between the Caucasus, the Caspian, and the Afghan Table Land. The interest, the instinct, and, to some extent, the neces- sity, of the Russian people, urge them to seek " fresh fields and pastures new," away from their biting north winds, their icy forests, their bleak and limitless plains. The Government, which is Asiatic rule, bastardised by German bureaucracy, with appropriating frenzy has striven to annex terri- tory in all directions ; while the Emperors, animated by an am.- bition akin to that of " Macedonia's Madman and the Swede,'* have been dazzled by a dream of universal empire. To find a foothold for their power in the unrivalled natural resources which Turkey affords has been their aim. The defeat of Russia ;'iii the 12 Crimea modified for a time her external and intemal policy. To soften the discontent created by the surrender of Sebastopol, liberal legal charges were instituted, and a decree emancipating the serfs was promulgated. The benefits conferred by this instru- ment are more apparent than real. By it the peasants were relieved from some claims to the landlords, but they were charged with eqnivalent burdens for the national revenue; and the imperial functiomary is often a harder taskmaster than the local lord of the soil. M. Walewsld calculated that the emanci- pation of the serfs doubled the direct taxes of the empire. Repulsed in the south and west, Russia sought an outlet for her stream of conquest in Central Asia. Unnoticed, to a large extent unknown, she has, in that quarter of the globe during rccout years, absorbed a territory nearly equal in extent to Continental Europe, and she has now a bristling array of bayonets in threatening proximity to our Indian Empire. Although popular feeling and historical recollection have always favoured a campaign for supplanting the crescent by the cross, there is a small but intelligent and influential party in Russia who are adverse to this tempting and treacherous cry of " To Constanti- nople ! " They contend that if the seat of Government were removed from the banks of the cold and misty Neva to those of the brilliant Bosphorus, the Empire would perish through the effeminacy generated by residence in the sunny and seductive South. Hardy Northmen would be replaced in the councils of the Czar, by the intrigues of Greeks and Bulgars. This would lead to divisions in which the unwieldy dominions would be split in twain through the struggles for supremacy that would ensue between the genuine Slav and the idle mongrels that would flutter round the Court of the new Byzantium. This view has been maintained not only by authors like Gurowski, and by soldiers like Fadeof, but by many Russian Liberals. Three of the most remarkable m.en that the revolutions in the East sent into Western Europe were- Bakunin, whom the Emperor Nicolas, after an interview with him, described as a "noble but dangerous mad- man ; " Alexander Herzen, one of the most fascinating of men. who combined the philosophy of Germany, the politics of 13 Rcpnblican PVance, and the practical good sense of Englishmen, with the native Russian character; and Mieroslowski, the brilliant and eloquent Polish leader. I have heard all of these gentlemen contend that Europe would not see for many years — probably not for generations — another effort made by Russia to obtain Constantinople. They held this opinion not because they all approved of it — Bakunin certainly did not — but their belief was that the German party in Russia had so realised the hopeless- ness of Ji struggle with the Western Powers that they would not resume it. The nervous, hesitating, indolent, but kindly man who is now at the head of the Russian people, has always, until re- cently, been credited with a settled determination not to renew the enterprise that ended so disastrously for his father. The idea was general that India and China, rather than Turkey, would be threatened by Russian advance. I own that I largely shared that opinion. But events have shown that this was an error, and that the passion for accomplishing what the people of Russia believed to be their manifest destiny was not dead but only slumbered — the leopard had not changed his spots nor the Tartar his skin. The first pronounced intimation of the retention of this old faith was seen in the course pursued by Russia during the Franco- German war. Immediately our f icnd and ally France was worsted in that disastrous conflict, the Czar intimated that he intended no longer to comply with the clauses of the Treaty of Paris that neutralised the Black Sea. He did not invite the other Powers of Europe, who, along with himself, were parties to that Treaty, to meet and discuss the reasonableness of his request for an alteration, but, with autocratic pride and despotic iraperiousness, he proclaimed his determination to look upon that portion of that treaty as null and void. He had observed it as long as France was in a position to unite with England for it55 mainten- ance, but when she was temporarily disabled, he seized the oppor- tunity to br^ak an engagement which he had solemnly entered upon. This was the first sign of the change, the efTects of which Euro[>e has just witnessed. Russia, in her attacks upon neigh- bouring States, follows an uniform and unvarying plan. She begins usually by professing an interest in their welfare. At one 14 time she is moved by sympathy for her brethren in bonds — as if there were no persons in bonds in Russia. At another time she is roused to fervour for her co-religionists, as if there were no persons suffering for their religious opinions within her own borders. She knows how to lure adjoining rulers to destruction by encouraging them in every frivolous expense, every private vice, and every public iniquity, as she did Abdul Aziz and many an unfortunate Asiatic Khan. She can compass the destruction of popular liberty by Jesuitical intrigue, as she did in Poland. She can engage in plots and conspiracies, as she did more recently in Bulgaria. Ignorance, ambition, corruption, are all made in turn to minister to her designs. The cupidity of Turkish pashas, who too often obtained their positions by bribery, and held them by oppression and extortion, and the hopeless confusion into which the Ministers of the Sultan had allowed affairs to drift at Constantinople, formed a favourable field for the work of Eussian emissaries. The stereotyped process was followed. There was first complaint, then suggestion, and then the inevitable Conference, and the equally inevitable war. The Turkish people, both Mohammedan and Christian, suffered under solid and serious grievances. They had been oppressed and outraged by a system of administration that was outrageous and indefensible ; but they sought redress of their grievances at the hands of their own rulers, and not from a foreign Power. This was shown by the stubborn resistance that was made to the advance of the Austrian troops into Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Hungarians are the truest friends the Turks had in Europe, and if they fought so stoutly to oppose their entrance to their provinces they would have fought with greater resolution against the admission of the troops of any other country. After the war, the Russian diplomatists and generals succeeded in getting a band of trembling palace pashas around, them at Adrianople, from whom they abstracted a treaty that unmasked their designs ana placed them in a broad and ! tartling light before the world. If there had been any doubt before as to the aim Russia had in commencing the war, there could be none then. Before she started on the campaign the Czar declared —first, that he did not intend to enter Constantinople ; second, that 15 he did not seek territorial acquisition ; and third, that his sole object was to ensure the freedom of the oppressed nationalities. He kept the word of promise to the ear, but broke it to the hope. He did not enter Constantinople it is true, but he surrounded it, and his troops would have entered it if the English fleet had not been in the Sea of Marmora, and the English soldiers within call at Malta. He broke the second engagement by annexing Bessarabia and the territory around Batoum, Ardahan, and Kars. By the Treaty of San Stefano he proposed the creation of what he euphemistically described as a " big Bulgaria," in other words, a huge Eussian province was to be created, whose borders were to extend to the shores of the ^gean. If the treaty had remained as drawn by Russia, she would have had a port at Kavala in the south, she would have had another in the Adriatic at Antivari, and she would have been left in command of two-thirds of the shores of the Black Sea, from Midia, twenty-five miles north of Constanti- nople, round to some miles beyond Batoum. There would have been left around Constantinople a few acres of ground, little more than half the size of the county of Durham ; then the new Russian State, like a wedge, would intervene ; and beyond that there would have been Macedonia, Albania, and the north-western provinces. Turkey, left without frontiers and without fortresses, would have fallen a ready and easy prey to Russia whenever she felt herself strong enough, and Europe was indifferent enough to allow her to resume her crusade. By this treaty, Russia not only took territory in Armenia and Bessarabia, but she proposed also to subject the entire Balkan peninsula to hei authority. She kept her third engngement by ignoring the nationality of the Roumanian inhabitants of Bessarabia, separating them from a free and uniting them to a despotic state. She despised the religious and race leanings of the Mohammedans near Batoum, and treated with contempt the nationality of Mohammedans living in the province of Turkey. She in this way either broke or evaded every engagement she made. To have allowed Russia to retain the position she projected for herself at San Stefano would have destroyed the balance of power in Europe, to have put the fate of Asia in her hands, and placed in her grasp the virtual IG dictatorsbip of two continents. The main purpose of international arrangement is to secure the freedom and safety of smaller States, and to enable them to live their own lives while surrounded by Powers which could annihilate them without such protection. The law of nations prevents grasping, greedy Governments crushing weaker ones. If it were not sustained, the marauders of the earth would be let loose to prey upon their poor and feeble neighbours. It is no childish dislike of Russia that leads me to contend for the maintenance of this law and this policy. National enmity is no sound or permanent ground of either duty or policy. It is the defence of England and of Europe, the assertion and maintenance of the principles of free government as against a despotism — England and the Western Powers representing the one, and Russia the other — that leads me to resist the advance of the Muscovites to the Bosphorus. In what way has the recent policy of this country contributed to the defence of the Empire, the maintenance of the way to India, and the upholding of the authority of this country in the councils of Europe? Let us look fairly at the facts as they are, and not as they are painted by rival partisans. To the jaundiced eye evc^rything is yellow. By the fortunes of war — a hypocritical war it is true, but still by the fortunes of war — Russia had Turkey at her mercy. She had fought and she had won. She did not occupy Constantinople, but she commanded it, and to the victors belong the spoil. It is true, as I have just explained, she made certain promises before commencing the conflict, which she either evaded or broke. But that is not remarkable. It would have been more remarkable if she had kept them. The Treaty of San Stefano did not fully express her desires, but it did express the extent to which she believed she could, with safety, go in the presence of the indifference of other Powers, and the assumed incapacity and unwillingness of England to oppose her. The Treaty of Berlin did not fully express what this country wanted, but it did express the extent of the concessions that it was possible to obtain. A comparison of what was dic- tated by Russia at San Stefano, and what was accepted by her at Berlin, will show the measure of change made mainly at the 17 instance of ttis country. The Russian troops have evacuated Turkish territory. This may appear a simple statement, but it is not unimportant. Every effort was made by her to retain posses- sion of the provinces she had conquered. She strove to promote discord between the Mussulman and Christian inhabitants, hoping that that discord could be made a pretext for her remaining. Failing in that, she propounded the Jesuitical plan of a joint occupation of Eastern Roumelia by herself and other Powers, These schemes, however, were baffled ; and there is now not a single Cossack trooper west of the Pruth. If the Treaty of San Stefano had stood as it was drawn, Turkey would not only have been dismembered but destroyed. She has now the opportunity of making a fresh start in national life. She can, if her rulers choose, rehabilitate herself in the estimation of Europe and of the world. There is little evidence as yet, I am bound to say, of this disposition. The incorrigible pashas who control her policy seem to have learned nothing and forgotten nothing by the cruel experience of the last three years. The Government is as rotten as the portals of the Porte are worm-eaten. These men have most of the vices of both Eastern and Western peoples, and few of their virtues. There are persons high in the confidence of the Sultan who are as completely under tiie control of the enemies of their country as Faust was under the control of Mephistopheles. But though the Porte perishes Turkey will remain. The Empire vanished, but France was left. There is, and has been for years, an active and patriotic party in Turkey, who have been striving to adapt their institutions to Western modes of life and to European requirements. The simple programme of this party is the fusion of the various races in the peninsula into an united State, based upon the equality, religious and political, of all. Fuad Pasha and Ali Pasha laboured long and earnestly for these principles, and they are now advocated with equal sincerity by Midhat and his supporters. Men of all creeds and all races will be placed on a common level. This programme has the support of Christians and Mohammedans alike. One of the most painful and regretable incidents of this controversy was the dispai-aging way in which the honest efforts of 18 tliese Turkish reformers were spoken of by Liberal politicians n England. Whoever else cared to sneer at the Turkish Constitu- tion, it certainly was no part of the duty of professed adrocates of liberal Government to take up their parable against it. It is certainly not impossible to conceive of the establishment of a Government in which both Mohammedans and Christians may be united, and the pernicious influence which now predominates at Constantinople be exorcised from Turkish political life. By the Treaty of San Stefano injustice would not only have been done to the Greeks, but that country would have been condemned to sustain an ex- hausting conflict for its bare existence. By the extension of a Slay State to the ^gean, Greece would have been denied development. With resources limited and population scanty, she would have been stripped of the elements of growth. She might have been an independent State truly, but so weak that she would have been unable to fulfil the purpose of her foundation. She has now the opportunity of working out her redemption — she is the nucleus, the preparatory agency for the enfrancliisement of a Hellenic State. Greece has a lofty mission to fulfil, and, despite present unfavourable signs, I do not despair of seeing her accomplish it. She is something more and better than she was when Byron mournfully described her as " Greece, but living Greece no more." She does live ; she has sustained a soul almost '' within the ribs of death." The Spartan blood that in her veins yet throhs at freedom's call : — Every stone of old Greece — had it not its hero-tale ? Where they fought, where they fell, 'twas on every hill and dale. The dead are but the hero seed that will spring to life again. By the Treaty of Berlin, Greece gained but little, but at least she was not by it " cribbed, cabined, and con- fined " to the narrow limits of her too restricted territory. The idea of most European Liberals has been that Eussian aggression could be stayed only by the creation of a belt of free States between the Danube and the Balkans. The different natirnxlities would be there grouped in distinct organisations, and. 19 combined, they would be a more effective barrier to Muscovite progress than an effete and receding Empire like Turkey. Many Liberals who agreed with this principle saw difficulties to its prac- tical realization. The inhabitants of this region are chiefly mem- bers of the Greek Church. The Czar is the head of that Church, and he holds them in a state of political as well as theological tutelage. Russia has often professed to assist at the birth of a new nation, but she has always managed to keep her thumb upon its throat, so that it could be destroyed if it became troublesome. It was a common saying of the Russian troops in Bulgaria, " We have now got these Bulgar pigs, and we will drive them." Apart, however, from these speculative objections to the project of distinct nationalities — the oft-declared policy of the Czars — when the Emperor Nicholas proposed to Sir Hamilton Seymour that England and Russia should divide between them the possessions of the Sick Man, he said there were many points in his proposed scheme which he was willing to yield to the wishes of England, but there was one point on which he would never yield. Whatever else he consented to, he would never consent to the establish- ment of a number of small and indcpen'Sent States on the Russian frontier. These would be, he said, nothing but nurseries in which a perpetual crop of Mazzinis and Kossuths would be raised ; their opinions would penetrate into his dominions, and endanger the necessary authority of his government. This was then the settled policy of Russia, and has been authoritatively expressed repeatedly since. Bulgaria, as created by the Treaty of San Stefano, would have been little more than a Russian Princi- pality ; but by the Treaty of Berlin the Bulgarian people had had afforded to them the opportunity of winning for themselves an indeprndent national life. Some few years ago the Bulgarians were held up in this country as models of Christian meekness. Recently they have been condemned with almost equal vigour, and their character has certainly developed some not very lovable attributes. Tliey profess to be Christians, but they have scarcely acted upon the Christian principle of doing unto others as they would like to be done by. They complained loudly and justly of the oppression they suffered from the Turkish pashas ; but now 20 when tliey hav« tlie power, they have manifested towards their Mussulman neighbours a more arbitrary and tyrannical spirit than these Mussulmans ever showed towards them. But I have no wish to judge them harshly. A nation that has for generations been sunk in ignorance and vice cannot be expected all at once to realize the enlightened magnanimity of philosophers. People who have been trampled on will remember it ; those who have been injured will retaliate, and those who have been oppressed will not all at once forget. But tho Bulgarians in time will take their place amongst the European family of nations, and shake off some of the oppressive characteristics that have recently distinguished them. The most gratifying and encouraging intelligence that has come from the East of Europe recently is that these independent States had realized their position. They have learned that Russia's interest in their behalf was certainly not disinterested. The Roumanians remember with bitterness that although they came to the assistance of their big neighbours when they were in fiad straits before Plevna, their reward has been the loss of one of their most important provinces. The entire tone of feeling through- out these regions is a determination on the part of these States to assert their independence and shake themselves clear of Russian influence and direction. But the most important event that hns taken place in Turkey tias been the occupation of Bosnia by Austria. This action cannot be justified on the grounds of national right or justice. I certainly have no wish to extenuate ^)r defend it. It is understood that the clause in the Treaty ol Beilin, which assured these provinces to Austria, owed its authorship to Prince Bismarck and Count Andrassy. Oermany contends that the Danube is a German stream — that as she controls its source so should she command its month. German colonists are planted along its banks, and their etatcsrnen are unwilling to allow it to pass under the control of Russia. Austria objects to the creation of an independent Slav State on the west, as she has already on her eastern borders. For these dynastic and State reasons, the occupation, or rather the iinnexation, of these provinces by Austria has been assured. I am not justifying what has been done, and am dealing only with the 21 facts as they are. The occupation of Bosnia hj xinstria renders tlio advance of Russia to Constantinople all but impossible. Both political and military reasons combine to prevent her achieving her designs on the great city of the East. The case may be put in a sentence. The design of Russia, as revealed by the Treaty of San Stofano, was to obtain a preponderating influence in the Balkan peninsula. The object of England was to prevent her doing this. The result is that Russia is now further from the Bosphorus, and less likely to get there, than she has ever been ; and this has been accomplished chiefly by the action taken by this country. It has been achieved, too, without the loss of a single English life, or without our setting a single regiment in line of battle. Of all the strange things that I have heard during this controversy, the strangest is that Russia has achieved a victory, while England has sustamed a defeat. We were told this in varying forms almost daily. I do not think raiy one else in Europe says so except some English politicians. It is a fact beyond dispute, that the military and aggressive party in Russia are loudly proclaiming that the victories they won, with so much difficulty in the field, have been abstracted from them m the Council Chamber. They were dissatisfied with the mode in which the war was commenced, and for some timo conducted, but the advance of the troops to the neighbourhood of Constantino}^© consoled them for a season. The Treaty of San Stofano, objection- able as it was regarded by England, was considered by the active party in Russia as incomplete and unsatisfactory. Their complaints against it, however, were mollified by the assurance held out to them that it was only temporary. But when even that unsatis- factory Treaty had to be subjected to the revision and alteration of the other European States at Berlin, their discontent assumed an active and threatening attitude. The promulgation of the Treaty of Berlin corresponds with the re-commencement of a period of political assassinations and plots. This reveals popular discontent, while the marching and counter-marching of Russian troops, and the massing of such numbers on the German and Austrian frontiers, reveal the state of feeling wliich pervades the governing class. .-> It is indisputable that, in the estimation of men familiar with Russian society, the Treaty of Berlin 22 has shaken the system of government to its foundation ; while the war which Englishmen arc so fond of regarding as a triumph for Russia and a discomfiture for this country, is looked upon by Russians as having entailed upon their country a harvest of dis- content and disappointment. To balance the territorial advantages gained by other Powers, we have obtained a more assured position in the Levant. I will not enter into the rather pitiful squabble about Cyprus — whether that island is what the poets of the past have painted it, " the blest, the beautiful, the salubrious, the happy, the dream and the desu-e of man," or as it is drawn by partisan politicians in this country, a fever bed and charnel-house. That it is advantageously situated for guarding the Suez Canal from any danger from the North, and that it affords a favourable starting point for advancing to the East through the Euphrates Yalley, will scarcely be denied by any one who has impartially examined the subject. Military and naval men maintain that it can be made not only a watch-tower, but a depot for arms and a safe naval station. It is only twenty hours from Port Said, nine from Acre, and six from Bey rout. It is near enough to watch and close enough to strike if we required to strike, in defence of our road to the Red Sea and to the Persian Gulf. By the Anglo-Turkish Convention, England has taken upon herself heavy responsibilities. But if we had not effected that arrangement, the Sultan, like Shere Ali, despairing of help from England, would have thrown himself — reluctantly, no doubt, but still he would have thrown him- self — into the arms of Russia ; and whatever the result of such a bargain would have been to the people, the greedy pashas would have been secured in their pleasures and possessions. We had, therefore, either to accept the position or permit it to pass into the possession of a rival who, with such a leverage in the centre of two continents, could not only hare imperilled our Empire in India, but our authority in Europe. "We have often entered into treaties with other nations entailing equally onerous obligations. We are bound to defend Greece against Turkey ; Portugal against Spain ; Belgium against France and Germany. We were bound to defend Denmark, and with culpable cowar(fice we evaded the responsibility. Under a stringent treaty we are bound to maintain 23 the independence of Sweden and Norway. If Russia should attempt to lease the fisheries in Swedish waters, or the pasturage on Norwegian soil, this country is to be informed of the fact, and any attempt on her part to infringe upon the Scandinavian terri- tory we are under engagement to resist by force of arms. We are parties to other treaties, many of them quite as risky as the one we have recently entered into with Turkey ; and few of them offer such prospect of achieving such beneficial results as may spring from the Anglo-Turkish Conven- tion. In Asia Minor there are 700,000 square miles of some of the finest land in the world, washed by three seas, watered by large rivers, and possessing spacious ports and harbours. The soil is capable of producing grain, fruit, and cotton in abundance, while the hills and the valleys abound in copper, lead, iron, and silver. Much of this fair and fruitful region on which the seasons have lavished all their beauty, and nature all its fragrance, is given over to malaria and to wild beasts — is the gathering ground of predatory Kurds, and the camping place of wandering Arabs. The spot from which the first enterprise of man started — the land around which such a wealth of the romance, the poetry, and the mystery fastens, which has inJluenced the destinies and formed the characters of not one, but many peoples — is now, from causes partly local and partly foreign, doomed to endure a system of rule which is little less than organised anarchy. We send our surplus population across the Atlantic or to the Antipodes. There is no reason why they should not find a field for their labours, and an outlet for their skill, in a luxuriant land, rich with golden grain and an infinite variety of plants, and fruit, and minerals, within a few hours of our own shores. What has hitherto been wanted is security for life and property. Under the protection that might be, that ought to be, and I trust will be, given by this Treaty, these obstacles to colonisation would be removed. English capitalists and the English Government have always refused seriously to consider the project of a railway through the Euphrates Valley, because they declined to risk such large investments in a country over which they had not sufficient control. This treaty 24 ought to, and I tlimk will, dispense with this difiicnlty. Tlie railway scheme is described by partizans as Utopian and visionary, bat that is a kind of opposition which has grown stale and obsolete. It is not many years ago since the construction of the Suez Canal was, with the approval of English engineers, demon- strated by our townsman, Mr. Robert Stephenson, to be an impossibility, and it was laughed at in the House of Commons by Lord Palmerston as the dream of a crack-brained Frenchman. But the canal is, nevertheless, a great fact. Last year there passed through it between sixteen and seventeen hundred ships with a tonnage of nearly three million tons, and thirteen hundred out of the sixteen were English vessels — a proof of the importance of this water-way to this country. When the scheme of making a railway across the American continent was first promulgated, it was met with characteristic derision, and yet now the line between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, a distance of nearly 2,800 miles, earries thousands of people in the course of a year. Ptussians in these matters are somewhat bolder and more enterprising than some Englishmen are. By the combined effect of river and railway, canal, and lake, they have nearly united the basins of the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian. They have revived the old project of diverting the course of the Oxus, and by their system of land and water carriage, commencing at Riga and Warsaw, and terminating not far from our Indian frontier, they hope to secure a preponderating influence in Central Asia. The Euphrates Valley Railway would be 1,200 miles long, and the cost of its construction is estimated at £12,000,000 — a compara- tively small sum, when the amounts invested in railways in this country are considered. I know no more of the future than a prophet, but I think it would be no great venture to hazard the prediction that the railway will be made, and made, too, through English enterprise ; that this work will not only act as a break- water against Northern aggression, and a bulwark for tlie Indian Empire, but will be made the fulcrum for raising politically and socially an unfortunate people, and making the early seat of arts and refinement, the theatre of some of the most momentous events in history, once more bloom and blossom as the rose. My conten- 25 tion, in a sentence, is tliat our external Empire should be main- tained and defended, as much in the interests of freedom and civilisation as in the interest of England and its distant depen- dencies ; that we cannot honourably and without danger shrink from the responsibilities that our history and our position as the oldest, and one of the chief free States in the world, entail upon us ; that the security of our dominions in the East and the equi- librium of Europe were threatened by the advance of Eussia on Constantinople ; that the action this country took, although it was open to objection in its details, was necessary, and in the main judicious; that it largely contributed to thwart the dangerous, the aggressive designs of Eussia ; has protected our present, and made provision for our obtaining an improved way to India may help to secure better governmcnx for Turkey ; ana has strengthened tke influence of England in the councils of Europe. It is impossible now to discuss at length the policy pursued in Afghanistan, but I wish to express shortly the views I entertain on the action that has been taken m that country. Our Indian possessions are en- circled by the ocean on the south, the south-east, and -eouth-west. On the east they are protected by high ranges of mountains and all but impenetrable forests. These mountains and these forests are occupied by savage tribes, who, although capable of great annoy- ance, as the Nagas are now, are incapable of inflicting any real political or military injury upon us. On the north and north-west our frontiers are the bases of the Himalaya and the Suleiman Mountains. It is an accepted canon in military science, that a Power which holds the mountains and possesses what in soldiers* parlance is called the " issues of the frontier," has an enormous advantage over the Power which occupies the plains. This is an opinion which will scarcely be contested. These moun- tains are peopled by fierce, warlike, and turbulent tribes, who have no special love for England, but have just as much dislike to each other. They live partly by pasturage, partly by plunder. They fight for their own hand. The only State that has an organised Government of any strength is Afghanistan. As long as those passes and mountains, and the country generally, were occupied by tribes of this character, no 26 danger to India was to be anticipated. Partly brigands, 'partly soldiers, tliey could annoy us, and levy black-mail on tlie adjoining inhabitants, yet tbey could not seriously disturb or threaten our authority. Bat it is the accepted opinion of men of all parties — statesmen and soldiers alike — that should this strong military position ever pass into channels of a powerful Govern- ment, our exposed frontier would lay us open to serious danger For years Afghanistan, if not friendly, has at least been neutral ; and there was an understanding between Russia and England that that country should be considered as outside of their mutual interest and influence — that it should be regarded as a neutral territory, both being concerned in upholding its indepen- dence and neutrality. The advance of Russia, however, to the East so alarmed the late Ameer that he urged, some years ago, the English Government to enter into closer alliance with him than then existed. He pointed out that Russia was advancing, and did not conceal his fear that, unless he were protected by England, the same fate would overtake him that had overtaken many another Asiatic ruler. Our Government at that time did not share Shere All's fears, and refused to comply with the requests that he preferred. He became discontented ; and from having a friendly leaning towards England, he now began to lean towards Russia, and to open negotiations with the Russian commanders in the adjacent provinces. When Russia's objects in Turkey were thwarted by this country, she retaliated by striving to set our Indian frontier in a blaze. No one can complain of her doing so ; it is what we would have done, probably, in like circumstances. She objected to our fleet being in the Sea of Marmora, and she thought she would disturb us and distract our attention by assuming a threatening attitude in Afghanistan. A Russian Mission was sent. It was received with ostentatious displays of sympathy by the Ameer, and, as far as he was able, he proclaimed that in future he would be the firm friend and ally of Russia, and if not the enemy, at least not the friend of this country. If not in words, the substance of his declaration and his action at the reception of the Russian Mission amounted to this. 27 Our Government required that, as lie had received a Mission from Russia, he should also accept one from England. He refused to do it, and we attempted to force the Mission upon him. It is un- necessary to repeat the facts, which are in the recollection, no doubt, of all present. Shere Ali's refusal led to war, and after a small show of resistance he fled from Cabul, and shortly afterwards died. With his son, who was made his successor, we concluded peace, and entered into a treaty. By that treaty, England got the right of sending agents to certain specified districts in Afghanistan, and also obtained an important frontier. Instead of having the base of the mountains as a border, we had the moun- tains themselves. By that treaty the country should stand. The frontier secured to us by it should be maintained. A most lament- able, melancholy, and disastrous incident occurred in the autumn — the murder of Sir Louis Cavagnari and his suite. But that ought not to divert us from the settled policy that was developed and expressed by the Treaty of Gandamak. I am in favour of holding the possessions that we have, but we want no more. We have provinces plenty and to spare. Even if we possessed Afghanistan, it would be only a perplexing acquisition ; but supposing it were a profitable one, it would be contrary to the wishes and feelings of the Afghans to come under British rule, and I am altogether opposed to enforcing it upon them. The Treaty that Yakoob Khan had entered into embodies the policy of the country, and it should be upheld. I have discussed principles and not personalities. I am not interested either in defending or in decrying any body of men. All I have been concerned for is to state the grounds on which I have been led to support the asser- tion of what I believe to be Liberal principles and the maintenance of a national policy. It is easy to find fault, and easier still to impute bad motives to your opponents. A man must serve his time to every trade Save censure. Critics all are ready made. The shortcomings of the Government are as apparent to me as to the fiercest opponents of their foreign policy. They have often been weak, sometimes vacillating, not unfrequently wrong ; but I 28 wish to jndge lliem as I would like them to judge me, or the party with Trhich I am identified, under like circumstances. They have been beset by a succession of difficulties and dangers, such as never before encompassed an administration in our times. Apart from the inherent intricacies of the questions tliey have had to deal with, they have had to contend with the rival intercots of other Powers, a strong opposition at home, and some divisions in their own party. It is not generosity, it is simply justice, to remember this. We should also recollect that, in dealing with foreign affairs, there are always some matters that cannot be explained. All Ministries are called upon at times to act upon information that they cannot make publie. What's done we partly may compute. But know not what's resisted. It is possible, even in party warfare, to drive your attacks too far. Unqualified, denunciation usually provokes reaction. The Government, which has had the support of large majorities in both Houses of Parliament, is accused of not only being wrong, but of being criminal — not only of being mischievous and mis- taken, but of being malevolent and malicious. They are charged with having roamed round the world with incendiary designs, bent upon turning our frontiers into blazing bastions fringed with fire. The accusation is, in my judgment, not only incor- rect, but foolish. The indictment I would prefer against them would be of the very opposite character. I think they have acted with tameness and timidity. They have been six years in office, and the first half of that time presented them in their normal and natural character. An entire absence of political legislation, soine mild but useful social measures, a free and easy administration were their characteristics. Taking warning by their predecessors, their great effort was to avoid needlessly ofiending anyone. Events that they could not foresee, circumstances which they could not control, have driven them into warlike action. •^^ People are easily misled by a cry, but no man who has examined the facts for himself can contend that the English Government started the conflict in Eastern Europe. Whoever else began it — 29 whether it was the Kussian emissaries or the Turkish people themselves — certainly Lord Derby, who was then the Foreign Minister of this country, did not do so. He pressed the Sultan to settle the dispute with his subjects, and if that could not be done, he urged him, with somewhat cynical indifference, to suppress the insurrection. When that failed, he strove to localise the war. It might be said that England should have obeyed the three Emperors, and signed the ukase which the imperial league issued from Berlin, and that if Turkey refused to comply with their demands she should have been coerced — in other words, that we should have gone to war against her. It is a matter of opinion, but, in the judgment of men familiar with the East, had such a course been pursued, the Turks would have turned their backs to the wall, and, with all the disciplined fanaticism of their race, they would have fought against Christian, and coalesced Europe for their country and their faith. The re- sistance that was given in Bosnia to the advance of a friendly Hungarian army strengthens this view. But if the Berlin Memorandum was refused, England assented and tooli^ part in the Conference of Constantinople. However we may condemn the course taken by the Government on the Eastern difficul- ties, no man can fairly say that they caused them. The Afghan war, for which they are more directly responsible, was the outcome of the action of Russia in Turkey. We may fairly criticise the policy of the Government, but no one, I think, can say that they sought a cause of quarrel. I do not contend that foreign politics are outside the domain of popular and Parliamentary criticism. On the contrary, I regret that for many years the English people have given so little and such fluctuating heed to foreign questions. But I do say that suck delicate topics should not be made the battle field of party. There are two modes of conducting a discussion — one to elicit information, to sustain, to direct and guide the Executive ; another to win a party victory out of Government troubles. If the Government of the country is in difficulties abroad, the nation is in difficulties, and it grates as much agjunst my national pride as against my sense of justice to go hunting 80 for arguments against my political opponents amongst the stiffening corpses of our fellow-countrymen. (Loud and enthu- siastic cheers.) On the above speech the Pall Mall Gazette of Feb. 2, 1880, remarks : — Since south of the Tweed we are all Englishmen, and can mostly understand the language of generosity, patriotism, and nrood sense, it is not astonishing to read that Mr. Cowen's Kadical constituents, after hearing this speech, voted him their unabated confidence, " unanimously and with the greatest enthu- siasm." And we have no doubt at all that what he spoke at Newcastle is the true thought and feeling of nearly all his countrymen. Some of them have become confused with the windy noises of denunciation, the tricky rhetoric, the misrepre- sentations, the half-truths that are worse than we all know what, which have bellowed from Opposition press and plat- form lately, — that we can scarcely doubt. But turn a man like Mr. Cowen loose for a single month in the most " ad- vanced" constituency thus misled, and we should see at the end of that period what had become of the malignancies that distracted it. aMHii M WWKKSStU HH W>-^--^