might regard, if our statesmen had a little less of those narrow views
which they sometimes arrogantly impute to me and to those who think with
me. If they could get beyond those old notions which belong to the
traditions of Europe, and cast their eyes as far westward as they are
now looking eastward, they might there see a power growing up in its
gigantic proportions, which will teach us before very long where the
true 'balance of power' is to be found. This struggle may indeed begin
with Russia, but it may end with half the States of Europe; for Austria
and Prussia are just as likely to join with Russia as with England and
France, and probably much more so; and we know not how long alliances
which now appear very secure, may remain so; for the circumstances in
which the Government has involved us are of the most critical character,
and we stand upon a mine which may explode any day. Give us seven years
of this infatuated struggle upon which we are now entering, and let the
United States remain at peace during that period, and who shall say what
will then be the relative positions of the two nations? Have you read
the Reports of your own Commissioners to the New York Exhibition? Do you
comprehend what is the progress of that country, as exhibited in its
tonnage, and exports, and imports, and manufactures, and in the
development of all its resources, and the means of transit? There has
been nothing like it hitherto under the sun. The United States may
profit to a large extent by the calamities which will befall us; whilst
we, under the miserable and lunatic idea that we are about to set the
worn-out Turkish Empire on its legs, and permanently to sustain it
against the aggressions of Russia, are entangled in a war. Our trade
will decay and diminish--our people, suffering and discontented, as in
all former periods of war, will emigrate in increasing numbers to a
country whose wise policy is to keep itself free from the entanglement
of European politics--to a country with which rests the great question,
whether England shall, for any long time, retain that which she
professes to value so highly--her great superiority in industry and at
sea.
This whole notion of the 'balance of power' is a mischievous delusion
which has come down to us from past times; we ought to drive it from our
minds, and to consider the solemn question of peace or war on more
clear, more definite, and on far higher principles than any that are
involved in the phrase the 'balance of power.' What is it the Government
propose to do? Let us examine their policy as described in the message
from the Crown, and in the Address which has been moved to-night. As I
understand it, we are asked to go to war to maintain the 'integrity and
independence of the Ottoman Empire'--to curb the aggressive power of
Russia--and to defend the interests of this country.
These are the three great objects to which the efforts and resources of
this country are to be directed. The noble Lord the Member for London
is, I think, the author of the phrase 'the integrity and independence'
of Turkey. If I am not mistaken, he pledged himself to this more than a
year ago, when he was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in a
letter to somebody at Newcastle-on-Tyne, in answer to an Address from
certain enthusiasts in that town, who exhorted the Government to step in
for the support of the Ottoman Empire. But what is the condition of that
Empire at this moment? I have already described to the House what it
would have been if my policy had been adopted--if the thrice-modified
note of Prince Menchikoff had been accepted, or if the Vienna note had
been assented to by the Porte. But what is it now under the protection
of the noble Lord and his Colleagues? At the present moment there are no
less than three foreign armies on Turkish soil: there are 100,000
Russian troops in Bulgaria; there are armies from England and France
approaching the Dardanelles, to entrench themselves on Turkish
territory, and to return nobody knows when. All this can hardly
contribute to the 'independence' of any country. But more than this:
there are insurrections springing up in almost every Turkish province,
and insurrections which must, from the nature of the Turkish Government,
widely extend; and it is impossible to describe the anarchy which must
prevail, inasmuch as the control heretofore exercised by the Government
to keep the peace is now gone, by the withdrawal of its troops to the
banks of the Danube; and the licence and demoralization engendered by
ages of bad government will be altogether unchecked. In addition to
these complicated horrors, there are 200,000 men under arms; the state
of their finances is already past recovery; and the allies of Turkey are
making demands upon her far beyond anything that was required by Russia
herself. Can anything be more destructive of the 'integrity and
independence' of Turkey than the policy of the noble Lord?
I have seen only this day a letter in the Times from its Correspondent
at Constantinople, which states that Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and one
of the Pashas of the Porte had spent a whole night in the attempt to
arrange concessions which her allies had required on behalf of the
Christian population of Turkey. The Christians are to be allowed to hold
landed property; the capitation tax is to be abolished--for they are
actually contending for the abolition of that which the hon. Member for
Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) says is a positive benefit to those upon whom it
is imposed; and the evidence of Christians is to be admitted into courts
of justice. But the _Times_' Correspondent asks, what is the use of
a decree at Constantinople, which will have no effect in the provinces?--
for the judges are Turks of the old school, and they will have little
sympathy with a change under which a Christian in a court of justice is
made equal with his master the Turk. This Correspondent describes what
Turkey really wants--not three foreign armies on her soil, nor any other
thing which our Government is about to give her, but 'a pure executive,
a better financial administration, and sensible laws;' and it must be
admitted that the true wants of the country are not likely soon to be
supplied.
Now, so far as regards Turkey herself, and the 'integrity and
independence' of that Empire, I put it seriously to the House--do you
believe, that if the Government and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe had
advised Turkey to accept the last note of Prince Menchikoff, a note so
little different from the others, offered before and since, that it was
impossible to discover in what the distinction consisted; or if the
Government had insisted on Turkey accepting, as the condition of their
co-operation, the Vienna note, either as at first proposed by the
Conference, or with the explanatory definitions with which the Emperor
of Russia at Olmutz offered to accept it, that they would have injured
the 'integrity and independence' of Turkey? Nay, I will not insult you
by asking whether, under such circumstances, that 'integrity and
independence' would not have been a thousand times more secure than it
is at this hour? If that be true, then the 'balance of power' theory has
been entirely overthrown by the policy of the Government, for no one
will argue that Turkey will come out of her present difficulties more
able to cope with the power of Russia than she was before. With her
finances hopelessly exhausted, will she ever again be able to raise an
army of 200,000 men? But there are men, and I suspect there are
statesmen, in this country, and men in office, too, who believe that
Turkey will not be Turkey at the end of this war--that she cannot come
out of it an Ottoman Power--that such a convulsion has been created,
that while we are ready to contend with half the world to support the
'integrity and independence' of the Ottoman Empire, there will shortly
be no Ottoman Empire to take the benefit of the enormous sacrifices we
are about to make.
But we are undertaking to repress and to curb Russian aggression. These
are catching words; they have been amplified in newspapers, and have
passed from mouth to mouth, and have served to blind the eyes of
multitudes wholly ignorant of the details of this question. If Turkey
has been in danger from the side of Russia heretofore, will she not be
in far greater danger when the war is over? Russia is always there. You
do not propose to dismember Russia, or to blot out her name from the
map, and her history from the records of Europe. Russia will be always
there--always powerful, always watchful, and actuated by the same
motives of ambition, either of influence or of territory, which are
supposed to have moved her in past times. What, then, do you propose to
do? and how is Turkey to be secured? Will you make a treaty with Russia,
and force conditions upon her? But if so, what security have you that
one treaty will be more binding than another? It is easy to find or make
a reason for breaking a treaty, when it is the interest of a country to
break it.
I recollect reading a statement made by the illustrious Washington, when
it was proposed to land a French army in North America, to assist the
colonies in overthrowing the yoke of this country. Washington was afraid
of them--he did not know whether these allies once landed might not be
as difficult to get rid of as the English troops he was endeavouring to
expel; for, said he, 'whatever may be the convention entered into, my
experience teaches me that nations and Governments rarely abide by
conventions or treaties longer than it is their interest to do so.' So
you may make a treaty with Russia; but if Russia is still powerful and
ambitious--as she certainly will be--and if Turkey is exhausted and
enfeebled by the war--as she certainly will be--then I want to know what
guarantee you have, the moment the resources of Russia have recovered
from the utmost degree of humiliation and exhaustion to which you may
succeed in reducing her, that she will not again insist on terms with
Turkey infinitely more perilous than those you have ruined Turkey by
urging her to refuse? It is a delusion to suppose you can dismember
Russia--that you can blot her from the map of Europe--that you can take
guarantees from her, as some seem to imagine, as easily as you take bail
from an offender, who would otherwise go to prison for three months.
England and France cannot do this with a stroke of the pen, and the
sword will equally fail if the attempt be made.
But I come now to another point. How are the interests of England
involved in this question? This is, after all, the great matter which
we, the representatives of the people of England, have to consider. It
is not a question of sympathy with any other State. I have sympathy with
Turkey; I have sympathy with the serfs of Russia; I have sympathy with
the people of Hungary, whose envoy the noble Lord the Member for
Tiverton refused to see, and the overthrow of whose struggle for freedom
by the armies of Russia he needlessly justified in this House; I have
sympathy with the Italians, subjects of Austria, Naples, and the Pope; I
have sympathy with the three millions of slaves in the United States;
but it is not on a question of sympathy that I dare involve this
country, or any country, in a war which must cost an incalculable amount
of treasure and of blood. It is not my duty to make this country the
knight-errant of the human race, and to take upon herself the protection
of the thousand millions of human beings who have been permitted by the
Creator of all things to people this planet.
I hope no one will assume that I would invite--that is the phrase which
has been used--the aggressions of Russia. If I were a Russian, speaking
in a Russian Parliament, I should denounce any aggression upon Turkey,
as I now blame the policy of our own Government; and I greatly fear I
should find myself in a minority, as I now find myself in a minority on
this question. But it has never yet been explained how the interests of
this country are involved in the present dispute. We are not going to
fight for tariffs, or for markets for our exports. In 1791, Mr. Grey
argued that, as our imports from Russia exceeded 1,000,000_l_.
sterling, it was not desirable that we should go to war with a country
trading with us to that amount. In 1853, Russia exported to this country
at least 14,000,000_l_. sterling, and that fact affords no proof of
the increasing barbarism of Russia, or of any disregard of her own
interests as respects the development of her resources. What has passed
in this House since the opening of the present session? We had a large
surplus revenue, and our Chancellor of the Exchequer is an ambitious
Chancellor. I have no hope in any statesman who has no ambition; he can
have no great object before him, and his career will be unmarked by any
distinguished services to his country.
When the Chancellor of the Exchequer entered office, doubtless he hoped,
by great services to his country, to build up a reputation such as a man
may labour for and live for. Every man in this House, even those most
opposed to him, acknowledged the remarkable capacity which he displayed
during the last session, and the country has set its seal to this--that
his financial measures, in the remission and readjustment of taxation,
were worthy of the approbation of the great body of the people. The
right hon. Gentleman has been blamed for his speech at Manchester, not
for making the speech, but because it differed from the tone of the
speech made by the noble Lord, his colleague in office, at Greenock. I
observed that difference. There can be no doubt that there has been, and
that there is now, a great difference of opinion in the Cabinet on this
Eastern question. It could not be otherwise; and Government has gone on
from one step to another; they have drifted--to use the happy expression
of Lord Clarendon to describe what is so truly unhappy--they have
drifted from a state of peace to a state of war; and to no Member of the
Government could this state of things be more distressing than to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, for it dashed from him the hopes he
entertained that session after session, as trade extended and the public
revenue increased, he would find himself the beneficent dispenser of
blessings to the poor, and indeed to all classes of the people of this
kingdom. Where is the surplus now? No man dare even ask for it, or for
any portion of it.
Here is my right hon. Friend and Colleague, who is resolved on the
abolition of the newspaper stamp. I can hardly imagine a more important
question than that, if it be desirable for the people to be instructed
in their social and political obligations; and yet my right hon. Friend
has scarcely the courage to ask for the abolition of that odious tax. I
believe, indeed, that my right hon. Friend has a plan to submit to the
Chancellor by which the abolition of the stamp may be accomplished
without sacrifice to the Exchequer, but that I will not go into at
present. But this year's surplus is gone, and next year's surplus is
gone with it; and you have already passed a Bill to double the income-
tax. And it is a mistake to suppose that you will obtain double the sum
by simply doubling the tax. Many persons make an average of their
incomes, and make a return accordingly. The average will not be
sustained at the bidding of Parliament; and profits that were
considerable last year, will henceforth show a great diminution, or will
have vanished altogether. I mention this for the benefit of the country
gentlemen, because it is plain that real property, lands and houses,
must bear the burden of this war; for I will undertake to say, that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer will prefer to leave that bench, and will
take his seat in some other quarter of the House, rather than retrace
the steps which Sir Robert Peel took in 1842. He is not the promoter of
this war; his speeches have shown that he is anxious for peace, and that
he hoped to be a Minister who might dispense blessings by the remission
of taxes to the people; and I do not believe the right hon. Gentleman
will consent to be made the instrument to reimpose upon the country the
Excise duties which have been repealed, or the Import duties which in
past times inflicted such enormous injury upon trade. The property-tax
is the lever, or the weapon, with which the proprietors of lands and
houses in this kingdom will have to support the 'integrity and
independence' of the Ottoman Empire. Gentlemen, I congratulate you, that
every man of you has a Turk upon his shoulders.
The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) spoke of our 'triumphant
position'--the position in which the Government has placed us by
pledging this country to support the Turks. I see nothing like a triumph
in the fact, that in addition to our many duties to our own country, we
have accepted the defence of twenty millions or more of the people of
Turkey, on whose behalf, but, I believe, not for their benefit, we are
about to sacrifice the blood and treasure of England. But there are
other penalties and other considerations. I will say little about the
Reform Bill, because, as the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) is aware, I
do not regard it as an unmixed blessing. But I think even hon. Gentlemen
opposite will admit that it would be well if the representation of the
people in this House were in a more satisfactory state, and that it is
unfortunate that we are not permitted, calmly and with mutual good
feeling, to consider the question, undisturbed by the thunder of
artillery and undismayed by the disasters which are inseparable from a
state of war.
With regard to trade, I can speak with some authority as to the state of
things in Lancashire. The Russian trade is not only at an end, but it is
made an offence against the law to deal with any of our customers in
Russia. The German trade is most injuriously affected by the uncertainty
which prevails on the continent of Europe. The Levant trade, a very
important branch, is almost extinguished in the present state of affairs
in Greece, Turkey in Europe, and Syria. All property in trade is
diminishing in value, whilst its burdens are increasing. The funds have
fallen in value to the amount of about 120,000,000_l_. sterling,
and railway property is quoted at about 80,000,000_l_. less than
was the case a year ago. I do not pretend to ask the hon. Member for
Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) to put these losses, these great destructions of
property, against the satisfaction he feels at the 'triumphant position'
at which we have arrived. He may content himself with the dream that we
are supporting the 'integrity and independence' of Turkey, though I
doubt whether bringing three foreign armies on her soil, raising
insurrections in her provinces, and hopelessly exhausting her finances,
is a rational mode of maintaining her as an independent Power.
But we are sending out 30,000 troops to Turkey, and in that number are
not included the men serving on board the fleets. Here are 30,000 lives!
There is a thrill of horror sometimes when a single life is lost, and we
sigh at the loss of a friend, or of a casual acquaintance! But here we
are in danger of losing--and I give the opinions of military men and not
my own merely--10,000, or it may be 20,000 lives, that may be sacrificed
in this struggle. I have never pretended to any sympathy for the
military profession--but I have sympathy for my fellow-men and fellow-
countrymen, where-ever they may be. I have heard very melancholy
accounts of the scenes which have been witnessed in the separations from
families occasioned by this expedition to the East. But it will be said,
and probably the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton will say, that it is
a just war, a glorious war, and that I am full of morbid sentimentality,
and have introduced topics not worthy to be mentioned in Parliament. But
these are matters affecting the happiness of the homes of England, and
we, who are the representatives and guardians of those homes, when the
grand question of war is before us, should know at least that we have a
case--that success is probable--and that an object is attainable, which
may be commensurate with the cost of war.
There is another point which gives me some anxiety. You are boasting of
an alliance with France. Alliances are dangerous things. It is an
alliance with Turkey that has drawn us into this war. I would not advise
alliances with any nation, but I would cultivate friendship with all
nations. I would have no alliance that might drag us into measures which
it is neither our duty nor our interest to undertake. By our present
alliance with Turkey, Turkey cannot make peace without the consent of
England and France; and by this boasted alliance with France we may find
ourselves involved in great difficulties at some future period of these
transactions.
I have endeavoured to look at the whole of this question, and I declare,
after studying the correspondence which has been laid on the table--
knowing what I know of Russia and of Turkey--seeing what I see of
Austria and of Prussia--feeling the enormous perils to which this
country is now exposed, I am amazed at the course which the Government
have pursued, and I am horrified at the results to which their policy
must inevitably tend. I do not say this in any spirit of hostility to
the Government. I have never been hostile to them. I have once or twice
felt it my duty to speak, with some degree of sharpness, of particular
Members of the Administration, but I suspect that in private they would
admit that my censure was merited. But I have never entertained a party
hostility to the Government. I know something of the difficulties they
have had to encounter, and I have no doubt that, in taking office, they
acted in as patriotic a spirit as is generally expected from Members of
this House. So long as their course was one which I could support, or
even excuse, they have had my support. But this is not an ordinary
question; it is not a question of reforming the University of Oxford, or
of abolishing 'ministers' money' in Ireland; the matter now before us
affects the character, the policy, and the vital interests of the
Empire; and when I think the Government have committed a grievous--it
may be a fatal error--I am bound to tell them so.
I am told indeed that the war is popular, and that it is foolish and
eccentric to oppose it. I doubt if the war is very popular in this
House. But as to what is, or has been popular, I may ask, what was more
popular than the American war? There were persons lately living in
Manchester who had seen the recruiting party going through the principal
streets of that city, accompanied by the parochial clergy in full
canonicals, exhorting the people to enlist to put down the rebels in the
American colonies. Where is now the popularity of that disastrous and
disgraceful war, and who is the man to defend it? But if hon. Members
will turn to the correspondence between George III and Lord North, on
the subject of that war, they will find that the King's chief argument
for continuing the war was, that it would be dishonourable in him to
make peace so long as the war was popular with the people. Again, what
war could be more popular than the French war? Has not the noble Lord
(Lord John Russell) said, not long ago, in this House, that peace was
rendered difficult if not impossible by the conduct of the English press
in 1803? For myself, I do not trouble myself whether my conduct in
Parliament is popular or not. I care only that it shall be wise and just
as regards the permanent interests of my country, and I despise from the
bottom of my heart the man who speaks a word in favour of this war, or
of any war which he believes might have been avoided, merely because the
press and a portion of the people urge the Government to enter into it.
I recollect a passage of a distinguished French writer and statesman
which bears strongly upon our present position: he says,--
'The country which can comprehend and act upon the lessons which
God has given it in the past events of its history, is secure in
the most imminent crises of its fate.'