this country in European wars is not only unnecessary, but calamitous;
that we have rarely come out of such intervention having succeeded in
the objects we fought for; that a debt of 800,000,000_l_. sterling
has been incurred by the policy which the noble Lord approves,
apparently for no other reason than that it dates from the time of
William III; and that, not debt alone has been incurred, but that we
have left Europe at least as much in chains as before a single effort
was made by us to rescue her from tyranny. I believe, if this country,
seventy years ago, had adopted the principle of nonintervention in every
case where her interests were not directly and obviously assailed, that
she would have been saved from much of the pauperism and brutal crimes
by which our Government and people have alike been disgraced. This
country might have been a garden, every dwelling might have been of
marble, and every person who treads its soil might have been
sufficiently educated. We should indeed have had less of military glory.
We might have had neither Trafalgar nor Waterloo; but we should have set
the high example of a Christian nation, free in its institutions,
courteous and just in its conduct towards all foreign States, and
resting its policy on the unchangeable foundation of Christian morality.
* * * * *
RUSSIA.
II.
ENLISTMENT OF FOREIGNERS BILL.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 22, 1854.
_From Hansard._
At this hour of the night I shall not make a speech; but I wish to say a
few things in answer to the noble Lord the Member for the City of
London, who has very strangely misapprehended--I am not allowed to say
'misrepresented'--what fell from my hon. Friend the Member for the West
Riding. The noble Lord began by saying that my hon. Friend had charged
the Government with making war in something of a propagandist spirit in
favour of nationalities throughout the Continent; but that was the exact
contrary of what my hon. Friend did say. What he said was, that that
portion of the people of this country who had clamoured for war, and
whose opinion formed the basis whereupon the Government grounded their
plea for the popularity of the war, were in favour of the setting up of
nationalities; but my hon. Friend showed that the Government had no such
object, and the war no such tendency. The next misrepresentation was,
that my hon. Friend had spoken in favour of the _status quo_; but
there is not the shadow of a shade of truth in that statement. What my
hon. Friend said was precisely the contrary; but the noble Lord, arguing
from his own misapprehension of my hon. Friend's meaning, went on then
to show that it would not do to establish a peace on the _status
quo_ terms, thus knocking down a position which nobody had set up.
The noble Lord was also guilty of another mistake with reference to an
observation of my hon. Friend as to the character and position of the
Turks. We have referred over and over again to a monstrous statement
made by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton as to the improvement of
the Turks--a statement which is contradicted by all facts. Tonight, with
a disingenuousness which I should be ashamed to use in argument--[Cries
of 'Oh!']--it is very well for hon. Gentlemen who come down to cheer a
Minister to cry 'Oh!' but is it a fact, or is it not? Is there a man who
hears me who does not know perfectly well, when the noble Lord said that
the Turks had improved within the last twenty years more than any other
nation in Europe, that the statement referred not to the Christians,
whose rights and interests we were defending, but to the character of
the Mahometan population? But to-night, with a disingenuousness which I
could not condescend to be guilty of, the noble Lord has assumed that
the statement referred to the condition of the Christian population.
The real question was, as every hon. Gentleman knows, What was the
condition of the Mahometan? and there is not a Gentleman in this House
who is not aware that the Mahometan portion of the population of the
Turkish Empire is in a decaying and dying condition, and that the two
great Empires which have undertaken to set it on its legs again will
find it about the most difficult task in which they ever were engaged.
What do your own officers say? Here is an extract from a letter which
appeared in the papers the other day:--
They ought to set these rascally Turks to mend them [the roads],
which might easily be done, as under the clay there is plenty of
capital stone. They are, I am sorry to say, bringing more of
these brutes into the Crimea, which makes more mouths to feed,
without being of any use.
I have seen a private letter, too, from an able and distinguished
officer in the Crimea, who says--
'Half of us do not know what we are fighting for, and the other
half only pray that we may not be fighting for the Turks.'
The only sign of improvement which has been manifested that I know of
is, that on a great emergency, when their Empire, under the advice of
Her Majesty's Government, and that of their Ambassador, was placed in a
situation of great peril, the Turks managed to make an expiring effort,
and to get up an army which the Government, so far as I can hear, has
since permitted to be almost destroyed.
Another sign of improvement is, perhaps, that they have begun to wear
trowsers; but as to their commerce, their industry, or their revenue,
nothing can be in a worse condition. You have now two Empires attempting
to set the Turkish Empire up again; and it is said that a third great
Empire is also about to engage in the task. The Turk wants to borrow
money, but he cannot borrow it to-day in the London market at less than
from eight to nine per cent. Russia, on the other hand, is an Empire
against which three great Empires, if Turkey can be counted one still,
are now combined, and it is said that a fourth great Empire will soon
join the ranks of its enemies. But Russian funds at this moment are very
little lower than the stock of the London and North-Western Railway. You
have engaged to set this Turkish Empire up again--a task in which
everybody knows you must fail--and you have persuaded the Turk to enter
into a contest, one of the very first proceedings in which has forced
him to mortgage to the English capitalist a very large portion--and the
securest portion, too, of his revenues--namely, that which he derives
from Egypt, amounting in fact, in a fiscal and financial point of view,
to an actual dismemberment of the Turkish Empire, by a separation of
Egypt from it. Why is it that the noble Lord has tonight come forward as
the defender of the Greeks? Is it that
he has discovered, when this war is over, that Turkey, which he has
undertaken to protect, the Empire which he is to defend and sustain
against the Emperor of Russia, will have been smothered under his
affectionate embrace? or, to quote the powerful language of the
_Times_, when the Vienna note was refused, that whatever else may
be the result of the war in which Turkey has plunged Europe, this one
thing is certain, that at its conclusion there may be no Turkish Empire
to talk about?
The noble Lord quoted a letter which I wrote some time ago, and which,
like others who have discussed it, he found it not easy to answer. In
that letter I referred to Don Pacifico's case; and I am sure that the
noble Lord the Member for Tiverton will remember a despatch which he
received through Baron Brunnow, from Count Nesselrode, on that subject,--
a despatch which I think the House will forgive my reading to it on the
present occasion, as it gives the Russian Government's estimation of
that act of 'material guarantee' on the part of England:--
'It remains to be seen whether Great Britain, abusing the
advantages which are afforded her by her immense maritime
superiority, intends henceforth to pursue an isolated policy,
without caring for those engagements which bind her to the other
Cabinets; whether she intends to disengage herself from every
obligation, as well as from all community of action, and to
authorize all great Powers, on every fitting opportunity, to
recognize to the weak no other rule but their own will, no other
right but their own physical strength. Your Excellency will
please to read this despatch to Lord Palmerston, and to give him
a copy of it.'
If there had been no more temper--no more sense--no more unity in the
negotiations which took place with regard to this matter, in all
probability we might have had a war about it. It was a case in which
Russia might have gone to war with this country, if she had been so
minded. But Russia did not do that. Fortunately, the negotiations that
ensued settled that question without bringing that disaster upon Europe.
But the noble Lord again misinterpreted my hon. Friend (Mr. Cobden). I
appeal to every Gentleman who heard my hon. Friend's speech whether the
drift of it was not this--that in this quarrel, Prussia, and certainly
Austria, had a nearer and stronger interest than England, and that he
could not understand why the terms which Austria might consider fair and
safe for herself and for Turkey, might not be accepted with honour by
this country and by France? Now, I am prepared to show that, from the
beginning of this dispute, there is not a single thing which Austria
wished to do in the course of the negotiations, or even which France
wished to do, that the Government of the noble Lord did not
systematically refuse its assent to, and that the noble Lord's
Government is alone responsible for the failure in every particular
point which took place in these negotiations. I will not trouble the
House by going into the history of these negotiations now, further than
just to state two facts, which will not take more than a few sentences.
The noble Lord referred to the note which Russia wanted Turkey to sign,
known as the Menchikoff note; but the noble Lord knows as well as I do,
that when the French Ambassador, M. De la Cour, went to Constantinople,
or whilst he was at Constantinople, he received express instructions
from the Emperor of the French not to take upon himself the
responsibility of inciting the Sultan to reject that note, ['No.'] I
know this is the fact, because it is stated in Lord Cowley's despatch to
the noble Lord.
I am expressing no opinion on the propriety of what was here done; I
simply state the fact: and it was through the interference of Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe--acting, I presume, in accordance with
instructions from our Cabinet, and promising the intervention of the
fleets--that the rejection of that note was secured. The next fact I
have to mention is this. When in September, last year, the last
propositions were drawn up by Counts Buol and Nesselrode, and offered at
Olmütz by the Emperor, as a final settlement of the question, although
Austria and Prussia were in favour of those propositions; though Lord
Westmoreland himself said (I do not quote his exact words, but their
substance) that they were of such a nature as might be received; thus
indicating his favourable opinion of them; and though, likewise, the
Emperor of the French himself declared that they guarded all the points
in which England and France were concerned (for this was stated by Count
Walewski when he said that the Emperor was prepared to order his
Ambassador at Constantinople to sign them along with the other
Ambassadors, and to offer them to the Porte in exchange for the Vienna
note), nevertheless, the Earl of Clarendon wrote, not in a very
statesmanlike manner in such an emergency, but in almost a contemptuous
tone, that our Government would not, upon any consideration, have
anything further to do with the Vienna note. The rejection, first of the
amended Menchikoff note, and then of the Olmütz note, was a policy
adopted solely by the Government of this country, and only concurred in,
but not recommended, by the French Government and the other Governments
of Europe. Whether this policy was right or wrong, there can be no doubt
of the fact; and I am prepared to stake my reputation for accuracy and
for a knowledge of the English language on this interpretation of the
documents which have been laid before us. That being so, on what
pretence could we expect that Austria should go to war in company with
us for objects far beyond what she thought satisfactory at the
beginning? or why should we ask the Emperor of the French to go to war
for objects which he did not contemplate, and to insist on conditions
which, in the month of September of last year, he thought wholly
unnecessary?
But one fact more I hope the House will allow me to state. There is a
despatch in existence which was never produced to the people of this
country, but which made its first appearance in a St. Petersburg
newspaper, and was afterwards published in the Paris journals--a
despatch in which the Emperor of the French, or his Minister, urged the
Russian Government to accept the Vienna note on the express ground--I
give the exact words--that 'its general sense differed in nothing from
the sense of the original propositions of Prince Menchikoff.' Why, Sir,
can there be dissimulation more extraordinary--can there be guilt more
conclusive than that this Government should act as it did, after it had
recommended the Emperor of Russia to accept the Vienna note? For the
noble Lord has told us, over and over again, that the Government of
England concurred in all the steps taken by the French Government. The
House will allow me to read the very words of the despatch, for, after
all, this is no very small matter. I have an English translation, but
the French original is underneath, and any hon. Gentleman who chooses
may see it. The despatch is from M. Drouyn de Lhuys, the French Foreign
Minister, who states:--
'That which the Cabinet of St. Petersburg ought to desire is an
act of the Porte, which testifies that it has taken into serious
consideration the mission of Prince Menchikoff, and that it
renders homage to the sympathies which an identity of religion
inspires in the Emperor Nicholas for all Christians of the
Eastern rite.'
And farther on:--
'They [the French Government] submit it to the Cabinet of St.
Petersburg with the hope that it will find that its general sense
differs in nothing from the sense of the proposition presented by
Prince Menchikoff.'
The French words are:--
'Que son sens général ne diffère en rien du sens du projet
présenté par M. le Prince Menchikoff.'
It then goes on:--
'And that it gives it satisfaction on all the essential points of
its demands. The slight variation in the form of it will not be
observed by the masses of the people, either in Russia or in
Turkey. To their eyes, the step taken by the Porte [that is, in
accepting it] will preserve all the signification which the
Cabinet of St. Petersburg wishes to give it; and His Majesty the
Emperor Nicholas will appear to them always as the powerful and
respected protector of their religious faith.'
This despatch was written, recommending _la note Française_; which
is the basis of, and is in reality and substance the same thing with,
the Vienna note; but, up to this moment, neither the Government of
France nor the Government of which the noble Lord is a Member has for an
instant denied the justice--I do not say the extent or degree--but the
justice of the claim made on the part of the Russian Government against
the Turks; and now they turn round upon their own note and tell you that
there was a different construction put upon it. Was there any
construction put upon it, which was different from the recommendation
here made and the argument used by the French Government? No; and the
whole of that statement is a statement that is delusive, and if I were
not in this House I would characterize it by a harsher epithet. I say
now what I stated in March last, and what I have since said and written
to the country, that you are making war against the Government which
accepted your own terms of peace; and I state this now only for the
purpose of urging upon the House and upon the Government that you are
bound at least, after making war for many months, to exact no further
terms from the State with which you are at war, than such as will give
that security which at first you believed to be necessary; and that if
you carry on a war for vengeance--if you carry on a war for conquest--if
you carry on a war for purposes of Government at home, as many wars have
been carried on in past times, I say you will be guilty of a heinous
crime, alike in the eyes of God and of man.
One other remark perhaps the House will permit me to make. The noble
Lord spoke very confidently to-night; and a very considerable portion of
his speech--hoping, as I do, for the restoration of peace at some time
or another--was to me not very satisfactory. I think that he would only
be acting a more statesmanlike part if, in his speeches, he were at
least to abstain from those trifling but still irritating charges which
he is constantly making against the Russian Government. I can conceive
one nation going to war with another nation; but why should the noble
Lord say, 'The Sovereign of that State does not allow Bibles to be
circulated--he suppressed this thing here, and he put down something
else there'? What did one of the noble Lord's present colleagues say of
the Government of our ally? Did he not thank God that his despotism
could not suppress or gag our newspaper press, and declare that the
people of France were subject to the worst tyranny in Europe? These
statements from a Minister--from one who has been Prime Minister, and
who, for aught I know, may be again Prime Minister--show a littleness
that I did not expect from a statesman of this country, whose fate and
whose interests hang on every word the noble Lord utters, and when the
fate of thousands, aye, and of tens of thousands, may depend on whether
the noble Lord should make one false step in the position in which he is
now placed.
And when terrible calamities were coming upon your army, where was this
Government? One Minister was in Scotland, another at the sea-side, and
for six weeks no meeting of the Cabinet took place. I do not note when
Cabinets are held--I sometimes observe that they sit for four or five
hours at a time, and then I think something is wrong--but for six
weeks, or two months, it is said no meeting of the Ministers was held.
The noble Lord President was making a small speech on a great subject
somewhere in Cumberland. At Bedford he descanted on the fate of empires,
forgetting that there was nothing so likely to destroy an empire as
unnecessary wars. At Bristol he was advocating a new History of England,
which, if impartially written, I know not how the noble Lord's policy
for the last few months will show to posterity. The noble Lord the
Member for Tiverton undertook a more difficult task--a labour left
unaccomplished by Voltaire--and, when he addressed the Hampshire
peasantry, in one short sentence he overturned the New Testament and
destroyed the foundations of the Christian religion.
Now, Sir, I have only to speak on one more point. My hon. Friend the
Member for the West Riding, in what he said about the condition of the
English army in the Crimea, I believe expressed only that which all in
this House feel, and which, I trust, every person in this country
capable of thinking feels. When I look at Gentlemen on that bench, and
consider all their policy has brought about within the last twelve
months, I scarcely dare trust myself to speak of them, either in or out
of their presence. We all know what we have lost in this House. Here,
sitting near me, very often sat the Member for Frome (Colonel Boyle). I
met him a short time before he went out, at Mr. Westerton's, the
bookseller, near Hyde Park Corner. I asked him whether he was going out?
He answered, he was afraid he was; not afraid in the sense of personal
fear--he knew not that; but he said, with a look and a tone I shall
never forget, 'It is no light matter for a man who has a wife and five
little children.' The stormy Euxine is his grave; his wife is a widow,
his children fatherless. On the other side of the House sat a Member,
with whom I was not acquainted, who has lost his life, and another of
whom I knew something (Colonel Blair). Who is there that does not
recollect his frank, amiable, and manly countenance? I doubt whether
there were any men on either side of the House who were more capable of
fixing the goodwill and affection of those with whom they were
associated. Well, but the place that knew them shall know them no more
for ever.
I have specified only two; but there are a hundred officers who have
been killed in battle, or who have died of their wounds; forty have died
of disease; and more than two hundred others have been wounded more or
less severely. This has been a terribly destructive war to officers.
They have been, as one would have expected them to be, the first in
valour as the first in place; they have suffered more in proportion to
their numbers than the commonest soldiers in the ranks. This has spread
sorrow over the whole country. I was in the House of Lords when the vote
of thanks was moved. In the gallery were many ladies, three-fourths of
whom were dressed in the deepest mourning. Is this nothing? And in every
village, cottages are to be found into which sorrow has entered, and, as
I believe, through the policy of the Ministry, which might have been
avoided. No one supposes that the Government wished to spread the pall
of sorrow over the land; but this we had a right to expect, that they
would at least show becoming gravity in discussing a subject the
appalling consequences of which may come home to individuals and to the
nation. I recollect when Sir Robert Peel addressed the House on a
dispute which threatened hostilities with the United States,--I
recollect the gravity of his countenance, the solemnity of his tone, his
whole demeanour showing that he felt in his soul the responsibility that
rested on him.
I have seen this, and I have seen the present Ministry. There was the
buffoonery at the Reform Club. Was that becoming a matter of this grave
nature? Has there been a solemnity of manner in the speeches heard in
connection with this war--and have Ministers shown themselves statesmen
and Christian men when speaking on a subject of this nature? It is very
easy for the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton to rise and say that I
am against war under all circumstances; and that if an enemy were to
land on our shores, I should make a calculation as to whether it would
be cheaper to take him in or keep him out, and that my opinion on this
question is not to be considered either by Parliament or the country. I
am not afraid of discussing the war with the noble Lord on his own
principles. I understand the Blue Books as well as he; and, leaving out
all fantastic and visionary notions about what will become of us if
something is not done to destroy or to cripple Russia, I say--and I say
it with as much confidence as I ever said anything in my life--that the
war cannot be justified out of these documents; and that impartial
history will teach this to posterity if we do not comprehend it now.
I am not; nor did I ever pretend to be, a statesman; and that character
is so tainted and so equivocal in our day, that I am not sure that a
pure and honourable ambition would aspire to it. I have not enjoyed for
thirty years, like these noble Lords, the honours and emoluments of
office. I have not set my sails to every passing breeze. I am a plain
and simple citizen, sent here by one of the foremost constituencies of
the Empire, representing feebly, perhaps, but honestly, I dare aver, the
opinions of very many, and the true interests of all those who have sent
me here. Let it not be said that I am alone in my condemnation of this
war, and of this incapable and guilty Administration. And, even if I
were alone, if mine were a solitary voice, raised amid the din of arms
and the clamours of a venal press, I should have the consolation I have
to-night--and which I trust will be mine to the last moment of my
existence--the priceless consolation that no word of mine has tended to
promote the squandering of my country's treasure or the spilling of one
single drop of my country's blood.
* * * * *
RUSSIA.
III.
NEGOTIATIONS AT VIENNA.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 23, 1855.
_From Hansard._