the same circumstances as Russia was placed in, had consented to terms
such as the noble Lord had endeavoured to force upon Russia--I say, that
if he entered the door of this House, he would be met by one universal
shout of execration, and, as a public man, would be ruined for ever.
I wish to ask the House this question--whether it has deliberately made
up its mind that this was a proposition which ought to have been imposed
upon Russia? If they have ascertained which is the best--and I rather
think the general opinion is that the proposition of the Government is
the worst; but, assuming that it is not so, and that there may be some
little difference--I want to know what that difference is, and if there
is any difference which can be measured even by the finest diplomatic
and statesmanlike instrument ever invented, I ask, is that difference
worth to this country the incalculable calamities which a prolonged war
must bring upon us? I am of opinion that, with the territorial guarantee
and the abolition of the Christian protectorate, either the terms
proposed by the noble Lord or by Prince Gortchakoff would have been as
secure for Turkey as it is possible under existing circumstances for
Turkey to be by any treaty between the great Powers of Europe. And,
recollect that we have been thrown a little off the original
proposition, for when that proposition was first agreed to in the
Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen I am satisfied in my own mind that it meant
something very like that which the Russians themselves have proposed.
If we take this first protocol of the conference, and look to the speech
made by Count Buol and to the proposition he made, you will find the
third article runs in this language: 'The treaty of July 13, 1841, shall
be revised with the double object,' and so on. But what is the meaning
of revising the treaty of 1841? The treaty has only one object, which is
to guarantee to the Turk the right he has claimed since his possession
of Constantinople--namely, that the Straits should be closed under the
guarantee of the Powers, except in case of war. Therefore, when the
Aberdeen Government, of which the noble Lords were Members, originally
agreed upon these terms, their object was that the Black Sea should be
thrown open, or, at least, that the closing of the Straits should be
relaxed; and I presume that it was not until after it was known that,
while Russia had no objection to the opening of the Straits, Turkey was
very much opposed to it, that it was found necessary to change the terms
and bring them forward in another form. But, surely, if this be so, the
House and the Government should be chary indeed of carrying on a
prolonged war with Russia, Russia having been willing to accept a
proposition made originally by us, and which I believe to be the best
for Turkey and for the interests of Europe. If, I say, this be so, was
the Government justified in breaking off these negotiations, because
that really is the issue which this House is called upon to try? Can
they obtain better terms? If the terms are sufficient for Turkey they
ought not to ask for better ones. I do not say they may not get better
terms. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for the West Riding (Mr.
Cobden), that England and France, if they choose to sacrifice 500,000
men, and to throw away 200,000,000_l_. or 300,000,000_l_. of
treasure, may dismember the Russian Empire. But I doubt whether this
would give better terms for Turkey--I am sure it would not give better
terms for England and France. Now, what has it cost to obtain all this?
And here I must be permitted to say one word with regard to the course
taken by those right hon. Gentlemen who have recently taken their seats
on this bench, and whose conduct on this question has been the cause of
great debate, and of language which I think the state of the case has
not wholly justified. I presume it will be admitted that these right
hon. Gentlemen at least know the object of the war as well as any other
men in this House. I presume, too, that, entertaining as they do a very
serious idea of the results of a prolonged war, they are at liberty to
come to the conclusion that certain terms, to which they themselves were
parties, are sufficient; and if this be the conviction at which they
have arrived, surely no Member of this House will say that, because they
were Members of a Cabinet some time ago which went into this war,
therefore they should be forbidden to endeavour to avert the
incalculable calamities which threaten their country, but should be
expected to maintain a show of consistency, for which they must
sacrifice everything that an honest man would hold dear. Have these men
gained anything in popularity with the country, or even with the Members
of this House, by the course they have taken?
I am almost ashamed to say anything in the defence of those who are so
capable of explaining and defending their own conduct in this matter;
but I may be pardoned if I rejoice that men ranking high as statesmen,
powerful by their oratory, distinguished by their long services, have
separated themselves from that rash, that inexcusable recklessness
which, I say, marks the present Government, and are anxious to deliver
their country from the dangers which surround it. My hon. Friends below
me--and I am quite sure not one of them will suppose that I speak from
the mere wish to oppose them in any way; they are personal friends of
mine, and it pains me now to differ from them; but hon. Members seem to
think, when they are looking a long way off for the objects to be gained
by war, that a man who looks at home is not a friend to his country. Is
war the only thing a nation enters upon in which the cost is never to be
reckoned? Is it nothing that in twelve months you have sacrificed 20,000
or 30,000 men, who a year ago were your own fellow-citizens, living in
your midst, and interested, as you are, in all the social and political
occurrences of the day? Is it nothing that, in addition to those lives,
a sum of--I am almost afraid to say how much, but 30,000,000_l_. or
40,000,000_l_. will not be beyond the mark--has already been
expended? And let the House bear in mind this solemn fact--that the four
nations engaged in this war have already lost so many men, that if you
were to go from Chelsea to Blackwall, and from Highgate and Hampstead to
Norwood, and take every man of a fighting age and put him to death--if
you did this you would not sacrifice a larger number of lives than have
already been sacrificed in these twelve months of war.
Your own troops, as you know, have suffered, during a Crimean winter,
tortures and horrors which the great Florentine hardly imagined when he
wrote his immortal epic. Hon. Members are ready, I know, to say, 'Whose
fault is that?' But if our loss has been less than that of the French,
less than that of the Turks, and less than that of the Russians, it is
fair to assume that, whatever mistakes may have been committed by the
Government, the loss in the aggregate would, even under other
circumstances, have fallen very little short of that which I have
attempted to describe. Are these things to be accounted nothing? We have
had for twelve years past a gradual reduction of taxation, and there has
been an immense improvement in the physical, intellectual, and moral
condition of the people of this country; while for the last two years we
have commenced a career of reimposing taxes, have had to apply for a
loan, and no doubt, if this war goes on, extensive loans are still in
prospect.
Hon. Members may think this is nothing. They say it is a 'low' view of
the case. But, these things are the foundation of your national
greatness, and of your national duration; and you may be following
visionary phantoms in all parts of the world while your own country is
becoming rotten within, and calamities may be in store for the monarchy
and the nation of which now, it appears, you take no heed. Every man
connected with trade knows how much trade has suffered, how much profits
in every branch of trade--except in contracts arising out of the war--
have diminished, how industry is becoming more precarious and the reward
for industry less, how the price of food is raised, and how much there
is of a growing pressure of all classes, especially upon the poorest of
the people--a pressure which by-and-by--not just now, when the popular
frenzy is lashed into fury morning after morning by the newspapers--
[Murmurs]--but I say by-and-by this discontent will grow rapidly, and
you (pointing to the Ministerial bench) who now fancy you are fulfilling
the behests of the national will, will find yourselves pointed to as the
men who ought to have taught the nation better.
I will not enter into the question of the harvest. That is in the hand
of Providence, and may Providence grant that the harvest may be as
bountiful as it was last year! But the House must recollect that in
1853, only two years ago, there was the worst harvest that had been
known for forty years. Prices were very high in consequence. Last year
the harvest was the greatest ever known, yet prices have been scarcely
lower, and there are not wanting men of great information and of sound
judgment who look with much alarm to what may come--I trust it may not
come--if we should have, in addition to the calamities of war,
calamities arising from a scarcity of food, which may be scarcely less
destructive of the peace and comfort of the population of this country.
I will ask the House in this state of things whether they are disposed
to place implicit confidence in her Majesty's Ministers? On that (the
Opposition) side of the House there is not, I believe, much confidence
in the Government; and on this side I suspect there are many men who are
wishful that at this critical moment the affairs of the country should
be under the guidance of men of greater solidity and of better judgment.
I will now point out one or two causes which I think show that I am
justified in placing no confidence whatever in her Majesty's Government.
Take for example what they have been doing with Austria. The noble Lord
at the head of the Government has stated to us that it was of European
importance that Hungary should be connected with Austria. The noble Lord
the Member for the City of London said the other night it was of
essential importance that Austria should be preserved as she is--a great
conservative Power in the midst of Europe. Well, but at the same time
this Government has been urging Austria, month after month, to enter
into the same ruinous course which they themselves are disposed to
pursue. They know perfectly well that if Austria were to join either
with Russia on the one hand, or with the Western Powers on the other, in
all human probability this great Empire would no longer remain that
'great conservative Power in the midst of Europe,' but would be stripped
on the one side of her Italian provinces, and of Hungary on the other;
or, if not stripped of these two portions of the Empire, would be
plunged into an interminable anarchy which would prove destructive of
her power.
What can be more inconsistent than for Ministers to tell us that they
wish Austria to be preserved, and, at the same time, to urge her upon a
course which they know perfectly well must end in her disruption, and in
the destruction of that which they think essential to the balance of
power in Europe? We are told, with regard to our other alliance, that it
is a very delicate topic. It is a very delicate and a very important
topic; but there is another topic still more delicate and important--
namely, the future of this country with regard to that alliance. I think
we have before now spent 1,000,000,000_l_. sterling, more or less,
for the sake of a French dynasty. At this moment there are French armies
in Rome, in Athens, in Gallipoli, in Constantinople, and in the Crimea,
and the end of all this, I fear, is not yet. It has been repeatedly
stated in this House that the people of France are not themselves
enthusiastic in favour of this war. I would fain hope, whatever else may
happen, that between the people of England and of France an improved and
friendly feeling has grown up. But, as far as the war is concerned, your
alliance depends on one life. The present dynasty may be a permanent,
but it may be an ephemeral one, and I cannot but think that when men are
looking forward to prolonged warfare they should at least take into
consideration the ground on which they are standing.
Lord Clarendon has told us, with regard to Russia, that Europe was
standing on a mine, and did not know it. I do not know that he is much
more acute than other people, but I can fancy that Lord Clarendon, by
the blunders of his negotiations and the alliances he has endeavoured to
form, has placed this country on a mine far more dangerous and
destructive than that upon which he thinks Europe was placed by the
colossal power of Russia. There is another point I have to touch upon.
To me it was really frightful to hear the noble Lord the Member for
London (Lord John Russell) tell the House that we are not lighting for
ourselves, but for Germany. I recollect one passage among many in the
noble Lord's speeches upon this point; and, in looking over what has
been said by Ministers, one really wonders that they should have allowed
anything of the kind to appear in _Hansard_. On the 17th of
February last year the noble Lord said,--
'They (England and France) feel that the cause is one, in the
first place, of the independence of Turkey.... It is to maintain
the independence, not only of Turkey, but of Germany and of all
European nations.'--[3 _Hansard_, cxxx. 906.]
['Hear, hear!'] An hon. Member cheers. What a notion a man must have of
the duties of the 27,000,000 of people living in these islands if he
thinks they ought to come forward as the defenders of the 60,000,000 of
people in Germany, that the blood of England is not the property of the
people of England, and that the sacred treasure of the bravery,
resolution, and unfaltering courage of the people of England is to be
squandered in a contest in which the noble Lord says we have no
interest, for the preservation of the independence of Germany, and of
the integrity, civilization, and something else, of all Europe!
The noble Lord takes a much better view, as I presume many of us do, of
things past than of things present. The noble Lord knows that we once
did go to war for all Europe, but then we went to war with nearly all
Europe, whereas now we are going to war in alliance with France only,
except the little State of Sardinia, which we have cajoled or coerced
into a course which I believe every friend to the freedom of Italy and
to Sardinia will live to regret. All the rest of Europe--Spain,
Portugal, Italy, Austria, Prussia, Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, and
Sweden--take no part in the war, and yet our Ministers have--what I
should call, if I were not in this House, the effrontery and audacity to
get up and tell us that they are fighting the battle of all Europe, and
that all Europe is leagued with us against the colossal power of Russia.
Europe in the last war did, for the most part, unite with us. We went to
Spain because we were called to go by the patriot Spaniards, but I think
the Duke of Wellington has stated, in his despatches, that if he had
known how little assistance would be received from them he would not
have recommended even that expedition.
But now, not only has all Europe not united with you, but other
countries will not even allow their men to fight with you. You pay the
Turks to fight their own battles, you enlist men in Germany to fight the
battles of Germany, and the persons engaged in Switzerland and Hamburg
in enlisting men for you are looked upon with suspicion by the
authorities, and I am not sure that some of them have not even been
taken into custody. Why, then, should you pretend that all Europe is
leagued against Russia, and that you have authority to fight the battles
of all Europe against Russia, when the greater part of Europe is
standing by apathetically wondering at the folly you are committing? I
would appeal to the noble Lord the Member for the Colonies--I beg his
pardon, the Member for London--but he has been in so many different
positions lately that it is extremely difficult to identify him. I would
appeal to the noble Lord, because, however much I differ from him, I
have never yet come to the conclusion that he has not at heart the
interest of his country, that he is not capable of appreciating a fair
argument when it is laid before him, and that he has not some sense of
the responsibility as to the political course he takes, and I would ask
him if there be no other world of kingdoms and of nations but that old
world of Europe with which the noble Lord is so disposed to entangle
this country?
I wish the noble Lord could blot out from his recollection, for a little
time, William III, and all the remembrance of what has been called by
the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) 'the Dutch
conquest,' which is supposed to have enthroned the Whig aristocracy in
this country. I would ask the noble Lord to do this for to-night--for an
hour--for five minutes. There is a country called the United States of
America. Only on Tuesday night the very remarkable circumstance
occurred--and I think the House will be of opinion that it is one worth
notice--of two of those distinguished men being present and listening to
the debates in this House who have occupied the position of President of
the United States; a position, I venture to say, not lower in honour and
dignity than that of any crowned monarch on the surface of the globe.
The United States is precisely the country which is running with us the
race of power and of greatness. Its population will, I believe, at the
next census exceed the population of the United Kingdom; in its
manufactures and general industry it is by far the most formidable rival
that the great manufacturers of this country now have to contend with;
it has, I suppose, ten steamers for one steamer of this country; its
magnificent steamships have crossed the Atlantic in a shorter time than
the steamships of this country; the finest vessels which are at this
moment performing the voyage between England and the Australian colonies
have been built in the United States; therefore, in shipbuilding
industry the United States not only compete with, but in some respects
even excel, this country. Look at our present position and that of the
United States.
May I entreat the attention of this House, for I am not declaiming, I am
not making a party attack, I am treating of that which, in my mind, is
of vital importance to every family in the kingdom. This year the
Chancellor of the Exchequer told you that he must have a sum of
86,000,000_l_. in order to carry on the various departments of your
Government, and to defray your vast military expenditure. The United
States has at this moment in her Treasury enough, I think, to pay off
all her debt. Deduct the whole amount of the expenses of the Government
of the United States, not only of the general Government, but also of
the thirty independent sovereign States, from the 86,000,000_l_. we
are spending, and you will find that at least 70,000,000_l_. will
be left, which is, therefore, the sum of taxation that we are paying
this year more than the people of the United States.
Some hon. Gentlemen know what it is to run a horse that has been
weighted. I heard, the other day, of a horse that won every race in
which it started, up to a certain period when it was for the first time
weighted. It then lost the race, and it is reported in the annals of the
turf that it never won a race afterwards. If that be the case with
regard to a horse, it is much more true with regard to a nation. When a
nation has gone a step backwards it is difficult to restore it to its
position; if another nation has passed it in the race, it is almost
impossible for it to regain the ground it has lost. I now speak
particularly to hon. Members opposite, for there are, perhaps, more
Gentlemen upon that than upon this side of the House in the happy
position of owners of vast, productive, beautiful, and, I hope,
unencumbered estates in the various parts of the kingdom. We are now
about ten days' voyage from the United States, and within ten years we
shall probably communicate with that country by telegraph as quickly as
we now do with the Crimea. I hope it will be for a much better object.
The people of the United States are our people, and there are few
families in England which have not friends and relatives connected with
or settled in that country. The inducements for men to remain at home
and their attachment to the place of their birth are necessarily to some
extent weakened by the facility with which they can now travel almost
round the world in a few weeks.
Do you believe that when the capital of the greatest banking-house in
Lombard street can be transferred to the United States on a small piece
of paper in one post, that the imposition of 70,000,000_l_. of
taxation over and above the taxation of an equal population in the
United States will not have the effect of transferring capital from this
country to the United States, and, if capital, then trade, population,
and all that forms the bone and sinew of this great Empire? I ask hon.
Members to remember what fell on a previous evening from the right hon.
Gentleman the President of the Board of Works. The right hon. Gentleman
talked of the war lasting, perhaps, six years with our resources
undiminished. Now, nothing is easier than for a Cornish Baronet,
possessing I am afraid to say how many thousands a year, a Member of a
Cabinet, or for all those who are surrounded with every comfort, to look
with the utmost complacency upon the calamities which may befall others
not so fortunately situated as themselves. Six years of this war, and
our resources undiminished! Why, Sir, six years of this war, at an
annual expenditure of 70,000,000_l_., give 420,000,000_l_. to
the side of the United States as against the condition of the people of
this country.
Am I, then, talking of trifles? Am I talking to sane men, that it is
necessary to bring forward facts like these? I am amazed, when the
newspaper press, when public speakers, when Gentlemen on both sides of
this House are so ready to listen and to speak upon questions relating
to Turkey, to Servia, or to Schamyl, that I cannot get the House of
Commons to consider a question so great as the expenditure of
420,000,000_l_., and when we have to consider if we shall trust
that vast issue in the hands of the noble Lords and right hon. Gentlemen
on the Treasury bench.
I have stated that I have no confidence in the Government, and I will
now tell the House another reason for that want of confidence. My hon.
Friend the Member for the West Riding, on a previous occasion, treated
the right hon. President of the Board of Works very summarily; but I
wish to call the attention of the House to what was said by the right
hon. Gentleman in 1850, in the debate which then took place upon the
foreign policy of the noble Lord now his chief. On that occasion the
right hon. Gentleman told the House that the foreign policy of the noble
Lord now at the head of the Government had made us hated by every party
in every nation in Europe; he said that the noble Lord had excited the
disaffected to revolt, and, having brought upon them the vengeance of
the Governments under which they lived, had then betrayed them. I do not
say that this is true, but I state it upon the authority of a Minister
now in the Cabinet of the noble Lord; but, whether true or not, I cannot
have confidence in the right hon. Gentleman when sitting in a Cabinet to
carry out the foreign policy of the noble Lord.
I will take the case of another Minister, and I do not think that when
he speaks he will call my observations undeserved. A most distinguished
Member of the Government--the Chancellor of the Exchequer--has been
twice elected within a very short period, once before and once since his
acceptance of office,--I must say that I do not like to see these
changes, when a man one night sits on one bench and another night on
another,--on the 8th of February, 1855, the right hon. Gentleman,
addressing his constituents at Radnor, said:--