Waterford (Mr. Osborne) has complained that we have destroyed the
Treaty of 1839 by this instrument. As I pay so much attention to
everything that falls from him, I thought that by some mistake I must
have read the instrument inaccurately; but I have read it again, and I
find that by one of the articles contained in it the Treaty of 1839 is
expressly recognized. But there is one omission I made in the matter
which I will take the present opportunity to supply. The House, I
think, have clearly understood that this instrument expresses an
arrangement between this country and France, but an instrument has
been signed between this country and the North German Confederation
precisely the same in its terms, except that where the name of the
Emperor of the French is read in one instrument, the name of the
German Confederation is read in the other, and vice versa. I have
listened with much interest to the conversation which has occurred,
and I think we have no reason to be dissatisfied at the manner in
which, speaking generally, this treaty has been received. My hon.
friend the member for Brighton (Mr. White) speaking, as he says, from
below the gangway, is quite right in thinking that his approval of the
course the Government have taken is gratifying to us, on account of
the evidently independent course of action which he always pursues
in this House. The hon. and gallant gentleman opposite (Colonel
Barttelot) has expressed a different opinion from ours on the great
question of policy, and he asks whether we should not have done well
to limit ourselves to the Treaty of 1839. We differ entirely on that
subject from the hon. and gallant gentleman; but we cannot complain of
the manner in which he has expressed his opinion and recognized the
intentions of the Government. From gentlemen who sit behind me we have
had more positive and unequivocal expressions of approval than fell
from the hon. and gallant gentleman. The only person who strongly
objects to the course taken by the Government is my hon. and gallant
friend the member for Waterford; and I do not in the least object to
his frank method of stating whatever he feels in opposition to our
proceedings in a matter of so much consequence, though I do not think
it necessary to notice some of his objections. In the first place,
he denounces this treaty as an example of the mischiefs of secret
diplomacy. He thinks that if the treaty had been submitted to the
House it would not have been agreed to. My hon. and gallant friend is
a man much enamoured of public diplomacy. He remembers, no doubt, that
three weeks ago the Duc de Gramont went to the Legislative body of
France and made an announcement as to the policy which the French
Government would pursue with respect to Prussia. The result of that
example of public diplomacy no doubt greatly encouraged my hon. and
gallant friend. Then we have a specimen in the speech of my hon. and
gallant friend of the kind of public diplomacy which we should have
in this case if his hopes and desires were realized. He says that if
Belgium were in the hands of a hostile Power the liberties of this
country would not be worth twenty-four hours' purchase. I protest
against that statement. With all my heart and soul I protest against
it. A statement more exaggerated, a statement more extravagant, I
never heard fall from the lips of any member in this House. (Mr.
Osborne: Napoleon said it.) Whatever my hon. and gallant friend's
accurate acquaintance with the correspondence of Napoleon may induce
him to say, I may be permitted to observe that I am not prepared to
take my impression of the character, of the strength, of the
dignity, of the duty, or of the danger of this country, from that
correspondence. I will avail myself of this opportunity of expressing
my opinion, if I may presume to give it, that too much has been said
by my hon. and gallant friend and others of the specially distinct,
separate, and exclusive interest which this country has in the
maintenance of the neutrality of Belgium. What is our interest in
maintaining the neutrality of Belgium? It is the same as that of every
great Power in Europe. It is contrary to the interest of Europe that
there should be unmeasured aggrandizement. Our interest is no more
involved in the aggrandizement supposed in this particular case
than is the interest of other Powers. That it is a real interest, a
substantial interest, I do not deny; but I protest against the attempt
to attach to it the exclusive character which I never knew carried
into the region of caricature to such a degree as it has been by my
hon. and gallant friend. What is the immediate moral effect of those
exaggerated statements of the separate interest of England? The
immediate moral effect of them is this, that every effort we make on
behalf of Belgium on other grounds than those of interest, as well
as on grounds of interest, goes forth to the world as a separate and
selfish scheme of ours; and that which we believe to be entitled to
the dignity and credit of an effort on behalf of the general peace,
stability, and interest of Europe actually contracts a taint of
selfishness in the eyes of other nations because of the manner in
which the subject of Belgian neutrality is too frequently treated in
this House. If I may be allowed to speak of the motives which have
actuated Her Majesty's Government in the matter, I would say that
while we have recognized the interest of England, we have never
looked upon it as the sole motive, or even as the greatest of those
considerations which have urged us forward. There is, I admit, the
obligation of the treaty. It is not necessary, nor would time permit
me, to enter into the complicated question of the nature of the
obligations of that treaty; but I am not able to subscribe to the
doctrine of those who have held in this House what plainly amounts to
an assertion, that the simple fact of the existence of a guarantee
is binding on every party to it irrespectively altogether of the
particular position in which it may find itself at the time when the
occasion for acting on the guarantee arises. The great authorities
upon foreign policy to whom I have been accustomed to listen--such as
Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston--never, to my knowledge, took that
rigid and, if I may venture to say so, that impracticable view of
a guarantee. The circumstance that there is already an existing
guarantee in force is of necessity an important fact, and a weighty
element in the case, to which we are bound to give full and ample
consideration. There is also this further consideration, the force of
which we must all feel most deeply, and that is the common interest
against the unmeasured aggrandizement of any Power whatever. But there
is one other motive, which I shall place at the head of all, that
attaches peculiarly to the preservation of the independence of
Belgium. What is that country? It is a country containing 4,000,000 or
5,000,000 of people, with much of an historic past, and imbued with a
sentiment of nationality and a spirit of independence as warm and as
genuine as that which beats in the hearts of the proudest and most
powerful nations. By the regulations of its internal concerns, amid
the shocks of revolution, Belgium through all the crises of the
age, has set to Europe an example of a good and stable government,
gracefully associated with the widest possible extension of the
liberty of the people. Looking at a country such as that, is there
any man who hears me who does not feel that if, in order to satisfy a
greedy appetite for aggrandizement, coming whence it may, Belgium were
absorbed, the day that witnessed the absorption would hear the knell
of public right and public law in Europe? But we have an interest in
the independence of Belgium, which is wider than that--which is wider
than that which we may have in the literal operation of the guarantee.
It is found in the answer to the question whether, under the
circumstances of the case, this country, endowed as it is with
influence and power, would quietly stand by and witness the
perpetration of the direst crime that ever stained the pages of
history, and thus become participators in the sin? And now let me deal
with the observation of the hon. member for Waterford. The hon. member
asks: What if both these Powers with whom we are making this treaty
should combine against the independence of Belgium? Well, all I can
say is that we rely on the faith of these parties. But if there
be danger of their combining against that independence now,
unquestionably there was much more danger in the position of affairs
that was revealed to our astonished eyes a fortnight ago, and before
these later engagements were contracted. I do not undertake to define
the character of that position which, as I have said, was more
dangerous a fortnight ago. I feel confident that it would be hasty to
suppose that these great States would, under any circumstances, have
become parties to the actual contemplation and execution of a proposal
such as that which was made the subject of a communication between
persons of great importance on behalf of their respective States.
That was the state of facts with which we had to deal. It was the
combination, and not the opposition, of the two Powers which we had to
fear, and I contend--and we shall be ready on every proper occasion to
argue--that there is no measure so well adapted to meet the peculiar
character of such an occasion as that which we have proposed. It is
said that the Treaty of 1839 would have sufficed, and that we ought
to have announced our determination to abide by it. But if we were
disposed at once to act upon the guarantee contained in that treaty,
what state of circumstances does it contemplate? It contemplates
the invasion of the frontiers of Belgium and the violation of the
neutrality of that country by some other Power. That is the only case
in which we could have been called upon to act under the Treaty of
1839, and that is the only case in which we can be called upon to act
under the treaty now before the House. But in what, then, lies
the difference between the two treaties? It is in this: that, in
accordance with our obligations, we should have had to act under the
Treaty of 1839 without any stipulated assurance of being supported
from any quarter whatever against any combination, however formidable;
whereas by the treaty now formally before Parliament, under the
conditions laid down in it, we secure powerful support in the event
of our having to act--a support with respect to which we may well say
that it brings the object in view within the sphere of the practicable
and attainable, instead of leaving it within the sphere of what might
have been desirable, but which might have been most difficult, under
all the circumstances, to have realized. The hon. member says that by
entering into this engagement we have destroyed the Treaty of 1839.
But if he will carefully consider the terms of this instrument he
will see that there is nothing in them calculated to bear out that
statement. It is perfectly true that this is a cumulative treaty,
added to the Treaty of 1839, as the right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr.
Disraeli), with perfect precision, described it. Upon that ground I
very much agree with the general opinion he expressed; but, at the
same time, peculiar circumstances call for a departure from general
rules, and the circumstances are most peculiar under which we have
thought it right to adopt the method of proceeding which we have
actually done. The Treaty of 1839 loses nothing of its force even
during, the existence of this present treaty. There is no derogation
from it whatever. The Treaty of 1839 includes terms which are
expressly included in the present instrument, lest by any chance
it should be said that, in consequence of the existence of this
instrument, the Treaty of 1839 had been injured or impaired. That
would have been a mere opinion; but it is an opinion which we thought
lit to provide against. The hon. member has said that this is a most
peculiar method of bringing a treaty before the House. I admit it.
There is no doubt at all that it is so. But it is not easy to say what
circumstances there are that will justify the breaking up of general
rules in a matter so delicate and important as the making of
communications to Parliament upon political negotiations of great
interest. The rule which has been uniformly followed in this country
is this: that no treaty is communicated to Parliament unless it
becomes binding; and it does not become absolutely binding upon the
signatories until it has been ratified; and, by the law and usage of
all civilized countries, ratification requires certain forms to be
gone through which cannot be concluded in a moment. Under these
circumstances, we had only this choice--whether we should be
contented to present a treaty to Parliament without the usual forms
having been gone through, or whether we should break down the rule
which we think it is, on the whole, most desirable to observe, and we
thought it best to adopt the course we have followed in the matter.
The hon. member for Wakefield (Mr. Somerset Beaumont) has asked
whether this treaty has been concluded with the sanction of Belgium.
My answer is that I do not doubt the relevancy of that inquiry, but
that the treaty has not been concluded with the sanction of Belgium,
for we have advisedly refrained from any attempt to make Belgium a
party to the engagement. In the first place, Belgium was not a party
to the Treaty of 1839. But that is a matter of secondary importance.
What we had to consider was, what was the most prudent, the best,
and the safest course for us to pursue in the interest of Belgium.
Independently of Belgium, we had no right to assume that either of the
parties would agree to it, and we had also to contemplate the case in
which one party might agree to it and the other might not. If we had
attempted to make Belgium a party we should have run the risk of
putting her in a very false position in the event of one of the
parties not agreeing to the proposal. It was, therefore, from no
want of respect or friendly feeling towards Belgium, but simply from
prudential considerations, that we abstained from bringing that
country within the circle of these negotiations. The hon. member has
also asked whether Austria and Russia have been consulted upon the
subject of the treaty, but upon that point I have nothing to add to
what I communicated to the House the other day. Both these parties
have been invited--as Her Majesty has been advised to announce from
the Throne--to accede to the treaty, and I said on Monday that the
reception of the treaty, as far as those Powers were concerned, had
been generally favourable. I have no reason to alter that statement;
but, on the part of Russia, a question has arisen with regard to which
I cannot quite say how it may eventually close, especially from the
circumstance that the Emperor and his chief advisers upon foreign
affairs do not happen to be in the same place. That question, so
raised, is whether it might be wise to give a wider scope to any
engagements of this kind; but if there is any hesitation on this
point, it is not of a kind which indicates an objection of principle,
but, on the contrary, one which shows a disposition to make every
possible effort in favour of the treaty. We are in full communication
with friendly and neutral Powers on the subject of maintaining
neutrality, and upon every side the very best dispositions prevail.
There is the greatest inclination to abstain from all officious
intermeddling between two Powers who, from their vast means and
resources, are perfectly competent for the conduct of their own
affairs; and there is not a less strong and decided desire on the
part of every Power to take every step at the present moment that can
contribute to restrict and circumscribe the area of the war, and to
be ready without having lost or forfeited the confidence of either
belligerent to avail itself of the first opportunity that may present
itself to contribute towards establishing a peace which shall be
honourable, and which shall present the promise of being permanent.
That is the general state of the case, with regard to which I do not,
in the least degree, question the right of the hon. member behind me
to form his own judgement. I cannot help expressing the opinion that,
allowing for all the difficulties of the case, and the rapidity with
which it was necessary to conduct these operations, we have done all
that appeared to be essential in the matter; and the country may feel
assured that the conduct which we have pursued in relation to this
matter has not been unworthy of the high responsibility with which we
are entrusted.
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE
NOVEMBER 27, 1879
RIGHT PRINCIPLES OF FOREIGN POLICY
Gentlemen, I ask you again to go with me beyond the seas. And as I
wish to do full justice, I will tell you what I think to be the right
principles of foreign policy; and then, as far as your patience and my
strength will permit, I will, at any rate for a short time, illustrate
those right principles by some of the departures from them that have
taken place of late years. I first give you, gentlemen, what I think
the right principles of foreign policy. The first thing is to foster
the strength of the Empire by just legislation and economy at home,
thereby producing two of the great elements of national power--namely,
wealth, which is a physical element, and union and contentment, which
are moral elements--and to reserve the strength of the Empire, to
reserve the expenditure of that strength, for great and worthy
occasions abroad. Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good
government at home. My second principle of foreign policy is this:
that its aim ought to be to preserve to the nations of the world--and
especially, were it but for shame, when we recollect the sacred name
we bear as Christians, especially to the Christian nations of the
world--the blessings of peace. That is my second principle.
My third principle is this. Even, gentlemen, when you do a good
thing, you may do it in so bad a way that you may entirely spoil the
beneficial effect; and if we were to make ourselves the apostles of
peace in the sense of conveying to the minds of other nations that we
thought ourselves more entitled to an opinion on that subject than
they are, or to deny their rights--well, very likely we should destroy
the whole value of our doctrines. In my opinion the third sound
principle is this: to strive to cultivate and maintain, ay, to the
very uttermost, what is called the concert of Europe; to keep the
Powers of Europe in union together. And why? Because by keeping all in
union together you neutralize and fetter and bind up the selfish aims
of each. I am not here to flatter either England or any of them. They
have selfish aims, as, unfortunately, we in late years have too sadly
shown that we too have had selfish aims; but then, common action is
fatal to selfish aims. Common action means common objects; and the
only objects for which you can unite together the Powers of Europe are
objects connected with the common good of them all. That, gentlemen,
is my third principle of foreign policy.
My fourth principle is--that you should avoid needless and entangling
engagements. You may boast about them; you may brag about them. You
may say you are procuring consideration for the country. You may say
that an Englishman can now hold up his head among the nations. You may
say that he is now not in the hands of a Liberal Ministry, who thought
of nothing but pounds, shillings, and pence. But what does all this
come to, gentlemen? It comes to this, that you are increasing your
engagements without increasing your strength; and if you increase
engagements without increasing strength, you diminish strength, you
abolish strength; you really reduce the Empire and do not increase it.
You render it less capable of performing its duties; you render it an
inheritance less precious to hand on to future generations.
My fifth principle is this, gentlemen, to acknowledge the equal rights
of all nations. You may sympathize with one nation more than another.
Nay, you must sympathize in certain circumstances with one nation more
than another. You sympathize most with those nations, as a rule, with
which you have the closest connexion in language, in blood, and
in religion, or whose circumstances at the time seem to give the
strongest claim to sympathy. But in point of right all are equal, and
you have no right to set up a system under which one of them is to be
placed under moral suspicion or espionage, or to be made the constant
subject of invective. If you do that, but especially if you claim for
yourself a superiority, a pharisaical superiority over the whole of
them, then I say you may talk about your patriotism if you please, but
you are a misjudging friend of your country, and in undermining the
basis of the esteem and respect of other people for your country you
are in reality inflicting the severest injury upon it. I have now
given you, gentlemen, five principles of foreign policy. Let me give
you a sixth, and then I have done.
And that sixth is, that in my opinion foreign policy, subject to all
the limitations that I have described, the foreign policy of England
should always be inspired by the love of freedom. There should be a
sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon
visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations
within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the
firmest foundations both of loyalty and order; the firmest foundations
for the development of individual character, and the best provision
for the happiness of the nation at large. In the foreign policy of
this country the name of Canning ever will be honoured. The name of
Russell ever will be honoured. The name of Palmerston ever will
be honoured by those who recollect the erection of the kingdom of
Belgium, and the union of the disjoined provinces of Italy. It is that
sympathy, not a sympathy with disorder, but, on the contrary, founded
upon the deepest and most profound love of order--it is that sympathy
which, in my opinion, ought to be the very atmosphere in which a
Foreign Secretary of England ought to live and to move.
Gentlemen, it is impossible for me to do more to-day than to attempt
very slight illustrations of those principles. But in uttering those
principles, I have put myself in a position in which no one is
entitled to tell me--you will bear me out in what I say--that I simply
object to the acts of others, and lay down no rules of action myself.
I am not only prepared to show what are the rules of action which in
my judgement are the right rules, but I am prepared to apply them, nor
will I shrink from their application. I will take, gentlemen, the name
which, most of all others, is associated with suspicion, and with
alarm, and with hatred in the minds of many Englishmen--I will take
the name of Russia, and at once I will tell you what I think about
Russia, and how I am prepared as a member of Parliament to proceed in
anything that respects Russia. You have heard me, gentlemen, denounced
sometimes, I believe, as a Russian spy, sometimes as a Russian agent,
sometimes as perhaps a Russian fool, which is not so bad, but still
not very desirable. But, gentlemen, when you come to evidence, the
worst thing that I have ever seen quoted out of any speech or writing
of mine about Russia is that I did one day say, or, I believe, I
wrote, these terrible words: I recommended Englishmen to imitate
Russia in her good deeds. Was not that a terrible proposition? I
cannot recede from it. I think we ought to imitate Russia in her good
deeds, and if the good deeds be few, I am sorry for it, but I am not
the less disposed on that account to imitate them when they come. I
will now tell you what I think just about Russia.
I make it one of my charges against the foreign policy of Her
Majesty's Government, that, while they have completely estranged from
this country--let us not conceal the fact--the feelings of a nation
of eighty millions, for that is the number of the subjects of the
Russian Empire--while they have contrived completely to estrange the
feelings of that nation, they have aggrandized the power of Russia.
They have aggrandized the power of Russia in two ways, which I will
state with perfect distinctness. They have augmented her territory.
Before the European Powers met at Berlin, Lord Salisbury met with
Count Schouvaloff, and Lord Salisbury agreed that, unless he could
convince Russia by his arguments in the open Congress of Berlin, he
would support the restoration to the despotic power of Russia of that
country north of the Danube which at the moment constituted a portion
of the free State of Roumania. Why, gentlemen, what had been done
by the Liberal Government, which, forsooth, attended to nothing but
pounds, shillings, and pence? The Liberal Government had driven Russia
back from the Danube. Russia, which was a Danubian Power before the
Crimean War, lost this position on the Danube by the Crimean War;
and the Tory Government, which has been incensing and inflaming you
against Russia, yet nevertheless, by binding itself beforehand to
support, when the judgement was taken, the restoration of that country
to Russia, has aggrandized the power of Russia.
It further aggrandized the power of Russia in Armenia; but I would not
dwell upon that matter if it were not for a very strange circumstance.
You know that an Armenian province was given to Russia after the
war, but about that I own to you I have very much less feeling of
objection. I have objected from the first, vehemently, and in every
form, to the granting of territory on the Danube to Russia, and
carrying back the population of a certain country from a free State to
a despotic State; but with regard to the transfer of a certain portion
of the Armenian people from the government of Turkey to the government
of Russia, I must own that I contemplate that transfer with much
greater equanimity. I have no fear myself of the territorial
extensions of Russia in Asia, no fear of them whatever. I think the
fears are no better than old women's fears. And I don't wish to
encourage her aggressive tendencies in Asia, or anywhere else. But I
admit it may be, and probably is, the case that there is some benefit
attending the transfer of a portion of Armenia from Turkey to Russia.
But here is a very strange fact. You know that that portion of Armenia
includes the port of Batoum. Lord Salisbury has lately stated to the
country, that, by the Treaty of Berlin, the port of Batoum is to be
only a commercial port. If the Treaty of Berlin stated that it was
to be only a commercial port, which, of course, could not be made an
arsenal, that fact would be very important. But happily, gentlemen,
although treaties are concealed from us nowadays as long as and as
often as is possible, the Treaty of Berlin is an open instrument.
We can consult it for ourselves; and when we consult the Treaty
of Berlin, we find it states that Batoum shall be essentially a
commercial port, but not that it shall be only a commercial port.
Why, gentlemen, Leith is essentially a commercial port, but there is
nothing to prevent the people of this country, if in their wisdom or
their folly they should think fit, from constituting Leith as a great
naval arsenal or fortification; and there is nothing to prevent the
Emperor of Russia, while leaving to Batoum a character that shall be
essentially commercial, from joining with that another character that
is not in the slightest degree excluded by the treaty, and making
it as much as he pleases a port of military defence. Therefore I
challenge the assertion of Lord Salisbury; and as Lord Salisbury is
fond of writing letters to _The Times_ to bring the Duke of Argyll to
book, he perhaps will be kind enough to write another letter to _The
Times_, and tell in what clause of the Treaty of Berlin he finds it
written that the port of Batoum shall be only a commercial port. For
the present, I simply leave it on record that he has misrepresented
the Treaty of Berlin.
With respect to Russia,--I take two views of the position of Russia.
The position of Russia in Central Asia I believe to be one that has
in the main been forced upon her against her will. She has been
compelled--and this is the impartial opinion of the world--she has
been compelled to extend her frontier southward in Central Asia by
causes in some degree analogous to, but certainly more stringent and
imperative than, the causes which have commonly led us to extend, in
a far more important manner, our frontier in India; and I think it,
gentlemen, much to the credit of the late Government, much to the
honour of Lord Clarendon and Lord Granville, that, when we were in
office, we made a covenant with Russia, in which Russia bound herself
to exercise no influence or interference whatever in Afghanistan; we,
on the other hand, making known our desire that Afghanistan should
continue free and independent. Both the Powers acted with uniform
strictness and fidelity upon this engagement until the day when
we were removed from office. But Russia, gentlemen, has another
position--her position in respect to Turkey; and here it is that
I have complained of the Government for aggrandizing the power of
Russia; it is on this point that I most complain.
The policy of Her Majesty's Government was a policy of repelling and
repudiating the Slavonic populations of Turkey in Europe, and of
declining to make England the advocate for their interests. Nay, more,
she became in their view the advocate of the interests opposed to
theirs. Indeed, she was rather the decided advocate of Turkey; and now
Turkey is full of loud complaints--and complaints, I must say, not
unjust--that we allured her on to her ruin; that we gave the Turks a
right to believe that we should support them; that our ambassadors,
Sir Henry Elliot and Sir Austin Layard, both of them said we had most
vital interests in maintaining Turkey as it was, and consequently the
Turks thought if we had vital interests, we should certainly defend
them; and they were thereby lured on into that ruinous, cruel, and
destructive war with Russia. But by our conduct to the Slavonic
populations we alienated those populations from us. We made our name
odious among them. They had every disposition to sympathize with us,
every disposition to confide in us. They are, as a people, desirous of
freedom, desirous of self-government, with no aggressive views, but
hating the idea of being absorbed in a huge despotic empire like
Russia. But when they found that we, and the other Powers of Europe
under our unfortunate guidance, declined to become in any manner their
champions in defence of the rights of life, of property, and of female
honour--when they found that there was no call which could find its
way to the heart of England through its Government, or to the hearts
of the other Powers, and that Russia alone was disposed to fight for
them, why, naturally they said, Russia is our friend. We have done
everything, gentlemen, in our power to drive these populations into
the arms of Russia. If Russia has aggressive dispositions in the
direction of Turkey--and I think it probable that she may have
them--it is we who have laid the ground upon which Russia may make her
march to the south--we who have taught the Bulgarians, the Servians,
the Roumanians, the Montenegrins, that there is one Power in Europe,
and only one, which is ready to support in act and by the sword her
professions of sympathy with the oppressed populations of Turkey.
That power is Russia; and how can you blame these people, if in such
circumstances, they are disposed to say, Russia is our friend? But
why did we make them say it? Simply because of the policy of the
Government, not because of the wishes of the people of this country.
Gentlemen, this is the most dangerous form of aggrandizing Russia. If
Russia is aggressive anywhere, if Russia is formidable anywhere, it is
by movements towards the south, it is by schemes for acquiring command
of the Straits or of Constantinople; and there is no way by which you
can possibly so much assist her in giving reality to these designs, as
by inducing and disposing the populations of these provinces, who
are now in virtual possession of them, to look upon Russia as their
champion and their friend, to look upon England as their disguised,
perhaps, but yet real and effective enemy.
Why, now, gentlemen, I have said that I think it not unreasonable
either to believe, or at any rate to admit it to be possible, that
Russia has aggressive designs in the east of Europe. I do not mean
immediate aggressive designs. I do not believe that the Emperor of
Russia is a man of aggressive schemes or policy. It is that, looking
to that question in the long run, looking at what has happened, and
what may happen in ten or twenty years, in one generation, in two
generations, it is highly probable that in some circumstances Russia
may develop aggressive tendencies towards the south. Perhaps you will
say I am here guilty of the same injustice to Russia that I have been
deprecating, because I say that we ought not to adopt the method
of condemning anybody without cause, and setting up exceptional
principles in proscription of a particular nation. Gentlemen, I will
explain to you in a moment the principle upon which I act, and the
grounds upon which I form my judgement. They are simply these grounds:
I look at the position of Russia, the geographical position of Russia
relatively to Turkey. I look at the comparative strength of the two
Empires; I look at the importance of the Dardanelles and the Bosphoros
as an exit and a channel for the military and commercial marine of
Russia to the Mediterranean; and what I say to myself is this. If the
United Kingdom were in the same position relatively to Turkey which
Russia holds upon the map of the globe, I feel quite sure that we
should be very apt indeed both to entertain and to execute aggressive
designs upon Turkey. Gentlemen, I will go farther and will frankly
own to you that I believe if we, instead of happily inhabiting this
island, had been in the possession of the Russian territory, and in
the circumstances of the Russian people, we should most likely have
eaten up Turkey long ago. And consequently, in saying that Russia
ought to be vigilantly watched in that quarter, I am only applying to
her the rule which in parallel circumstances I feel convinced ought to
be applied, and would be justly applied, to judgements upon our own
country.
Gentlemen, there is only one other point on which I must still say a
few words to you, although there are a great many upon which I have a
great many words yet to say somewhere or other. Of all the principles,
gentlemen, of foreign policy which I have enumerated, that to which I
attach the greatest value is the principle of the equality of nations;
because, without recognizing that principle, there is no such thing
as public right, and without public international right there is no
instrument available for settling the transactions of mankind except
material force. Consequently the principle of equality among nations
lies, in my opinion, at the very basis and root of a Christian
civilization, and when that principle is compromised or abandoned,
with it must depart our hopes of tranquillity and of progress for
mankind.
I am sorry to say, gentlemen, that I feel it my absolute duty to make
this charge against the foreign policy under which we have lived for
the last two years, since the resignation of Lord Derby. It has been
a foreign policy, in my opinion, wholly, or to a perilous extent,
unregardful of public right, and it has been founded upon the basis of
a false, I think an arrogant, and a dangerous assumption,--although
I do not question its being made conscientiously and for what was
believed the advantage of the country,--an untrue, arrogant, and
dangerous assumption that we were entitled to assume for ourselves
some dignity, which we should also be entitled to withhold from
others, and to claim on our own part authority to do things which we
would not permit to be done by others. For example, when Russia was
going to the Congress at Berlin, we said: 'Your Treaty of San Stefano
is of no value. It is an act between you and Turkey; but the concerns
of Turkey by the Treaty of Paris are the concerns of Europe at large.
We insist upon it that the whole of your Treaty of San Stefano shall
be submitted to the Congress at Berlin, that they may judge how far to
open it in each and every one of its points, because the concerns
of Turkey are the common concerns of the Powers of Europe acting in
concert.'