Part 11

“We all of us felt some six inches taller than before. We spread our tails like peacocks to the sun, and were as pleased as children at our soap-bubble, iridescent with many hues. But, all of a sudden, this beautiful vision melted away; the Egyptian mirage evaporated; the great political phantasmagoria faded like a dissolving view. There is nothing so delightful as magic, until, in an unhappy moment, the conjuror consents to reveal the apparatus to us by which our senses have been deluded, and shows us how it is done. Lord Derby is a great master of prose, and he has translated the Eastern romance into most pedestrian English. But the Foreign Secretary is a responsible statesman. He has widely warned us against ‘cant’ and against ‘rant,’ and he cannot afford to indulge in the exaggerated visions in which journalists may, with impunity, amuse themselves and their readers. It was not his affair to mystify England, but to reassure Europe; and therefore with that straightforwardness and common sense for which he is eminent, he told us at Edinburgh that the affair which had created so much sensation at home and abroad was not at all the sort of thing it had been represented to be; that, if it had been capable of the construction which had been put upon it, it would have been neither a wise nor a honest transaction. He repudiated with scorn the idea that England aspired to an Egyptian protectorate; they had not reversed their Eastern policy; still less had they contemplated to appropriate the territories of the Khedive as our share in a scramble for general plunder. What had really been accomplished was a very ordinary affair. The Khedive had certain shares in the Suez Canal. So far from being ambitious to get hold of them, Lord Derby would have much preferred that the ruler of Egypt should have kept them in his own hands; but, as he found himself obliged to part with them, the English Government thought it better to purchase them than to let them go elsewhere. They have acquired them, not to give England any special or predominant foreign influence, nor to secure any exclusive advantage, but to keep open a communication for the benefit of all, which to England is of supreme importance. And with these explanations, tendered on the good faith of an English Minister, upon the credit of which Lord Derby justly relies, he tells us that the European Powers are amply satisfied. And so the nine days’ wonder is over, the enchantment is at an end, the chariot of Cinderella relapses into its original pumpkins and mice. Since Lord Derby has so pitilessly dowsed with cold water the heated enthusiasm of visionary journalists, they have never ceased to weep and to wail over the ruins of their pet toy, which has collapsed like a pricked bladder or a broken drum. They beg us to believe that the Foreign Minister does not understand the meaning of his own acts, or the scope of his own policy; that, in spite of all his protestations to the contrary, we are the veritable _perfide Albion_.

“For my own part I cannot refuse to respond to the appeal of Lord Derby, when he says, ‘We have told Europe what we want, and why we want it, and Europe is in the habit of believing what we say.’ I hope the day will never come when an English Government will be justly charged with saying one thing and meaning another. I therefore gladly take Lord Derby at his word. But now that this grand affair is reduced to the moderate dimensions of a sort of post-office subsidy, we may criticise it in a manner and upon grounds which might in another aspect of the question have been inappropriate. Of course, if this transaction had been really of the magnitude which was represented, the Government would have been deeply responsible for not inviting at once the judgment of Parliament upon a policy which vitally involved the interests and the future of the country, but being what it is, we may well wait a few weeks for fuller explanations of some points which still remain very obscure. There will be no disposition, I imagine, in any quarter to approach the discussion in a spirit of carping or of captious criticism. Upon the main ground by which this purchase is justified--namely, the determination to secure a free passage between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, there will be no conflict of opinion. That is a policy in which England is profoundly interested; and for that, statesmen of all parties will be prepared to make common efforts, and, if necessary, great sacrifices. No one, I think, will contend that even 4,000,000 pounds of money is too large a sum for the accomplishment of such an end. But that which has not hitherto been explained, and what remains to be shown, is in what manner and to what extent this investment really does conduce to that desirable object.”

DISRAELI’S AIMS IN POLITICS (1876).

=Source.=--_Annual Register, 1876_; _English History_, p. 113.

On the 22nd of August, Mr. Disraeli, now Lord Beaconsfield, issued his farewell address to his former constituents. “Throughout my public life,” wrote the Premier, “I have aimed at two chief results. Not insensible to the principle of progress, I have endeavoured to reconcile change with that respect for tradition, which is one of the main elements of our social strength; and, in external affairs, I have endeavoured to develop and strengthen our Empire, believing that combination of achievement and responsibility elevates the character and condition of a people.”

A SPIRITED SPEECH BY THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD (1876).

=Source.=--_The Times_, November 10, 1876.

THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD AT THE LORD MAYOR’S BANQUET.

The Earl of Beaconsfield, who was received with repeated plaudits, said....

“During these twelve months of anxiety and agitation, my Lord Mayor, I would take this opportunity of stating what have been the two great objects which Her Majesty’s Government have proposed with reference to those critical circumstances which have occurred since I had the honour of addressing your predecessor. The first has been the maintenance of the general peace of Europe, which involves almost every other consideration that may affect the interests of this country and the general welfare of humanity. We have believed that that peace would be best maintained by an observance of the treaties in which all the Great Powers of Europe have joined. Those treaties are not antique and dusty obsolete documents. They are not instruments devised under a state of circumstances different from those that exist, and ill adapted to the spirit of the age in which we live....

“... As the Lord Mayor has told us to-night, there is no country so interested in the maintenance of peace as England. Peace is especially an English policy. She is not an aggressive Power, for there is nothing that she desires. She covets no cities and no provinces. What she wishes is to maintain and to enjoy the unexampled Empire which she has built up, and which it is her pride to remember exists as much upon sympathy as upon force. But, although the policy of England is peace, there is no country so well prepared for war as our own. If she enters into conflict in a righteous cause--and I will not believe that England will go to war except for a righteous cause--if the contest is one which concerns her liberty, her independence, or her Empire, her resources, I feel, are inexhaustible. She is not a country that, when she enters into a campaign, has to ask herself whether she can support a second or a third campaign. She enters into a campaign which she will not terminate till right is done.”

THE EASTERN QUESTION: FIERY SPEECHES AT ST. JAMES’S HALL (1876).

=Source.=--_The Times_, December 9, 1876.

THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER: The worst Government now remaining in Europe is that of Constantinople, and it seems to us a most extraordinary thing that men in this country and a portion of the Press seem to think that the Turks have still a power of regeneration within themselves. We hear them say, and with some justice, that the Turks are peaceful citizens and warlike soldiers. The warlike qualities for which they are distinguished seem to me not the best calculated to work for the happiness and the contentment of the people under the fell sway of Turkish dominion....

After all our sacrifices during the Crimean War, after having shed the blood of thousands of our fellow-countrymen and expended millions of treasure, England surely has some right to say now what should be done, and how it should be done. The situation, though in some respects very similar to that which existed in 1854, is entirely changed as regards the state of public opinion in this country. Although it may be said that Russia is thundering at the gates of Constantinople, England is determined that she will not go to war against Russia for Turkey.

MR. GEORGE HOWELL (late Secretary to the Trades Parliamentary Committee) said that throughout the length and breadth of the land they would not find among the working classes such an opinion on this question as was entertained in the clubs among educated gentlemen. He might inform the educated classes present that they represented the intensified feelings of the working classes when they pronounced an opinion altogether averse from going to war, under any pretext whatever, for the purpose of propping up Turkey. We ought to stand by the other European Powers, and to insist that justice should be done to the Christian provinces of Turkey, and to tell her plainly that if this were not done, she must, at whatever cost, pack up, bag and baggage, and leave Europe.

MR. EVELYN ASHLEY, M.P.: In his opinion the path of honour and of safety lay in the active co-operation of England with Russia. Turkey must be told that if she refused to give the necessary guarantees for the safety of her Christian subjects, we would send our fleet to take her fleet in pawn until she gave way. As to the fear of what might be the result of Mussulman fanaticism if such a course were taken, he could only say that the fanaticism of the Mussulman never broke out when he was beaten, while he had no apprehension that our prestige would be diminished among the Mussulman population of India.... Great nations, like great ships, could ride in safety only on the high seas, and although Russia might have her ambitions, which it might one day be our duty to resist, we should be able to do so all the better if we could but succeed in obtaining freedom for those down-trodden populations of Turkey.

PROFESSOR BRYCE: Turkey would not yield so long as an atom of hope of help from England was held out to her. The Porte believed it in the very name of Constantinople, a spell which could call up the fleets of England in the Bosphorus when it chose. That spell had never failed it yet, and it had in it most implicit confidence. If, then, war was to be averted, Turkey must be at once undeceived, and must be told that we not only will not support her, but that we are prepared to coerce her, and that she shall not be allowed to run a new race of tyranny.

CANON LIDDON: If the Christian provinces were to be really reformed, there must be a new law which would secure equal rights to every human being in the Turkish Empire. It was impossible to suppose, however, that any legislation of this kind would be voluntarily accepted by Turkey. There must be something in the nature of a military occupation.

LORD SHAFTESBURY: The Emperor of Russia has given us his personal word of honour that he desires no territorial aggrandisement. Take every precaution, surround yourselves by every legitimate defence, but let us go with him as far as he will go with us, and let us reserve our quarrel until we have something to quarrel about. But now let us rejoice in the attitude of the United Kingdom this day. It is majestic--a free and mighty people demand nothing for themselves, neither power, nor commerce, nor extended empire. They seek simply the welfare of others and the solidarity of nations.

PROFESSOR E. A. FREEMAN: From amid the clatter of wine-cups a voice of defiance went forth, conveying the brag which all the world had heard, that England would fight a first, a second, and a third campaign rather than permit another Power to do the work which she herself ought to accomplish. Were they prepared to wage war for a single hour, or to shed one drop of English blood in order to prop up as foul and bloody a fabric of wrong as ever a shuddering world had gazed upon? Would they consent to draw the sword to protect the sovereign rights of those whose hands were steeped in blood as their tongues were in falsehood? Would they fight to uphold the integrity and independence of Sodom? Should it be said that England, which had used every effort to put down the slave trade, was ready to go to war in order that the Eastern traffic in human flesh might still go on and supply our barbarous ally with the victims of his hideous lusts? Was it, indeed, for such an object that the countrymen of Canning and Wilberforce were to be called upon to fight?

But it was said that we were bound by treaties to maintain the independence and integrity of Turkey. He, however, did not so read the treaties to which reference had been made, and which already had been broken; and as for our interests in India being in peril, he would only say let duty come first and interest after, and perish our dominion in India rather than that we should strike a blow in such a cause as that of the Porte! Besides, it was not through Constantinople that the road to India lay; nor was it for Constantinople that the Emperor of Russia was ready to draw the sword.

MR. FAWCETT, M.P.: If the Government went to war on behalf of Turkey, he hoped the Liberal party would use every form allowed by Parliament to prevent them from having one sixpence until they had ascertained by an appeal to the country whether it was their wish that the blood and treasure of England should be spilt, and the reputation of England cast away in order to prop up a wretched, effete, and dissolute despotism.

MR. GLADSTONE, who was received with prolonged cheering:

“... What are we to say to the question of the Treaty of Paris? I will give you my opinion in the most distinct manner. The Ottoman Porte has in a most signal and conspicuous manner broken and trampled under foot the Treaty of Paris. The meaning of this Guildhall speech was to set forth that we were all bound by this Treaty to suggest that the Ottoman Porte would be entitled to appeal to it; and whatever theoretical acknowledgment there might be about affording assistance to the Christian populations, yet in practice the appeal would have resolved itself into the old practice of remonstrances and expostulations, with results either none whatever, or confined to idle and empty words. The Treaty of Paris in regard to the Porte I affirm to be no binding Treaty at all. I am as far as possible from saying that the Treaty of Paris is not binding as between the other Powers, but I stand simply upon this broad, clear, and I think incontrovertible proposition--that one who has broken a Treaty is no longer in a position to appeal to it.... I now come to the conclusion of the Guildhall speech which carried its sting, and a sting indeed it was, charged and overcharged with venom. Why was it necessary to say that when England enters into a war she has not to ask herself whether she can support a second or a third campaign? Cannot that reference be understood? After her second campaign in the Crimea Russia had to ask herself the question whether she could enter upon a third? Why, then, was that particular form given to a declaration which was perfectly unnecessary, of the capacity of this country to go to war? Do not suppose that the capacity of this country to go to war is increased by these idle vaunts. We know what effect these words had in Russia; but a more important question was, What was their effect in Constantinople? According to the reports of those who have seen it, Constantinople is a Paradise of Nature; but there are other paradises, one of which is called a Fool’s Paradise. I am afraid that the Ottoman Porte, relying on the assistance of England in the last extremity in all circumstances, has for a long time been in a Fool’s Paradise, and it would have been much greater kindness not to use words which were calculated to delude the Porte into the belief that such were the intentions of England. We know that the Turk has been relying on British aid, and although we do not think very highly of his intelligence, has he no warrant for so relying? Why was the squadron sent to Besika Bay, augmented into a fleet, in imitation of the step taken in 1853?”

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

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Transcriber’s note:

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unpaired quotation marks were corrected.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.