THE DIPLOMATIC REVIEW. "SO NATURAL IS THE UNION OF RELIGION WITH JUSTICE, THAT WE MAY BOLDLY DEEM THERE IS NEITHER WHERE BOTH ARE NOT.”—Hooker, "PACIFICATION OF GREECE," MR. GLADSTONE'S MISREPRE SENTATION OF THE PART TAKEN BY MR. CANNING PAGE 1 15 17 19 26 Proposed Withdrawal from Interference with Turkey. Pe- Documents Relative to the Bulgarian Insurrection Russia's Policy towards the Christian Populations of Turkey 26 THE DECLARATION OF PARIS: SPEECH OF SIR TRAVERS Suggestions for a Lecture on the Declaration of Paris Remarks on the foregoing Memorandum. 28 28 33 39 42 45 Reply to the Edinburgh Reviewer on the Declaration of Correspondence on British Commerce during War. NOTICES. Now ready. The Index to the DIPLOMATIC REVIEW for five years, from 1866 to 1870, both inclusive. Price, with a Wrapper, One Shilling. Members of Committees, Sixpence. Best Edition, with articles in French, One Guinea. Cheap Edition, Six Shillings. The Conference in Turkey. On the 25th of January, 1876, Lord DERBY wrote: "When appealed to by the Porte to use their good offices with "Austria and at Belgrade, Her Majesty's Government expressed their "opinion that the Turkish Government should rely on their own "resources and deal with the insurrection as a local outbreak rather B "than give it international importance by appealing for support to "other Powers." On the 29th of June he wrote: "It is desirable that the Servian Government should be warned "that they must not expect to be protected from the consequences "of failure and defeat.' On the 30th of October he wrote: "The presence of Russian officers and soldiers in the Servian army "has assumed proportions little short of national assistance." "Her Majesty's Government have done all that is in their power to procure the cessation of hostilities and the re-establishment of peace "for which Servia and Montenegro appealed to their good offices." Thus, having refused his "good offices" to Turkey when invaded by Russia, which he himself admits to have been the case, he tenders those same good offices to Russia when she is defeated, in spite of his previous engagement to the contrary. Naturally his despatch concludes with these words: "Her Majesty's Government feel assured that Prince GORTCHAKOFF "will find in this a convincing proof of the earnest desire they have "shown to act in concert with the Russian Government." After this, of necessity, came the Conference. The Conference is in itself contrary to the Law of Nations and to the faith of treaties. This is absolutely asserted here, not to assail, but to save the rights of the QUEEN and the honour of the nation. "The QUEEN can do no wrong" is the very keystone of the Constitution. The meaning of this is plain; it is not that everything the Sovereign does is right, for then the use of torture would be permissible, but that the Sovereign is restrained by the Law, of which she is the head, from doing wrong. To send an envoy, commissioner, or ambassador to confer in the territory of an independent State, with other persons similarly appointed by other States, on the affairs of that independent State, is to do a wrong; for, by international law, every kingdom has its own complete and inviolable sovereign right to manage its own affairs, and an interference or a Conference with a view to interference, which would be intolerable to a private person respecting his private affairs, is a breach of the Comity and of the Law of Nations. But this Conference is emphatically and especially a breach of treaty. England is bound by treaty not to do exactly what she has sent Lord SALISBURY to Constantinople to do. Annex to the 1st Protocol of the Conference held in London, March, 1871, for alteration of the Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris (March 30, 1856):— "The Plenipotentiaries of North Germany, of Austro-Hungary, of Great Britain, of Italy, of Russia, and of Turkey, assembled to-day in Conference, recognise that it is an essential principle of the Law of Nations that no Power can liberate itself from the engagements of a Treaty, nor modify the stipulations thereof, unless with the consent of the Contracting Powers by means of an amicable arrangement. In faith of which the said Plenipotentiaries have signed the present Protocol." "ARTICLE IX. OF THE TREATY OF PARIS, 1856. "His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, having, in his constant solicitude for the wel fare of his subjects, issued a firman, which, while ameliorating their condition with out distinction of religion or of race, records his generous intentions towards the Christian population of his Empire, and wishing to give a further proof of his sentiments in that respect, has resolved to communicate to the contracting Parties the said Firman, emanating spontaneously from his Sovereign will. "The Contracting Powers recognise the high value of this communication. It is clearly understood that it cannot, in any case, give to the said Powers the right to interfere, either collectively or separately, in the relations of His Majesty the Sultan with his subjects, nor in the internal administration of his Empire." I might end here, for as the Conference is a dishonourable breach of treaty, there would be nothing more to be said save the word Impeachment of those Councillors who advised it, if the English people were alive to their own honour and their own interests; but there are other points to be considered. The first is the additional insult to the Sultan of there being a Preliminary Conference at Constantinople, to which the Turkish representative was not admitted. I speak now to working men as well as others. Imagine six of your neighbours forcing their way to a room in your house to decide how you should manage your affairs, and this while you had a lawsuit pending with one of the six which the courts had given in your favour so far, but which that sixth neighbour threatened to carry further-and the debate was whether it would be desirable for him to do so and all this time you were excluded from the discussion which was going on about you in your own house, and your most trusted friend was managing all this. What epithet would you apply to that friend? What epithet ought to be applied to England?** Some Another point to be examined is the attitude of the QUEEN and of the Ministers. Of Lord DERBY it is not necessary to say much. He is the very incarnation of mediocrity. He has been frightened out of his life by the agitation of Mr. GLADSTONE and others. Popularity is the breath of his nostrils as it always is to a dull man. sparks of feeling have been struck, even from him, by the insolence of Russian action, but they have only prompted him to bend lower and lower before the Emperor's knees, and to try vainly to evade the categories of Count SCHOUVALOFF. Then he makes himself amends for his humiliation by Russia and her English friends by his insults to Turkey. Lord SALISBURY is of another class. He is shrewd, cynical, well versed in home affairs and the character of Englishmen; of Eastern matters he has learned as much as an English nobleman necessarily does from the traditions of the India Office, namely, that the right way to treat an Asiatic Prince is to insult him and trample on his feelings, more especially if he be a Mahomedan, for that is also possibly a faint tinge of the crusading spirit in the noble marquis. Of Russia he knows nothing. Of course he is aware that she has designs on Turkey and on India, and that it is his duty to oppose them. But of how Russia would work upon himself-of her dealings with other greater men than himself-of her intellectual powers of enmeshing For the original proposal by Count Beust of a European Conference on Turkey from which the Porte should be exclu led, see the Diplomatic Review for April, 1867, p. 50.— ED. D. R. an unprepared and uninstructed man-I say with absolute certainty that he knows, and never did know anything at all. Therefore, on his arrival at Constantinople, he immediately falls into the fatal friendship of IGNATIEFF, and the world is edified by the spectacle of the British special Representative and the Muscovite Ambassador concerting arm in arm how the next Russian invasion of Turkey is to be made more successful than the last. The Englishman all the time being perfectly unconscious what he is doing. There is nothing more to be said of Lord BEACONSFIELD than has been said before in the pages of the Diplomatic Review. He, at all events, has prior knowledge of the Hindu disaffection in India. "Another mutiny in six months" is what well-informed Indian officers are saying. He knows that the fifty million Mussulmans of India are now the arbiters of the fate of the British Empire, that if England dared to try and force the Dardanelles, the whole Mussulman races would rise and India would be lost. He knows these things, he knows now that he might have averted this awful crisis, with the utmost ease, by withdrawing from the Declaration of Paris. Who shall say what instructions he has given to Lord SALISBURY. Lord BEACONSFIELD may have support from the Crown against Lord DERBY, and against Lord SALISBURY, or he may be aghast at what has been done and suddenly resign. He at all events it is who is Prime Minister, and on his head rests the main responsibility. If the British fleet were ordered to force its way into Turkish waters, on Lord BEACONSFIELD'S head would rest the English and Turkish blood that would flow; on his head would rest the blood that would flow afterwards in India and in England. Seldom has a sadder book been put in type than the last volume of the "Life of the Prince Consort." It is not merely that it contains the details of the degradation of the royal office by one of the QUEEN'S own servants. With this the readers of the Diplomatic Review are well acquainted. But it is most sad to see the Sovereign of these realms put on her defence, and compelled to enter into a literary controversy and bandy statements with one of her own subjects. Mr. EVELYN ASHLEY dared during Her own lifetime to attack his Queen for writing, what he presumed to call "an angry letter." Feeble, insignificant, and disloyal as that person is, Her Majesty was moved by his insolence to what must be called a heroic act, and deigned to make public a chapter in English history which shows the subordination of the Crown to the malpractice, and even to the treason of its own servants. How, it must be asked, does this apply to the present case? Simply that there is hope from the highest quarter. It is possible, that like MARIA THERESA on the annexation of Poland, there may have been a yielding on the point of the Conference. But I, for one, cannot believe that the Royal assent will be given for a predetermined British attack on the territory and the subjects of the Sultan. One word as to the state of public feeling in England. The word 66 feeling" is used advisedly: it is not opinion; most assuredly it is not judgment. The late celebrated showman, ALBERT SMITH, said very truly, that there is but one thing the British public will not stand, and that is an attempt to instruct them. Now this recent attempt of Mr. GLADSTONE, and what has been not inaptly called the Cossack party, to instruct them to admire Russia is now having its natural reaction, and one of the best proofs of this is the response to the subscription in favour of the Turks recently opened by the Duke of SUTHERLAND and others. But the general attitude of the Press has been even more remarkable. The Times and Daily News of course excepted, nearly the whole of the influential newspapers have protested against the infamous calumnies against the Ottoman race, the no less infamous laudation of Russian humanity, and the equally infamous attempt to break all treaties and interfere in the internal affairs of the Porte. It is impossible to specify all, but honour is especially due to the Pall Mall Gazette and the Morning Post; also to the Daily Telegraph, the Standard, and to the weekly paper, Vanity Fair. I could fill a column with the names alone of the local and county papers which have emulated their London contemporaries, and have not been inferior to them in weight of argument and patriotic spirit, and I cannot but instance one which lies before me, the Glasgow News, of December 20th, containing an article headed "Peace or "War." The whole situation is briefly but most distinctly examined and exposed therein. There have, besides, been the pamphlets. Mr. BUTLER-JOHNSTONE, Captain ST. CLAIR, Mr. A. AUSTIN, Sir E. SULLIVAN, Baron DE WORMS, have well nigh exhausted the Eastern Question, aud there is, besides, that most able anonymous pamphlet, "The Northern Question, or Russia's Policy Unmasked." There are also the speeches of Mr. PERCY WYNDHAM and Mr. CRAWSHAY, published in pamphlet form. 66 The Times of Christmas Day furnished a review of Mr. COBDEN on the Eastern Question, in which occur these words: "Lord DUDLEY STUART and Mr. DAVID URQUHART, whose respective crotchets are "now forgotten.", Nobody will, I suppose, dispute that the particular "crotchet" of Mr. URQUHART has been to oppose Russia as dangerous to England, and to support Turkey as the best security for India. The forgotten crotchets, as it happens, are the very key note of all the papers and pamphlets I have alluded to, and it is from that unacknowledged source and from the labours of half a century, such as no other man has ever gone through, that has come originally every line of inspiration. But from whatever cause, the name is a name of fear and must not be uttered. Those who have worked with Mr. URQUHART during long years have witnessed seed sown, the blade springing up, and it looks now as if they would see the full corn in the ear. But other seed has Mr. URQUHART SOwn besides suspicion of Russia. He has sown suspicion of public men, of England's Foreign Secretaries and Ambassadors especially. He has sown the feeling that the English law must be put in force |