denounced by Lord Beaconsfield

3

At the beginning of the Bulgarian agitation there was no difference between Liberals and Tories. They attended meetings side by side to denounce the massacres perpetrated, or sanctioned, by the present Sultan, who began his novitiate of infamy in Bulgaria. In the early stages of that agitation it received the approval of such distinguished members of Lord Beaconsfield's Government as Lord Salisbury, Lord Cross, the late Lord Carnarvon, and the late Lord Iddesleigh, then Leader of the House of Commons. On September 20, 1876, Lord Beaconsfield made a speech at Aylesbury which fell upon the country like a bolt from the blue. Admitting that it would be affectation for him to pretend that he was backed by the country,' he went on to denounce the agitation, and appealed to the British public on the ground of British interests against such 'sublime sentiments' as were uttered at public meetings. The superb courage of that speech must extort the admiration even of the strongest opponents of Lord Beaconsfield's policy. But it set the heather on fire, and stimulated to fever heat an agitation which eventually overwhelmed Lord Beaconsfield, who, with all his ability, did not understand the passion of mingled pity and indignation which sometimes makes a great people dare almost anything in putting down such horrors as those perpetrated by the Sultan and his instruments.

Lord Beaconsfield's speech only stimulated the agitation. Liberals and Conservatives still continued to attend public meetings together. The speech that did the mischief was that delivered by Mr. Forster on his return from Constantinople in October 1876. I travelled home with him from Vienna, and we had much talk on the Eastern question. He expressed himself strongly against Mr. Gladstone's policy, not at all because he feared that it would lead to war, but because he believed that the Bulgarians were not fit for self-government. Centuries of Turkish oppression, he thought, had so cowed and unmanned them that they would not be able to stand up and hold their own against even the small Musulman minority who would still remain among them if Mr. Gladstone's policy of getting rid of the Turkish administration and giving the Bulgarians autonomy were carried out. The Musulmans,' he said-I remember the phrase-' would chaw them up in no time.' I ventured to suggest that the air of freedom had a wonderfully invigorating effect, and might be trusted to endow the Bulgarians with manly courage as soon as they had fairly breathed it. And I quoted the opinion of Lord Strangford and other competent authorities. But I could make no impression. Servitude, Mr. Forster thought, was in the blood of the Bulgarians, and it would take a new generation to profit by the autonomy which Mr. Gladstone

claimed for them. He spoke in this sense at a great meeting after his return to England, and ended by expressing his confidence in Lord Derby in preference to Mr. Gladstone. The speech had the same effect as Lord Rosebery's, but to a more mischievous degree; for Lord Salisbury's policy now is very different from Lord Derby's in 1876. Mr. Forster's speech encouraged the Sultan to resist all proposals for reform in the provinces which, in Mr. Gladstone's words, he had desolated and defiled.' It encouraged Lord Derby in his laissez-faire policy. It encouraged the pro-Turkish party to organise an agitation in favour of Turkey, and thus caused a division in the national protest against Turkish misrule.

But it is a great mistake to suppose that there was any reaction in the national mind. On the contrary, the determination to carry out Mr. Gladstone's policy increased in volume, till it returned him to power in 1880 with a majority considerably over 100. The reaction caused by Mr. Forster's speech never penetrated below the surface of national feeling. It influenced, as Lord Rosebery's speech has influenced, the clubs, some journalists and political wire-pullers, and what is called society. Mr. Delane hurried back from Scotland and altered the policy of the Times, which had hitherto on the whole supported Mr. Gladstone. Other journals followed suit, and the Jingoes were encouraged to come to the

front and organise a counter demonstration. But to cite this as a reaction on the part of the country is a gross error, as the verdict of the constituencies proved when they had an opportunity of recording it.

Similarly, Lord Rosebery's speech - well meant, I have no doubt, like Mr. Forster's-has only intensified the feeling of the country at large in favour of the policy of Mr. Gladstone's Liverpool speech-namely, to give Lord Salisbury a free hand without imposing upon him any of the restrictions with which Lord Rosebery would fetter his discretion. Perhaps I may venture to give two incidental proofs of this. I received the report of Lord Rosebery's speech in the country on the evening of the Saturday after it was delivered. I was engaged to speak at a large meeting in Harrogate on the following Monday, and I determined to test the feeling of the meeting by replying to Lord Rosebery's speech point by point. The Town Hall was crammed with an audience which the Mayor, who was in the chair, estimated at 1,800. I was told that the majority consisted of Liberals. In my dissection of Lord Rosebery's speech I carried the entire audience with me, except one person in the body of the hall and a gentleman on the platform, who, in language courteous and friendly to me, asked the chairman-a strong Radical-to rule me out of order in criticising Lord Rosebery's speech. The chairman refused,

with approving cheers from the audience. I proceeded with my speech, and received a unanimous vote of thanks at the close of the meeting. The following Thursday I addressed, with a similar result, a large meeting at Warminster, presided over by Lord Bath. There was one small difference. At Warminster there was not a single dissentient voice, and, when I sat down, the leading Nonconformist minister in the place, an earnest Radical, thinking that my criticism of Lord Rosebery's speech was too gentle, got up and denounced it in vigorous language, amidst the cheers of the audience.

Mr. Forster saw cause to change his opinion. He adopted Mr. Gladstone's policy; and when he returned from a second visit to Bulgaria a few years later he expressed his admiration of the results of the policy which he had himself condemned in 1876, and expressed his surprise that anyone should ever have doubted the fitness of the Bulgarians for freedom; forgetting that he was himself the coryphæus of those sceptics.

The channels of information which served me then serve me now as honorary secretary of the Grosvenor House Committee. We have sources of information with which official politicians are not in touch. The agitation is genuine and spontaneous. It is quite impossible to stop it; the attempt would only stimulate it. But it is possible to guide it. It is not hostile to the