shall have been examined, neither antipathies, nor intrigues, nor even the memories of the past nor the aspirations of the future, should be allowed to weigh. The authority of the most impartial Powers should then firmly close the question. But no Power can have the weight and credit of impartiality which goes into the discussion laden with the encumbrances of small and selfish purpose, like the barnacles and refuse that adhere to the hull of an iron ship, to impair its power and clog its course.

When we claim that the influence of England shall be used in the councils of Europe on behalf of freedom, we must beware of giving any narrow or oblique signification to the term. Such is the union of liberty and justice, that where the one is not, the other cannot be. On this account it is, that the battle of the Turk against Russia has not been a battle for freedom. What he fought for was the power to perpetuate ascendency, to commit injustice. Freedom for the Christian provinces, requires freedom, freedom civil and religious, in them. Nor do I only speak, at this moment, of the large Mohammedan minorities who in Bulgaria should be justly cared for, and who in Bosnia can to a great extent care for themselves. I speak of dissidents of every kind. A large portion of the Jews have unhappily, though with honourable exceptions, behaved during this great struggle as if it were their purpose to weaken to the uttermost the hands of those who desire to secure for them perfect civil and religious freedom in the East. But that freedom nevertheless ought to be secured. Even with respect to those who are not dissidents in religion, questions of difficulty may arise. A claim is set up," on behalf of the Roumanians of the South, to be placed under an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of their own race and tongue. Whether this is a question for Europe to touch may be doubtful. Free institutions, if they are really of value, should suffice to bring about an adjustment. But of all the conditions precedent which can justly be annexed to the boon of freedom, the fairest and the first is that the mass of the population in the emancipated provinces shall not impose on any of its fractional portions any parcel, or even any symbol, of the yoke from which they themselves are now, as we hope, to be released. Let them not incorporate in their young constitutions an embryo of religious discord, which, when grown to strength, they may find it most difficult to dislodge.

Among the States that are to take part in the negotiations, the case of Austria requires a brief special notice. If, as I hold, there are, in the matters themselves that stand for discussion, serious intrinsic difficulties, the only hope of solving them must lie in the sincerity and moderation of the Powers, in the endeavour to meet on the common

Les Roumains du Sud (Paris and Bucharest, 1877), pp. 49 seqq. This is an ex parte argument, aimed at the Greeks. It states the Rouman population, south of the Balkans and Serbia, at 1,700,000 (p. 28).

ground of justice and of European interest, and in the steady avoidance of all partial combinations for secret and selfish purposes. Such combinations are truly, at such a juncture, no better than conspiracies.

If unhappily it should prove that there exists a combination of this nature between Germany and Russia, the only way to neutralise it will be, not by forming a weaker counter-combination or conspiracy, but by meeting it with clean hands, and bringing to bear against it the general sentiment of the Powers who speak, as a whole, for the civilised world and the interests of man at large. I am far, however, from saying that we have as yet any proof of danger from this quarter. The recent speech of Prince Bismarck, if faithfully represented in the translations we have seen, is somewhat elevated and broad in tone, and may partially serve us as a model, in its sober estimates and its graduation of motives and interests. In this most grave and difficult negotiation, Russia, if she shall advance any extravagant claims for the artificial enlargement of Bulgaria, will presumably be met, in the first line of opposition, by Turkey, Greece, and Austria, each of them standing upon the ground of its own strong and legitimate interests. It can hardly be doubted that these three States would receive a firm support, amply sufficient for its purpose, from England, France, and Italy. Among Englishmen there can be no controversy as to the propriety of opposing any Russian project, which may indicate an intention to employ Slavonic sympathies for any purpose of aggression in Eastern Europe. All that is requisite, in order to secure our unanimity, is that the resistance should be conducted on the lines of European concert, and our share in it justly adapted to our actual position and the nature of our interest.

But the air is full of rumours to the effect that we are to set the evil example of establishing some general and secret understanding with one of the Powers, and that that Power is to be Austria. These rumours and the irritability with which a desire for information on the subject has been met, are quite sure to stimulate that desire, and to add to it somewhat of suspicion. It is necessary, then, to set out the just grounds, and the proper limits, of any British cooperation with Austria in the Conference or Congress.

Austria has special interests in the freedom of the Danube, the freedom of the Straits, and the future ownership of Constantinople. We have a general, not a special, interest in the same questions. But here both her special, and our general, interest are interests of Europe at large, and of international justice. There is therefore no necessity, and no place, for any secret or any particular arrangement with a view to the promotion of these interests. The occasion brings its own lesson, and the reception of it is spontaneous.

Ipsi quid facerent nullo didicere magistro.

It is no more necessary to agree specially to prosecute these interests

than it is for two gentlemen, sitting down at a banquet, to covenant together that they will eat and drink. If they meditate a compact, it is for purposes other than what are natural and legitimate.

But Austria is under suspicion of having, or of thinking that she has, other special interests adverse to the liberties, power, and prosperity of the neighbouring provinces. We know too well, and unhappily we to some extent have shared in, the mean and oppressive conduct she has pursued towards the band of heroes that inhabit Montenegro. She is supposed to hold that the relation of races, unhappily discordant, within her own territory, gives her a right to require the internal condition of the neighbouring provinces to be regulated, and their political growth limited, with a view not to their own wants and capabilities, but to the exigencies, real or imagined, as she may think fit to measure them, of her own domestic interests. Now the principle that a country has a right to regulate the affairs of neighbouring countries for its own convenience, is a lawless and revolutionary principle. No doctrine more thoroughly and intensely evil ever was hatched within the precincts of the Commune. It is an unblushing assertion of the law of the strongest, of force as against right. It is a proclamation of war against civilisation, which in the political region is based upon the independence of States and upon the title of each to grow and prosper within its own limits as it best can, subject only to the limiting condition which attaches to individual liberty, namely, that it shall not trespass upon others. Unhappily we here deal with no mere abstraction. It was the audacious claim of Austria and Prussia, during the first or great French Revolution, to interfere with the internal affairs of France, which not only rested on this iniquitous basis, but which was mainly responsible for the savage and destructive character assumed by that revolution in its ulterior development. Now it unfortunately happens that this rule of interference with other States and peoples, and especially with neighbours, has been the very breath of life, from 1815 onwards, to most of the foreign policy of the Austrian Empire. The opening up of this subject is an invidious task, which nothing but necessity would lead any reasonable man to undertake. It is our interest and duty to cultivate goodwill with every country great and small. Especially when the European Powers are just about to enter upon their difficult task, good sense would recommend the avoidance of every hostile discussion. Indeed one would hope that Austrian subjects, having at last achieved freedom for themselves, would be inclined to respect the same claim on the part of others. But unfortunately it takes long to break down. the bad traditions of Foreign Offices and of governments; and we know to our sorrow that the enfranchised Magyars are the determined foes of release from oppression in the Turkish Empire. It is the duty then of Englishmen to be upon their guard; and if, and when, it shall appear that an evil bargain is about to be struck, and that

England as a State is to support a crusade of Austria against the freedom of the Slavs, in return for some unreal tribute of hers, not to our interests, but to our self-love, then it will be necessary fearlessly and unsparingly to go back upon the long catalogue of her misdeeds, scarcely relieved by a solitary act done on behalf of justice and of freedom. I will not now even revive their names. Unless and until it shall be necessary to call up the grisly phantoms, let them slumber in their tombs.

6

There remain two points in the alleged or possible conduct of Russia, which appear to call for a word of notice. Let us cooperate with any and with every body against any mutilation of Roumania, should the occasion unhappily arise. But again and most earnestly I express the hope that it may never arise at all. Russia ought not to stoop to this petty spoliation, or abstraction if you will, from a humble but a brave ally. If she does, I fear that mischief may come of it hereafter. Her career of conquest has been, to a great extent, like ours (as we hope), a lawful vocation; but not here. The appeal may surely be made to the better side of her nature; to the greatness, not the littleness, of Russia. For in very truth she has had greatness thrust upon her.' She has had thrust upon her the opportunity of attaining an immense military glory. And she has attained it. It now depends altogether upon herself, whether she will have gold or tinsel, whether her military glory shall be a moral glory too. Do not let her descend from what may be her high estate to make, out of this small appropriation of a tract which she has never held for half a century, a Naboth's vineyard.

The second word touches the Turkish Parliament. It is quite possible that the Sultan may have found reasons for its dissolution in the agony of such a crisis as that through which the State is passing. I cannot suppose the vague rumours to be true, which ascribe this measure to Russian influence or dictation. There is, however, little doubt that Ottoman difficulty has been Christian opportunity; and that, in recent debates, some Christian members used a freedom of speech, in denouncing the latest massacres, which had not been expected from them. We may come to feel a legitimate interest in this most singular institution. The Parliament, and the Constitution with which it was associated, had, in my view, not one aspect but two, and those two absolutely different. As it was devised by Midhat Pasha, I take it to have been a contrivance for lightening, more or less, those grievances which Mohammedan subjects of the Porte suffered in common with Christians, but for riveting irremediably, by its most artful and insidious arrangements, the servitude of the Christians under the Mohammedans. It had also the sins of being a blind in the face of Europe, and a bar to every effectual reform. It therefore deserved all the pungent criticisms of Lord Salisbury, all • Nineteenth Century, February 1878, p. 285.

the grave and searching exposure of M. Benoît Brunswick. But the case assumes a different aspect when, as now, it has become probable that the European provinces, and the great mass of the Christian population, are to have no concern in the mocking boons which it offered them. As a Mohammedan institution for a Mohammedan Empire, I know not whether it can live or not, but neither do I know any reason why we should not wish it well. I trust no attempt will be made, either by the Porte or in any extraneous quarter, to cut short its existence, or to mar its perhaps ambiguous promise.

Finally I am selfish enough to hope, in the interest of my country, that in the approaching Conference or Congress we may have, and may use, an opportunity to acquire the goodwill of somebody. By somebody I mean some nation, and not merely some government. We have, I fear, for the moment profoundly alienated, if not exasperated, eighty millions of Russians. We have repelled, and, I fear, estranged, twenty millions of Christians in the Turkish Empire. We seem to have passed rapidly, and not without cause, into a like ill odour with its twenty millions of Mohammedans. It is not in France, Italy, or Germany that we have made any conquests of affection, to make up for such great defaults. Nor is it in Austria, where every Slav is with the first twenty millions, and every Magyar with the second. Where is all this to stop? Neither in personal nor in national life will self-glorification supply the place of general respect, or feed the hunger of the heart. Rich and strong we are; but no people is rich enough, or strong enough, to disregard the priceless value of human sympathies. At the close of the year, should an account be taken, I trust we may find at our command a less meagre store of them, than we have had at its beginning.

W. E. GLADSTONE.