THE TREATY OF PEACE— ADJOURNED DEBATE (SECOND NIGHT).

HC Deb 06 May 1856 vol 142 cc17-136

Order read, for resuming adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to be made to Question [5th May]— That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, to return to Her Majesty the sincere acknowledgments and thanks of this House for the important communication which Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to make to this House of the General Treaty concluded at Paris on the 30th day of March, between Her Majesty, the Emperor of Austria, the Emperor of the French, the King of Prussia, the Emperor of Russia, the King of Sardinia, and the Sultan, by which Peace has been established between Her Majesty, the Emperor of the French, the King of Sardinia, and the Sultan on the one hand, and the Emperor of Russia on the other: To assure Her Majesty, that, while we should have deemed it our duty cheerfully to afford Her Majesty our firm support if it had unfortunately been found necessary to continue the War, we have learned with joy and satisfaction that Her Majesty has been enabled to re-establish Peace, on conditions honourable to Her Majesty's Crown, and which fully accomplish the great objects for which the War was undertaken: To express to Her Majesty the great satisfaction which we feel, at finding that while those Alliances which have so mainly contributed to the vigorous and successful prosecution of the War, have been equally effective in the consolidation of Peace, Powers which have not taken an active part in the War, have combined with, the belligerents to give additional firmness to the arrangements by which the repose of Europe is in future to be protected from disturbance: To state to Her Majesty that we rejoice that, notwithstanding the great exertions which the late War has rendered necessary, the Resources of the Empire remain unimpaired: To express our hope that the Peace which has now been concluded, may, under the favour of Divine Providence, long continue to shed its blessings over Europe; and that harmony among Governments and friendly intercourse among Nations may steadily promote the progress of civilisation, and secure the welfare and happiness of mankind.

And which Amendment was, in paragraph 2, line 3, to leave out the words "joy and:"

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

Debate resumed.

MR. LINDSAY

said, that it was not his intention to touch upon the subject of oppressed nationalities, which formed, he conceived, no part of the subject for consideration, nor should he refer to the political part of the question, but would endeavour to direct the attention of the House to the portions of the treaty which more particularly affected commerce. He differed from hon. Gentlemen opposite in their estimate of the treaty, and was bound to say that that treaty afforded him both "joy and satisfaction," because he felt that it had fully accomplished the great objects for which England had gone to war. The 7th Article contained an engagement on the part of the contracting Powers "to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman empire, guarantee in common the strict observance of that engagement, and, in consequence, to consider any act tending to its violation as a question of general interest." Great doubts were expressed last evening as to whether the independence and integrity of Turkey would be maintained, but such an article, in his opinion, completely secured that object. Taking the treaty altogether, he was bound to say that it contained more than he, for one, had expected. Somehow, there had existed throughout the country a mysterious feeling that we should not get a peace which would be honourable to England. That feeling was also increased by the secrecy maintained until the exchange of the ratifications had taken place, and he was, therefore, agreeably, surprised when he read these conditions. Although he had, on previous occasions, felt it his duty to differ from right hon. Gentlemen on the Ministerial benches with regard to the administrative management of the war, he thought it was now his duty to express his belief that all for which they went to war had been accomplished. Besides securing the freedom of the Danube, the ports in the Black Sea were thrown entirely open to commerce, which was a matter of great importance to us as a commercial nation, and would tend much to preserve that peace which had now happily been ratified. Besides this, they had a most satisfactory declaration on maritime law appended to the treaty. The tendency of war was, it was generally believed, to barbarise; but on looking to that declaration, signed as it was by the seven Powers, he found that it also sometimes tended to civilise. That declaration was as follows—"Privateering is and remains abolished. "It had been said that the abolition of privateering would be a great loss to us as a maritime nation; but he believed there was no shipowner in this country, who desired to bear a respectable name among his fellows, who, in the event of war with other countries, would allow his ships to be fitted out for this revolting trade. He was glad, therefore, that the treaty had abolished what might be regarded as nothing less than legalised piracy. Following this was the declaration, that "the neutral flag covers enemy's goods with the exception of contraband of war." Every one knew that this right of seizing an enemy's goods under neutral flags was, and might be, easily evaded; America, too, had protested against it; and he was glad, then, to find that it was now to be abolished. As he understood it, that declaration did away with the right of search. If the only evil arising from the abolition of that part of the maritime law was the diminishing the business brought into Doctors Commons, he, for one, would not lament it. That was a matter which he would leave to his hon. and learned Friend behind him (Mr. R. Phillimore). Again, it was provided that "blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective; that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy." It was of great importance clearly to define what was meant by a blockade; that it was to be a strict blockade, and not such a one that while one ship could not get out another could. All these were points of great interest, and he readily concurred with the Plenipotentiaries when they said they were "convinced that the maxims which they now proclaim cannot but be received with gratitude by the whole world;" and he hoped, with them, that "the efforts of their Governments to obtain the general adoption thereof will be crowned with full success." Before sitting down he must be allowed to say a few words upon the distinguished part which the noble Lord at the head of the Government had taken throughout the late war. He could not forget the state of things twelve months ago, when the noble Lord stood almost alone, receiving from the Crimea desponding accounts of the sufferings brought about by an administrative system which must sooner or later be reformed, and deserted by the right hon. Gentleman behind him. The noble Lord had fully carried out all his promises; he had brought the country triumphantly through all difficulties and perils to an honourable peace; and to the noble Lord, therefore, he would render his humble but honest thanks. Speaking as he did, it might be supposed that he had some personal object, but he asked for nothing and sought no favour. But he had a duty to perform, and he considered it right to render praise where praise was due.

MR. ROBERT PHILLIMORE

said, that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down informed the House that he had a duty to perform. He wished the hon. Gentleman had evinced more charity, and had remembered that others also had a duty to perform. The hon. Gentleman had ascribed to him (Mr. Phillimore) motives which the peculiar character of his mind might enable him to understand, but which, he confessed, he could not comprehend, and would not condescend to reply to. In much that had fallen from previous speakers in the course of the debate he heartily concurred. He entirely agreed in the dignified eulogy which the noble Lord the Member for the City of London had passed upon the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government; for by how much the more the noble Lord was in possession of abundant means, and was urged by the general desire of the country to carry on the war, by so much the more did it redound to his everlasting honour, that when he thought it might be done with safety to the kingdom, and without sacrificing its honour, he did all he could to bring about peace. The noble Lord might well have been tempted by the vast force at his command to have continued the war, but he had resisted the temptation, and the thanks of the country were due to him for so doing. There were portions of the treaty for which he was most grateful, but there were other portions of it which he could have wished had been of a different character. He could have desired that the Christian population of Turkey, considering that this country had shed the blood of her best men and had spent an enormous treasure to save Turkey from certain destruction, should have had secured to them their religious freedom by the treaty. He should have been glad if express stipulations respecting the future freedom of our co-religionists had been included in the treaty. He was certain that no one knew better than the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) that if, hereafter, any dispute should arise upon the construction of that document, they had debarred themselves by express terms from calling upon the Sultan to put in force the conditions of that firman. He would now claim the attention of the House to the additional paragraph which he wished to introduce in the Address, and which he proposed to do, first, on account of the great importance and magnitude of the subject; secondly, from the irrepressible conviction which he entertained, and had entertained for years, of the great sacrifice of maritime rights which Great Britain had already made, and was still further making by the declaration contained in this treaty; and, lastly, because, speaking without offence, this was a subject to which very few hon. Members had given attention, and which was not generally understood, and the importance of which, he conceived, demanded a discussion in Parliament. He proposed, first, to call attention to the immemorial and undoubted belligerent right of the Crown to capture enemies' goods in neutral ships; and, secondly, to the importance of affording Parliament an opportunity of expressing its opinion upon so grave and extensive an alteration of public and international law; and, thirdly, to the fact that that alteration was made without the sanction of Parliament. He wished at the outset to conciliate, if he could, the attention of hon. Gentlemen near him by disposing of two prejudices which generally beset the introduction of this subject. It was supposed that those who regretted this alteration of the public law of Europe were persons opposed to the improvement of the law, and that they wished to retain a barbarous custom for the sole purpose of maintaining the maritime supremacy of this country. Now, he was not one of those. However ancient and immemorial the right, if it could be proved that it stood in the way of an improvement of the Christian international law of Europe, and that the horrors of war would be lessened by the removal of it, his voice should never be heard in its favour. It was because he thought that those who entertained that opinion were misled by that declaration, which the next war would serve to dissipate—it was because he thought that the abandonment of that right would prolong and not diminish the horrors of war, that he was opposed to it. What was war? Lord Bacon had said long ago that "Wars between nations were the highest trials of right." Nations owned no common superior and possessed no common tribunal. War was a great, but a necessary evil. It was a mistake, however, to suppose that war had not its laws and its usages, the maintenance of which was necessary for the civilisation of the world. There was one proposition which he had never yet heard disputed—the proposition that when you go to war you have a right to capture your enemies' goods; whether you found them on board a merchantman, or of the navy of that State with which you were at war. He never heard that doctrine disputed. A treaty passed in 1785 between the United States and Prussia was the only instance that ever gainsayed that proposition. Well, then, if you had a right to capture your enemies' goods, had you not a right to visit and search a neutral vessel for your enemies' goods, had you not a right, when you found your enemies' goods on board that vessel, to take those goods on paying the freight for carrying them? That had always been the exposition of maritime international law, not only by England, but by the greatest commercial countries. It had been supposed that we had claimed a right to seize an enemy's goods in neutral vessels, and never pay the freight; but such had never been our practice. It had been said that neutrals had a right as well as belligerents. If there was anything more clear than an other, it was that it was essential to the character of a neutral to assist neither party, but to abstain from all interference with both. If a neutral were found carrying contraband you might seize contraband. That right was admitted, and why? Because the neutral might thereby minister to the force of the enemy. But did not fur- nishing food administer to his force, equally as supplying him with arms. Was it not a mere question of degree, and not a question of principle? If a bystander saw two men fighting, and he picked up a sword and handed it to one of them, he was no longer a neutral, but became a principal. What if he supplied a party with food and refreshment when he was about to succumb to the force of his antagonist. Had he not equally interfered to assist one party to the detriment of the other? He did not mean to say that neutrals could not carry on commerce on their own account. They could trade with the enemy, but not for the enemy. A belligerent even with a large naval force, could not blockade all the coast of a large country with whom she was at war, such countries, for instance, as France or Spain; but she could have cruisers to cut off the enemy's commerce and destroy his trade. But if neutrals were permitted to carry on the commerce, it relieved the blockaded country from the pressure of that lawful arm, and by so doing it directly tended to prolong the horrors of war. We were not without recent experience on the subject. Could any one doubt that our blockade of the Russian ports had been weakened during the war, now happily over, by the waiver of the ancient right? Russia being connected by railway with Prussian ports, the whole commerce of Russia had been carried on with perfect impunity in Prussian bottoms. Had such a state of things a tendency to shorten the duration of the war, to lessen its horrors, or to introduce a Christian improvement into the administration of international law? Did it not, on the contrary, tend materially to lengthen it? It was his firm belief that if the war had continued a little longer, the Government would have been forced, by the pressure of events, to have interfered and put a stop to those proceedings of Prussia. This last fact alone, made out his case, for he had proved that the ancient law was not a remnant of barbarism, aggravating the horrors of war, as persons unacquainted with the subject were inclined to suppose, but a necessary rule for bringing it to a speedy conclusion. The truth was, that the rule was deeply rooted in natural law and in the reason of things. The neutral, it is admitted, ought to assist neither belligerent—but if of two belligerents, one possessed a strong naval, and the other only a small naval power, if a neutral carried on the commerce of the latter, she allowed him to devote his commercial resources to military purposes; every sailor saved from commercial ships was a sailor added to the military marine. Could that be called neutrality? Let them distinguish, if they could, between the principle which made it lawful to prevent the neutral from carrying arms to the enemy, and that which made it lawful to prevent the neutral from aiding the enemy to man his ships of war. There was a distinction of degree, but not of principle. He would appeal to the right hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. M. Gibson) whether the principle involved in this concession did not also apply to the concession of the right of search for and of capturing contraband? The right hon. Gentleman would, he was sure, admit it, and would add that he regarded the present concession only as an instalment of the greater concession that all right of search whatever, and under all circumstances, should be abandoned. He (Mr. Phillimore) would say that, if those plans were carried into effect, the excellent and well-intentioned persons who supported them would do far more to prolong war and increase its horrors than the barbarous practice of the right of search which they so warmly denounced. Every international right should rest upon three grounds—the reason of the thing, approved custom, and the authority of the best accredited jurists. He had endeavoured to deal with the first; namely, the reason of the thing, and to show that to be in favour of the proposition for which he was contending. Secondly, as to custom. Previous to 1646, for 400 years the right had been unquestioned. But it was quite true that, about that time, the Dutch, who were the carriers of Europe, whose profits were derived from the carriage of belligerents' goods, and who were so unscrupulous that they sold gunpowder to their enemies, first introduced the principle of free ships making free goods. In 1713, about the period of the treaty of Utrecht, England, in a peace she made with France, introduced the doctrine that free ships made free goods, but, at the same time, accompanied it by the doctrine that enemy's ships made enemy's goods. Set off the one doctrine against the other, and he doubted whether the pressure of the last would not be more severe than the ancient practice. In 1752 there was put forth the famous answer to the Prussian memorial, which Sir George Lee and Lord Mansfield drew up, and of which the greatest philosopher of the day, Montesquieu, had said that it was reponse sans réplique, and which was really a great State document, and not a barbarous jargon of English lawyers. In 1780 an attempt was made to introduce the principle upon which the present maritime declaration was founded. The noble Lord at the head of the Government was well acquainted with the origin of both the armed neutralities, and would not deny that the first armed neutrality, in 1780, which proposed a general law founded upon the maxim to which he had referred, was adopted with the deliberate and avowed inrention of striking at the heart of the naval power and maritime supremacy of England, and not for the purpose of introducing a better administration of international law. But what happened? That armed neutrality arose from the conflict of two profligate courtiers of the Court of a most unprincipled woman, whom the inscrutable designs of Providence permitted to rule over Russia—the Empress Catherine. This goodly tree, the growth of which they were now asked to encourage, had its root in the foulest slime and filth. Every nation of Europe, except England, assented to that principle, but before twenty years had elapsed every one of them had abandoned that doctrine, and returned to the ancient law, finding it incompatible with the operations of war and the just rights of the belligerent. The object of that neutrality was described by Lord Grenville in his eloquent Letters of Sulpicius, in these terms:— Thus did this fruitless effort fade away, which, under the pretence of promulgating general rules, obligatory on all Powers alike, was substantially directed against the heart and life of the British naval power, created, extended, and maintained by an adherence to the ancient and long established law of nations. It was indeed, true, that in 1787, when Mr. Pitt made his famous commercial treaty with France, he introduced the doctrine of free ships mating free goods; but when that treaty was assailed in Parliament it was defended by the assertion that the agreement was made with France alone, that it was impossible for that Power and England to be long allied, and that the first war between them would dissipate the treaty and render it of no effect. Lord Shelburne, the father of the present Marquess of Lansdowne, a most eminent statesman, in that debate said:— In fact, the neutral code struck at the distinguishing forte of England, that power which lore particularly belonged to her. As to the plea that it would signify nothing, and was futile to urge the common interest we had in this with France, because France and England were always to be at war together, he could not accede to it, is it was contrary to all the reasonings respecting he dispositions of France that at least he had gone upon, in justifying the present treaty, as tending to peace with France. Heartily concerned, therefore, as he was that the article appeared in the treaty he hoped that no mention would dare to be made of it in another without the advice and sanction of Parliament. …. It was said to be worthless, because no nation would observe it when it was able to break it, and he confessed one of his strongest arguments in objection to it was its impracticability; but why enter into a treaty on the subject? Why give a consent to a thing which it must be always our wish, when able, to set aside? It was in the nature of man, enterprise and hostility would lead to it, and he trusted that no Minister would ever consent to yield to it—[let the House hear and meditate on what follows]—without first taking the advice of Parliament. Every one knew that when the French Revolution broke out, this new-fangled doctrine was abandoned, as it had been before, by all independent nations. In 1800 came the second armed neutrality, which like the first, originated in Russia—in the first instance it was the invention of profligate courtiers and a libertine Empress—in the second instance it sprang from the caprice of a mad despot—Paul—and only endured during that short interval which elapsed before he was strangled, or rather constitutionally disposed of according to the custom of Russia. His successor immediately incorporated in a treaty the precisely reverse doctrine, that enemy's goods were not free on board neutral ships. It was incorporated in the treaty of 1801. But was that the last time? There was one country with which Great Britain had peculiarly favourable treaties—Portugal; and by an early treaty with Portugal we certainly had placed her on a different footing from that of other States, allowing her, as a special favour, to carry enemy's goods in her ships. But in 1842, under the Administration of Sir Robert Peel, a new treaty was made with Portugal, and one of the stipulations was, that she should give up her exemption from the general law of nations, and that enemy's goods should no longer be free on board her neutral ships. In the famous treaty of Washington with England in the same year, the United States of North America proposed to introduce a contrary maxim, but England positively refused the application. He now came to the consideration of the third constituent part of international law—the authority of approved jurists. Every jurist whether in France, in Holland, in Spain, in Germany, in England, or in the United States, every jurist of eminence had written in favour of this now repudiated law. He knew very well that people laughed when they heard the names of international lawyers quoted, but that was very foolish, because, when they reflected that nations had no common tribunal and no common superior, it was of the utmost importance for the welfare of the civilised world, for the maintenance of the due relations and intercourse of States, that propositions universally approved by eminent jurists should be taken as parts of the law of nations. He would not weary the House by reading Latin or English quotations from those eminent lawyers, but he challenged contradiction to the statement that they were substantially agreed upon this point, and he was fortified in his opinion by reference to the work of M. de Haute-ville, the modern advocate for so-called neutral rights, and the bitter assailant of England, who made the remarkable confession that, with the exception of Hübner, no jurist down to the 19th century had questioned the doctrine. He also believed Sir James Macintosh had said in that House, that he never remembered the authority of these jurists to be questioned, except by those who were determined beforehand to violate the principles which, with impartiality and under no influence whatever, had been laid down, and which would bear inconvenient testimony against the lawlessness of their conduct. He, however, passed over the foreign authorities, with the exception of one—that of the United States of North America. It was said, that if England attempted to enforce the ancient maritime law of Europe, she must be prepared to go to war with North America. No proposition was more capable of proof, amounting to moral demonstration, than that the United States were bound, by every public act, by every State proclamation, by every decision of their own tribunals, and by the authority of every American jurist who had ever written upon the subject, to maintain the perfect unquestionable legality of the doctrine which was now abandoned. Even when she joined the armed neutrality she was still honest enough to maintain this doctrine. He would now quote no less an authority than that of her great President Jefferson. At the breaking out of the first French Revolution, Mr. Jefferson answered the French Government in this way:— I believe it cannot be doubted that, by the general law of nations, the goods of a friend found in the vessel of an enemy are free; and the goods of an enemy found in the vessel of a friend are lawful prize. Upon this principle, I presume, the British armed vessels have taken the property of French citizens found in our vessels in the cause abovementioned, and I confess I should be at a loss on what principle to reclaim it. Shortly afterwards he wrote:— Another source of complaint with Mr. Genet has been, that the English take French goods out of American vessels, which, he says, is against the law of nations, and ought to be prevented by us. On the contrary, we suppose it to have been long an established principle of natural law. Mr. Justice Story, one of the most eminent jurists who had ever lived, in pronouncing a decision in the American Prize Court, said:— The rule, as it was observed by the Court, rested on the simple and intelligible principle that war gave a full right to capture the goods of an enemy, but gave no right to capture the goods of a friend. The neutral flag constituted no protection to enemy's property, and the belligerent flag communicated no hostile character to neutral property. The character of the property depended upon the fact of ownership, and not upon the character of the vehicle in which it is found. That nations have changed this simple and natural principle of public law by conventions between themselves, in whole or in part, as they believed it to be for their interest. It was absurd to suppose that the United States would go to war with England for enforcing the law, which over and over again they had thus unequivocally acknowledged. Mr. Chancellor Kent, an authority to which every English, as well as American lawyer paid homage, in an edition of his works published in 1849 or 1850, said:— But, whatever may be the utility or reasonableness of the neutral claim under such a qualification, I should apprehend the belligerent right to be no longer an open question; and that the authority and usage on which that right rests in Europe, and the long, explicit, and authoritative admission of it by this country, have concluded us from making it a subject of controversy; and that we are bound in truth and justice to submit to its regular exercise in every case, and with every belligerent Power who does not freely renounce it. It would, indeed, be hard for the Senate of the United States to set at nought the proclamations, the decisions, and the opinions of their most eminent jurists. That phantom then, the danger of a war with America, like many others conjured up for the purpose of terrifying Parliament, vanished the moment the daylight of truth was let in upon it—without reason, without expediency, undiscussed, undebated, the ancient maritime right of this great maritime country, had been wrecklessly abandoned. He felt grateful to the House for the indulgence with which they had been pleased to listen to him. If it had not been a question upon which he felt the strongest, however erroneous, convictions—if it had not been a question to the consideration of which he had devoted many years of his professional life, he would not have presumed to address them on the present occasion. There remained only one other point to which he would beg to call attention, and that was, whether it was not a matter of regret that Parliament should not have had an opportunity of expressing its opinion on this highly important question. Scarcely any one would deny that the change was of vast extent, that we had abandoned an immemorial and ancient belligerent right, and that the right had been hitherto rightly or wrongly supposed to have been most essential to the naval strength of Great Britain. He agreed in what was said by the noble Lord the Member for the City of London last night, "that he hoped this country would never be a great military Power, or maintain a great standing army," all the more ought they not to weaken her natural arms, her naval force; and he called upon the House to remember that it appeared by the protocols that this suggestion came from the French, and not from the British Plenipotentiaries. Hereafter, if—which God forbid—England should find herself at war with France, assuming that the protocols were as binding as the treaty, she could no longer use that weapon of her naval strength against France as in former times. That was surely a question which might have been profitably debated in Parliament before it was finally resolved upon by the Executive. Certainly, a debate upon the subject took place when Lord Aberdeen's Administration was in office, and he ventured then to express the same opinions which he had now enunciated. Lord Aberdeen put forth a proclamation "that Her Majesty waived for the present her belligerent right." And why? She was at war for the first time, with France as an ally, and, as the doctrine of the two countries upon various matters of international law was not the same, it was quite obvious they could not conduct a war together without mutual concessions. Her Majesty, therefore, very wisely waived for the occasion Her belligerent right; but, by waiving it, she asserted the maintenance of the right for any future war. An hon. relative of mine brought the question before Parliament, a right hon. Baronet, then First Commissioner of Works, the late Sir William Molesworth, spoke an essay upon the question, to which, by the indulgence of the House, I was heard at some length in reply; but the debate languished, and, he was bound to say, shortly afterwards the House was counted out. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Gentleman who cheered must admit that, as the question was not then discussed, it required the further deliberation of Parliament, which it had never received. It was quite true that this alteration of our ancient law was within the abstract power of the prerogative of the Crown. Still he spoke the language of the constitution and of common sense, when he said that our constitution was a practical and not a theoretical thing; that the different members of the constitution were made harmonious by co-operation, and that it was not the custom of the Crown to make any great change in any great question of public policy without first soliciting and receiving the advice of Parliament. He thought there was the more necessity for such a constitutional course in the present instance, because the public and the Parliament were perfectly unapprised that the question was about to be so summarily, perhaps so irrevocably disposed of. Here was a change in our public and international law of the utmost importance, which was not even alluded to in the speeches of the mover and seconder of the Address. If Parliament had been aware of what was going on, he presumed it would have been competent for that or the other House to interfere by advice, or by some other constitutional method. Mr. Pitt, it was true, introduced this very article in his treaty of commerce with France. But then he told Parliament why it had not been previously consulted; Mr. Pitt said, in 1787, that the treaty in its commercial aspect had been five or six months before the public and no one had taken the alarm. The country, then, had been fully prepared, and Mr. Pitt said that no complaint could therefore be made of the exercise of the prerogative; and even then and under these circumstances, the high authority of Lord Shelburne had expressed his hope that no English Minister would ever follow this precedent. But Parliament and the country had not been apprised of what was about to be done in the late Conferences at Paris. It appeared from the protocols that the matter had sprung up on the spur of the occasion, like the discussion on the Belgian newspapers, and was no part of the instructions to our Ambassador, but one of the suggestions of Count Walewski. He should be extremely sorry to appear to have any wish unnecessarily to embarrass the Government. He had the single honest, although perhaps mistaken purpose, liberare animam suam. The subject had weighed much upon his mind, and he could not help thinking that a right had been parted with of the value and importance of which the country was not aware, and that we were now under an obligation to admit in the face of the whole world a principle which it was most inexpedient to part with, but which we had no longer the right to enforce. The hon. Member then sat down, there were—[Cries of "Move!"] He could not, by the forms of the House, then move his addition to the Address, and he might state that it was not his intention to trouble the House to divide on the question.

THE MARQUESS OF GRANBY

said, as one of those who thought that we entered into this war without sufficient cause, he begged to be allowed to express his satisfaction at the peace which had been concluded. No doubt whatever peace might have been concluded it would not have been satisfactory to some individual minds. There were some who had entered upon the war with various and ulterior views, and for reasons which they alone participated in. There were some who thought that the Circassians should be freed from the yoke of Russia. There were others who, like the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. M. Milnes), thought Poland should be rescued and regenerated. No doubt others thought that Italy should be rescued from the domination of Austria, and Hungary also should be regenerated. It was impossible that any treaty could be satisfactory to persons with such extreme ideas. But in his opinion the treaty gave us all that we had a right to expect, and was one that the people of this country would accept. The hon. Member who moved the Address had alluded to the death of the late Emperor Nicholas, who, he said, had succumbed to the anxieties of the war; and the hon. Member also referred to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and the great advantages he had obtained. The Emperor Nicholas was no more, but his words remained; Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was, after having been censured by our Ministers, still our Ambassador. Now he (Lord Granby) wished to contrast the words of the late Emperor in 1853, before the war commenced, with the language of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, in February, 1856, upon the eve of peace. The Emperor had issued a manifesto, in which he said— It is thus that Austria and Russia, to obtain justice, have seen themselves compelled in their turn, and against their will, to act by intimidation; since they have to do with a Government which only yields to a peremptory attitude. It is thus by its own fault that, by those who have weakened it in the first instance, the Porte is urged to that course which enfeebles it still more. Let England employ her influence in getting it to listen to reason. Let her be the first to invite the latter to treat its Christian subjects with more equity and humanity, and that would be the surest means of relieving the Emperor from the obligation of availing himself in Turkey of those rights of territorial protection which he has never had recourse to but against his will, and of postponing indefinitely the crisis which the Emperor and the Queen of Great Britain are equally anxious to avert. The noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) said, last night, that this had been one of the objects of the war; and as having been a Member of the Government which commenced the war, the noble Lord was, consequently, on that subject an authority. The noble Lord said— If we had begun the war for the protection of Turkey with no other prospect than that of seeing continued the abuses and misgovernment which have caused and accompanied the decay of the Sultan's power in Europe, we should not have been justified in entering into it. But it was our hope that the 10,000,000 or 11,000,000 of his Christian subjects in those countries might have a prospect of better government, of security in their homes, and of an acknowledgment of their rights, which in other parts of Europe make the welfare of the people. Now, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe had written thus at the beginning of this year— It cannot be conceded that, although the diplomatic agreements between the Porte and its Allies have been carried with the Sultan's approbation, the results have been as effective as the Government were entitled to expect. In two instances individuals have suffered death by the hands of executioners on account of religious considerations; and in other instances imprisonment or forced removal to foreign countries have been resorted to in order to obtain an unwilling retractation or appease the malice of the priesthood. Whole families of Catholics have been driven from their homes under circumstances revolting to humanity. And Protetestants, though recognised by Imperial firmans, have been exposed to unmerited persecution, while the Turkish authorities, instead of protecting them, have only connived at their oppression. Such are the circumstances under which the undersigned is instructed to press the subject on the attention of the Porte. He is ordered to observe that the great European Powers can never consent to perpetuate, by the triumph of their fleets and armies, the enforcement on Turkey of a rule which is not only a standing insult to them, but a source of continual persecution to their fellow Christians; and they are entitled to demand of the Government, and this demand I now make, that converts from Mahomedanism shall be protected from molestation. Such was so recently the language held by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe to the Porte, and it was identical with the language which had been used by the Emperor of Russia in 1853. And this showed that we might have gained the great object we now professed to have gone to war about, without the sad bloodshed (to say nothing of the enormous expense) which had been caused by the war during the last two years. In another place, a noble Lord had called the hatti-sheriff, which the Porte had just issued, the Magna Charta of the Christians in the East. He (Lord Granby) had no desire to undervalue it. But there was an ominous paragraph in one of Lord Stratford's despatches which warned us not to be too sanguine in our expectations of the advantages to be derived from it. Lord Stratford wrote— The law is not abolished against renegades, and the Sultan's Ministers affirm that such a stretch of authority would be beyond his power. But its practical application is renounced by the document in question, and the Government would at any time be justified in complaining of any breach of engagement on the part of the Porte. We had now more experience of the Turkish Empire than we had when we entered into the war. We now knew that because the hatti-sheriff was made, it by no means followed that it should be put in execution. He for one greatly regretted that it had not been put into the treaty, which would have been the only secure means of enforcing it. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) had lectured the House as to abuse of the Porte, and had declared that we ought to be grateful to it for all the concessions which it had made. Those concessions, however, had not been voluntary on the part of the Porte, but had been wrung from it with the greatest possible reluctance, and had been forced upon it by the energy and determination of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and the influence of the British Government. We had some experience now of the corruption and obstruction which existed in all departments of the Turkish Government. Why was it that Kars had fallen? Upon that point he had the misfortune to differ from his Friends around him. Kars had fallen, in his humble judgment, from the cupidity of the Pashas in the first instance; from the sluggishness and inattention of the Turkish Government in the second instance; and thirdly, from the want of energy, in this one case, on the part of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. There would have been no use in sending money or supplies for the relief of Kars. General Williams himself had declared that all the money went into the coffers of the Pashas. And as to food, there were supplies for two months within fifty miles of Kars at the disposal of the Turkish Government, and which might have been sent to Kars had not the Pasha refused to send it. In accepting the present peace, it was satisfactory to us to find that we stood in so high a position, and could look back on the past with pride, and to the future with confidence. When we had first entered on the war, the rust of forty years' peace was on our swords, and the taint of a foolish notion was on our minds, that we should never be exposed to the hazard of war again. Still, although we entered into the war unprepared, we could look back with satisfaction to the glories our arms had obtained, and the victories our gallant troops had achieved. We looked forward with confidence to the future, because we hoped the peace which had been concluded would be lasting. And we were convinced that if we should again have to draw the sword we should not permit our establishments to fall into the condition in which they were before the war. The spirit of our people was never greater—their valour was never more ready for the combat—our army was never more efficient—our navy never more effective—our resources never more abundant—our finances never more flourishing.

• "Let other monarchs boast extended sway,
• By gasping nations hated and ahborr'd,
• Through all the deserts that their swords have made,
• My Sovereign, let a nobler task be thine—
• To fix thine empire on thy people's mind,
• High on thy radiant throne to view the scene,
• And calm the billows raging in the storm;
• To shed a charm o'er fair Europa's face,
• And force reluctant nations into peace,"

That was the spirit in which the peace would be accepted—a peace destined, he hoped, to be as enduring as the laurels which we had won in the contest, now happily at an end, would be unfading.

MR. SIDNEY HERBERT

I hope Sir, that the House will allow me—and I will undertake to do so in as short a time as I possibly can, and without a single quotation of any description—to express the opinion which I have formed upon this treaty, which terminates a war for the commencement of which I, among others, was responsible. I apprehend that what we have to consider in examining the provisions of this treaty is—first, does it obtain the objects for which we originally entered upon the war; secondly, does it bear a just proportion to the degree of success which we have obtained during the war; and, thirdly, is the moment the best chosen for concluding a peace? Now, Sir, I shall take the last consideration first, and for this reason. If there is one feeling prevalent in the public mind more than another, it is that the peace has unfortunately arrived at a moment when our armaments generally are so strong and in such a state of preparation that we might reasonably have hoped for successes far greater than those which we have obtained. That, Sir, as I have just said, is a very general impression; but as regards that argument, I can only say that it falls at once to the ground if the peace accomplishes all the main objects of the war; for, if we have obtained those objects, then I say to carry on the war for the purpose of obtaining great military successes would be an offence against the laws of God and of man, and, like offences committed by individuals, would be sure to meet, sooner or later, with a just retribution. Let us, however, examine the matter more closely, and let us consider what were the prospects which we had of obtaining great successes if the war had been continued. I have the most unbounded confidence in the talent and capacity which would have been exhibited by those to whom the conduct of our armaments might have been intrusted, but at the same time it is impossible not to observe that after the termination of the first campaign, that is, after the day on which Sebastopol was taken, and the opening of the second, there was not that energy displayed, nor was there the same prospect of great achievements which had existed up to that time. There can be no doubt that after the death of Lord Raglan the position of the English forces was very materially changed. I do not wish to say one word in disparagement of the gallant soldier who succeeded Lord Raglan in his command. No man knew better than General Simpson did the measure of his own powers, and he was not responsible if he was placed in a position beyond his powers, for he himself had remonstrated against his being so placed. I was much struck by an expression in an able memorandum of Omar Pasha's, contained in the Bluebook, from which so much has been quoted. Omar Pasha said— I think you will find that when General Simpson is at the head of 50,000, instead of 30,000 men, that his voice will be better heard in the councils of the Allies than it is at present. I think there is a great deal of truth in that remark. At the early part of the campaign the English troops were inferior in number to the French, but the authority which was exercised by Lord Raglan compensated for that inferiority. I have heard Gentlemen on the bench below me, who are in the habit of speaking in terms of disparagement of Lord Raglan's military ability, say that he possessed great diplomatic talent. If by the expression "diplomatic talent" is meant that dexterity and subtleness, that power of guarding expressions and of adapting one's language to the views of the person with whom one is talking—which is, I think, unjustly concluded to be necessary for the success of diplomacy—then I can only say that Lord Raglan did not possess that talent. It was his courtesy and his frank deportment, combined with his prudence and his military experience, which gave so much weight to his judgment, and which drew from the French the greatest respect for his character and for his opinions. I think that in looking back to the siege of Sebastopol we must all admit that we owe the success that we achieved to Lord Raglan as much as to any one who was engaged in that contest. It was Lord Raglan who mainly contributed in the deliberations before the expedition started to fix the project in the minds of the allied commanders. It was Lord Raglan who in that terrible winter, himself a man of the kindest disposition, and upon whom the sufferings of the troops inflicted the greatest pain, by his constancy, his firmness, and the tenacity of his courage maintained his ground through all difficulties, until he was cut off by death and prevented from witnessing that success to which he had so greatly contributed. The subject upon which I am now about to touch is rather a delicate one, but as I hold no official position I will not hesitate to refer to it. Looking at the conduct of the campaign from the moment of the capture of Sebastopol, I see that the direction of affairs became not exclusively, but predominantly French. It was the opinion of everybody in England, and I believe it was the opinion of the present Government, as it was of the late Government, that, next to Sebastopol, Asia was the point of paramount importance. Now, instead of attention being directed to Asia, an expedition was sent to capture Kinburn. I am not myself a military man, and I have no right to speak with any affectation of authority on military affairs, but I have discussed this question with military men, and indeed there are some things connected with military affairs that depend so entirely upon common sense that even a civilian is competent to form an opinion with regard to them. Well, Sir, Kinburn was taken, and taken with comparative ease, after enormous preparations had been made, and a great deal of valuable time consumed, and a large body of troops was concentrated upon it. The House will recollect that Kinburn is situated on the end of the Liman on which Nicholaieff is situated. Now, the attack upon Kinburn was made in August, and after its capture Marshal Pelissier congratulated his troops upon having taken the key of Nicholaieff. Now, it appears to me that, if the object of the expedition was to take Nicholaieff, Kinburn ought not to have been attacked until all preparation had been made for going on at once to Nicholaieff. What is the use of having a key to open a door and not opening it? If you have the key of a door, surely it is the usual practice to open it before the person who wishes to prevent your entrance has time to change the lock. What took place in this instance? Why, after the capture of Kinburn, the troops were kept in a state of inactivity until General Todtleben, the Russian General of Engineers, was sent for, and converted Nicholaieff into a second Sebastopol. Now, Sir, it must have been obvious that Asia was a much more important field of action. The inhabitants of Georgia are Christian, and a Christian army might be able to operate in that country, while in Circassia a Mussulman army might also have been able to operate. This leads me to the conviction which I hare expressed on a former occasion, that the mode of accounting for this change in the prospective character of the campaign which terminated in the capture of Sebastopol is, that the direction of the military movements of the Allies had been assumed by the French. Well, now, I wish to speak with every praise of the conduct of France towards us; but a nation must look to its own views and interests, and its rulers must act in accordance with what they believe to be the national interests. There is no doubt about the fact—the French did not disguise it—that they were more disposed to conclude the war than to continue it. Surely, then, these were matters which were for the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, and which not only had, but ought to have had, great influence upon their opinions as to whether the war ought to be carried on, or whether attempts ought to be made to negotiate a peace. It was the policy of Lord Aberdeen's Government, and which policy has been subsequently continued, to form strong European alliances against Russia. It appeared then, as it has since appeared, and as the Emperor of the French has aptly expressed it, that it was to the sympathy and assistance, moral as well as physical, of Europe, that we must look for success against Russia. Lord Aberdeen's Government, therefore, with these views entered into the treaty with the King of Sardinia, and from that period Lord Clarendon has made unceasing efforts, marked with the greatest patience and ability, to bring Austria into the front rank of the alliance. I was sorry to hear the noble Lord the Member for the city of London (Lord J. Russell) speak last evening, as I thought, in some disparagement of the services rendered to us by Austria in this contest. In the first place, I am not sure that we or any nation have a right to complain of other nations who, looking to their own honour and their own interests, are not ready to engage in a war for the mere purpose of pleasing us. But in this particular instance what was the peculiar position of Austria, and what has been the nature of her services to us? I must remind the noble Lord and the House that Austria was placed in rather a peculiar position. She was at that moment labouring under great embarrassments. She had political embarrassments arising out of the dangerous state of feeling in her own provinces, and she had great financial embarrassments, than which none are more grievous in carrying on a war. But, besides all this, she was exposed to one danger to which none other of the Allies were subject. In this country we have been throughout eager for this war; it was fought at a great distance from us, and we had the good fortune to concentrate upon our enemy all the miseries which war inflicts, and were, happily, free from all possibility of retaliation on his part. That was not the case with Austria. She has an open frontier towards Russia: Russia had a force of 200,000 men and 300 pieces of cannon on her Galician frontier; and military men said, "You have nothing with which to resist that army; in six weeks after war is declared, there is nothing to prevent the Russians from occupying the Austrian capital." Should we in England, think you, have looked upon war with the same eyes if there had been—I will not say a possibility, but a probability, that six weeks after the declaration of war, a Russian army would be in London? We must take these things into account in considering the amount of assistance which Austria would give us. But, did she give none? Why, as long as she kept that army of 200,000 men upon the frontier, by counter armaments of her own, by the minacious position which she held in the alliance, we had in her an ally who, though not fighting with us in the field, held that army of 200,000 men in check, and prevented Russia from sending large reinforcements from it to the Crimea. I have always thought that, with regard to the proposal—known as the Austrian proposal—made at Vienna, and which bound Austria to maintain her then existing position towards the Allies, it was a great error not to have adopted that proposal. I will show the House why. In the first place, let me say that that proposal, whatever its value might be, was accompanied by a promise that Austria would at any rate remain still in her position towards the allies; you might have got even more from her than this, but at any rate you would have had nothing less. I do not believe that that proposal would ever have been accepted by Russia. We have the authority of my noble Friend (Lord J. Russell), of the right hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey), and of Austria herself for this; and lastly, we had an assurance from Russia, conveyed in a circular of Count Nesselrode, that it was a proposal which she could not accept. Well, if that were the case, I say it was useless as far as regards peace, but it was a proposal which, if accepted, would have been invaluable for war. We refused it. In point of fact, the impatience of the people of this country broke off the negotiations. What happened then? Why, that Austria, immediately after her terms were refused, made an excuse to draw back; the Galician army was sent off to the south; the Russians were enabled to pour vast reinforcements into the Crimea, and it is difficult to estimate how far the siege of Sebastopol was thus protracted, and whether, in the valuable time thus lost, even Kars itself might not have been saved. I have spoken of this merely as a means of conducting the war, and not as a means of concluding peace. With regard to that I will say very little, and for this reason, I am of opinion—an opinion which I know is not shared by this House—that neutralisation is not a policy which it is the interest of a great maritime country to adopt. I apprehend our interest is that wherever there is water our ships shall float. The principle of converting water into land must, to a great maritime country like ours, be disadvantageous. But, after all, this neutralisation is only an old friend under a new shape; it is only limitation under a new name. It was limitation before, as regarded ships of the line, it is limitation now to ten small steamers. I do not attach much importance to the objections started last night, namely, that gunboats without guns might be surreptitiously built, and equipped when the occasion required. It is impossible to frame a form of words which cannot be broken through and evaded; you must, therefore, trust to stipulations being kept with frankness and good faith, according to their obvious meaning. If you hold that your enemy is so faithless, that he is so slippery an antagonist, as to observe no treaty, clearly you can have no peace, no treaty, and you must have war to extermination. But that is not the case in this instance. We have a peace made upon grounds which I think are popular with the House and with the country—namely, that based upon neutralisation. I must confess that I have no great faith in that principle. I like better the system of limitation, the infringement of which carried with it its own penalty by enabling the Turkish Government to bring up English or other ships of war through the Straits in the case not only of war, but even if it anticipated danger, without letting Russian ships down the Dardanelles. As I before said, I am aware that I am in a minority in this respect, and I will not argue the question at any length before the House. I am bound, however, to say, with regard to the question raised last night as to the Circassian forts, I do not agree with the opinions expressed on the opposite side of the House. Certainly, as the words of the treaty run, it might have been supposed that those forts were included. My right hon. Friend opposite thought they were included, and I do not wonder at his mistake. I myself read the treaty in the same way. But when it is argued that we were bound in honour to the Circassians and to Schamyl, and that we ought to have insisted on the destruction of these forts in virtue of our engagement with them and in return for the assistance they gave us in carrying on the war, I confess I entirely disagree with that opinion. In the first place, let me say that Schamyl is not a Circassian; and as far as I can make out—and I have taken some pains to ascertain the fact—he never was in Circassia in his life. His tribes are in Daghestan—on the Caspian and not the Euxine, and when he made an attempt to conciliate the jealousy of the tribes he found it to be impossible. The noble Lord the Member for Colchester (Lord J. Manners) says we sent an agent to Schamyl, and therefore he assumes that the agent succeeded in making a treaty. Mr. Longworth, it is true, went to Schamyl, but nothing came of it. On the contrary, I believe that the impression on the minds of those who came in contact with that chief was that the jealousy of Europeans and Christians which he had imbibed during the long war with the Russians, was by no means confined to them, and that he looked with very great suspicion on the emissaries of the Allies, whether Turks or Christians. But, however, now let me ask the practical question—what has Schamyl done for us during the war? With the exception of a razzia in which he carried off some Russian ladies, I do not know what he did for the common cause. There was some little peculiarity, it may be remembered, about the razzia I am speaking of, for, owing to its agency, General Williams first obtained possession of what, to him, was then very valuable from its rarity—Lord Stratford's autograph. [Laughter.] I do not mean by that observation to pass a censure upon the whole conduct of Lord Stratford; but every one who has read the Blue-book must admit that Lord Stratford did commit a very grave error in the early part of these transactions, for which he received a very stern—and, I believe, a very just—rebuke from Her Majesty's Government. At the same time, it is only fair to add that he was the man who, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government—and, I am bound to say, also, in my own—was the most capable to do the best, and who subsequently did do the best, to repair that error, by securing for the Turkish troops in Armenia and Anatolia the supplies which they so greatly needed. I, therefore, think that it would have been a most unwise step on the part of Her Majesty's Government if they had dismissed him. If we were looking at these transactions microscopically—taking out one and considering it alone, without reference to the rest—I admit that a good deal might be said against the conduct of the Government with respect to Kars; and I own also that a good deal has been said by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Whiteside) with a power and eloquence which made, as they deserved to make, a great impression upon the House. But, looking at the transactions as a whole, I think that Her Majesty's Government exercised a wise discretion in concentrating their efforts in the Crimea, and placing at the disposal of the generals before Sebastopol all the forces at their command. Whether a sum of money might have been sent to General Williams is another question. I believe, for my own part, that if General Williams had had a military chest containing £50,000 or £100,000, he would not have required to send to Constantinople begging that the dignity of a ferik might be conferred upon him, for if he had been in possession of money every Muchir and Pasha among them would have been at his feet, and would speedily have found the means of supplying the wants of the army. Viewing, then, the transactions as a whole—looking at the general result of the war I rejoice that the House decided not to pass any censure upon Her Majesty's Government with reference to the fall of Kars. And now, turning to another part of the treaty, I am bound to express my opinion that the Government were not to blame for not insisting upon the destruction of the forts in Circassia. We ought to remember that in negotiations such as those conducted at Paris we can get only what all the other parties join with us in seeking, and, let me add, in standing out for; and I ask any Gentleman who is disposed to condemn the exception made with respect to the Circassian forts to answer this simple question, looking at what you have got, would you have been prepared to continue the war for that sole object, and possibly without your Allies? We should recollect that the breaking up of an alliance, which has been a very close one, is a very different thing from avoiding its original formation; and I say that, after the cordial manner in which we have acted with France,—after the good faith and honesty which have marked the conduct of the French Government towards us—to disagree with our honourable and gallant Ally with respect to the conditions to be imposed upon Russia would have had a most disastrous effect, not only upon the conclusion of the war and the terms of peace, but upon our future relations with the other nations of Europe. I think, therefore, that our Government acted wisely in refusing to insist upon the demolition of the Circassian forts. I think they have got in the other terms with regard to the forts on the shores of the Black Sea, what will amply secure the main object in view—the safety and integrity of the Turkish Empire; and, therefore, if the noble Lord the Member for Colchester had proposed an Amendment with respect to the Circassian forts, which I rejoice he has not done, I should have deemed it my duty to have voted against him. There are some other points upon which I desire to make a few observations; and, first, I should be glad to hear an explanation from the Government with regard to the position of the Christians in Turkey. That is a most important question, and certainly at first sight it appears to me that it has not been settled quite satisfactorily, because the hatti-sheriff, which octroye the privileges of the Christians, is a revocable document, and there is a passage in the treaty which expressly says that it shall not give the Powers a right to interfere in the affairs of Turkey. I do not say that the right of interference is not given by other articles or by usage; but I am anxious to hear from the Government what they think the position of the Christians to be, and what are the rights of the Allies in case that portion of the subjects of the Sultan are oppressed. Now, Sir, looking at the general result of the war, I must say that we have grounds for the sincerest congratulation. The great bubble as to Russian invincibility has collapsed. We have in a singularly short time proved that the power of Russia has been greatly overrated. When we entered into the late war we were haunted with a species of hobgoblin which inspired terrors within ourselves, and we thought that the power and ambition of Russia were so great that State after State would fall a victim and be engulfed in her "insatiate maw." I am one of those who have never given credence to the notion that Russia acted upon a stern unbending course of policy, and that her policy has been dictated by a long-cherished and pre-ordained ambition. I think, on the contrary, that it has been a necessity, and therefore much more dangerous to Europe, and much more necessary to be curbed. It has been a necessity of her position, such as we have ourselves found in India, such as the French have found in Africa, and such as our Transatlantic cousins have found in America. Hence it became necessary that some force should be used to confine her within her own boundaries, and to show that the public law of Europe could not be violated with impunity. No man can deny with justice that, looking at the treaty as a whole, we have not attained the main objects of the war. We have gained one which we could not have secured last year to the same extent—I mean the freedom of the Danube. The cession by Russia of a portion of Bessarabia, including that Ismail which is mixed up with the national honour and glory, is highly creditable to so great a Power, and could hardly have been expected before the last campaign in the Crimea. I think, in short, that the terms of the peace are fully commensurate with the success of our arms, although I repeat that, our military operations having deteriorated in their direction and management after the capture of Sebastopol, we should have been entitled to demand better terms immediately upon that event than at any subsequent period. But I am bound to add, that what was lost in the conduct of the military campaign has been more than regained by the skill of Lord Clarendon in the negotiations at Paris. I sat with Lord Clarendon in the Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen; I have seen how he bore a weight of responsibility which few men could have sustained; I have witnessed the vigilance, the untiring patience, the promptitude, and the skill with which he has conducted at one and the same time a variety of important transactions; and I say that the manner in which he has discharged his duty to his Sovereign and his country does him immortal honour. I think, moreover, that the influence of England has been increased by the fact, that she was represented in the Congress at Paris by one of the ablest men there, and that the skill and ability displayed by Lord Clarendon throughout the negotiations have enabled us to secure terms which, without the advantage of his services, we could not have hoped to obtain. The despatches written by Lord Clarendon upon military subjects were much criticised during the debate on Kars; but we must recollect that in those cases Lord Clarendon was merely the channel for transmitting the decisions and opinions of others. The despatches written by Lord Clarendon upon the terms of peace, and upon the negotiations by which they were to be obtained, are his own; and I say that, if you examine those despatches from the beginning to the end of these complicated transactions, although there may perchance be errors, as there scarcely could not fail to be in such vast and intricate matters, you will feel proud that the affairs of England should have been so ably conducted. One word more, and I have done. It is a passion of this country—a passion, more especially, of our press—to interfere with the affairs of other nations, and to search through Europe to find a mote which we may magnify into a beam in the eyes of our neighbours; and the popular opinion is, that all our alliances should be founded upon political sympathy with respect to domestic institutions and forms of government. I believe that to be a great error. It must to a certain degree strengthen alliances which exist among nations upon other grounds; but, looking to what has taken place in Europe during the last few years, and seeing that recent events have tended to break up that great Northern alliance which was founded upon political sympathy of a kind far different from ours, and which divided Europe into two camps, I hope that we have at last come to a wiser opinion. We have found, in the case of France, that we can be closely allied with a country which does not possess our form of government; and I trust that, having established a good understanding with Austria—having detached her from the Northern Powers—we shall not think it necessary by hostile and incessant criticism upon her internal government to alienate her people as we did before. I believe that the only moderate and safe course for us to pursue is to cultivate the friendship of all the great European States, whatever their form of government may be, and I am convinced that by such means we shall best secure the great object which we ought always to have in view—the promotion of civilisation and the happiness of mankind.

MR. DRUMMOND

Sir, the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who last addressed us has confirmed the opinion which I entertained even before I heard the debate last night; namely, that it is a great misfortune to have so many important questions mixed up together in a discussion upon the treaty of peace, because we run the risk of slurring over most interesting subjects and neglecting to give them their due weight and consideration. I must confess that this treaty of peace and its protocols remind me very much of the French Palais de 1'Industrie. The building in the Champs Elysées was very large, very ornamental, and very useful; but there was attached to it a thing called an "Annexe," which was infinitely larger and contained articles of much greater real value. We have, however, Sir, before us two questions, which it is impossible to pass over in silence, because, for the first time, they bind up English interests with those of the Continent, upon more than one subject. I shall take, in the first place, the liberty of the press. Immediately after the Peace of Amiens, the French Government made an attack upon the liberty of the press in England. We had always considered that the regulations of the press was a matter which concerned ourselves alone, and that no other nation had any business to meddle with it. But according to the words of Count Walewski, it has become, as he says, an European question. Not only does he state the necessity of controlling the liberty of the press in Belgium, but he seems to forget—for he does not mention the fact—that we are bound by treaty to uphold Belgium against all attacks, and, therefore, we must look with exceeding jealousy on any intended or threatened attack on the liberty of the press of that country. I am not now going to enter upon the question of the liberty of the press generally—I do not believe there is a single man in this country who would consent to the curtailment by one iota of that liberty. Therefore, as far as this House is concerned, there is no fear that we may he dragged into consequences of which we do not dream. I am, therefore, sorry that we have no opportunity of discussing this question by itself. The subject to which I wish particularly to call your attention is of a different character—one to which my right hon. Friend (Mr. S. Herbert) has just alluded; at least, I suppose so, for he expressed himself somewhat darkly when he called it the internal arrangements of other Countries. It is confessed in these protocols that— The tranquillity of the Roman States, and that of the whole of Italy, affects too closely the maintenance of social order in Europe for France not to have an overbearing interest in securing it by all the means in her power. But, on the other hand, it is impossible to overlook the abnormal condition of a Power which, in order to maintain itself, requires to be supported by foreign troops. Now, Sir, I think, before we talk of teaching the Turk to be tolerant, we may consider the words, "Physician, heal thyself." I think the Turkish papers have challenged us to look back some 500 or 600 years, and see whether the conquered party in Turkey has had reason to complain of the dominant party. But it is absolutely necessary for us to enter upon this question, and when my right hon. Friend says, "You are too much inclined to interfere," I refer him to the words of the protocol, which affirms that the state of foreign countries is no longer a question, the interest of which is confined to themselves, but is a social question affecting the whole of Europe, and therefore has become a question to be considered by this House as much as any other social question. I believe that this House is very much in the dark upon what is going on in foreign countries. No doubt, as the hon. and learned Member for Tavistock (Mr. R. Phillimore) very truly said of maritime law, the subject is not one to attract much public attention. Most persons, however, are aware that the Emperor of Austria has bound himself and all his people, body and soul, under the power of the Bishop of Rome. [Laughter.] Oh, you think it a joking matter, do you? You had better go and live there. If it is so funny, it is a pity you should not have the benefit of it. I will tell you how it operates. I am about to quote from journals published in Austria, and everybody knows that no journal can publish anything but what is true respecting the priesthood in that country. "At the present moment the bishops are refusing to allow Protestants to be buried in their own private family vaults." As an instance, suppose there was a Bishop of Westminster, and he was to refuse to permit noblemen and gentlemen having vaults in Westminster Abbey to be buried in them. That is amusing, very likely. They are also refusing to bury them anywhere else. They say they shall, like Jews and dogs and cats, be buried at the end of their gardens, or anywhere they please, but in their own consecrated ground they shall not lie. Certainly, disputes of the same kind have happened in our own country. In Bavaria there are many natives of other States whom the practice of requiring workmen to travel after completing their apprenticeship has induced to settle there, and at this moment there are in that country many such persons who, through the means of two priests particularly, whose names I will not mention, have received copies of the Scriptures, not given to them by Protestant missionaries, but by Roman Catholic priests, and according to the Roman Catholic version. These men are all ordered to leave the country on that account. Now, as to the Tyrol. From the Augsburg Gazette I find that the bishops of Trent and Brixen have sent remonstrances to the Government against two Protestants being allowed to purchase land in their diocesses, and demanding its forfeiture to the State if they did purchase any. In Tuscany, you must be aware that new laws have lately been decreed for the punishment of crimes against religion. I am not going to enter into the Madiai case; we all know that—it is a good joke for those who are not in their position. But what was done the other day? Why, they positively refused, because he was a Protestant, to give a man, Lambruschini, a medal awarded to him at the Paris exhibition. My hon. and learned Friend behind me (Mr. Bowyer) does not believe a word of it. Then we come to France, the head of this movement for toleration. Not long ago the Roman Catholics of a district in that country demanded a place in the Protestant church in order to erect there a statue of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. The prefect said, "I cannot do that; there are almost as many Protestants as Roman Catholics in this place. It is with difficulty I can keep the peace between them. If I grant your request it will lead to disturbances without end, and moreover you have ground of your own close by." They remonstrated, he kept firm, but within a week that prefect was deposed. I am not intending now to speak of the Maynooth question or of any sectarian quarrels. Now, I ask, how do you propose to remedy this state of things? Are the protocols of which we have heard so much to be mere waste paper—are we still to do nothing? I say our remedy is to retrace our steps. I have always opposed, not reforms, but reforms in the mouths of Whigs and Radicals, because they never meant reform, which went back to first principles, but they sought the destruction of everything that had gone before and the construction of new and unheard-of things. These things I opposed; but as to reforms—the going back to first principles—that is what I have ever contended for, and I believe that has been utterly inexplicable to most people who cannot understand what I am at. I will give you an example of what I mean. Make the whole Church go back to first principles, and put down the priesthood under the civil law. The special command to the Romans was, "Obey the powers that be." I know not when it was the priesthood first began to usurp the rights of the laity in the election of deacons, but I know that from that moment till this the cause of nearly every persecution, every religious war lies at the door of the clergy. I do not confine that remark to any one particular class or country, but I say that whenever I do see that class I see the sprouting out of the same thing. The soil of Italy is luxuriant, and there it appears in greater profusion. In Scotland it is more restrained, but there it is also. Several hundred years ago that soil was very prolific in that respect, and it bore very good fruit. I confess that, barring climate and some other circumstances qualifying the matter in some degree, I do not see a vast difference in what is called the Synodical movement. I see everywhere the laity treated as ecclesiastical nonentities. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman behind me may not believe it, but it is a fundamental principle of Italian law, that no ecclesiastic can be tried by the civil law. Now, Sir, that is at the root of all our troubles in Ireland. It is the secret of all ecclesiastical power. They will never submit to the civil power. They think they are doing a religious act to deny you the privilege of bringing them before the courts of law. That is the single point on which I think it necessary to dwell. There are a great number of points upon which I have no right to occupy the House. I will, therefore, confine myself to the present and the future; for as to the treaty, that is gone, and I never hunt a dead hare. I confine myself, therefore, to what is practicable—the present and the future—and I do trust that Her Majesty's Ministers will not think that their work is done because a paper is printed and laid on the table. I am glad my noble Friend at the head of the Government has no place for deer-stalking or grouse shooting, and, therefore, will not, as soon as the House is up, go a hunting, but will be able to apply his attention to these matters; and I hope he will insist, in conjunction with the Powers with which this country is now united, in putting down all ecclesiastical power throughout Europe. You may rely upon it that that power has been the secret of all the corruption in Christendom from the earliest period to the present day. Everything has been thrown completely upside down; it has been laity under clergy, instead of clergy under laity. [Mr. BOWYER: Hear, hear!] Yes, it is high time I should say something to the hon. and learned Gentleman. I recommend him to study that matter. He will find that it is the principle of the civil law as it is the principle of the Koran, to persecute every one who differs from the ecclesiastics. Of course you cannot take that conviction from them; it is a matter of conscience. All I ask is that you should take away the power of their enforcing it.

MR. BOWYER

^∗ Sir, it certainly was my intention not to have spoken upon this question in the present debate; but to have contented myself with merely giving a silent vote upon it, because, in my opinion, this "Treaty of Peace" may, under all the circumstances, be considered as good and satisfactory. But a great deal has been said in the course of the debate, which renders it impossible for me to adhere to my original determination. I allude more particularly to the observations which have fallen from the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond), who has done me the honour to allude to myself personally several times in the course of his speech. I am aware of the aptitude of the hon. Member for quotation, and of his great ability in torturing any particular passage of any author he may quote to serve his own purpose; but I beg to assure the hon. Member that I have a "rod in pickle" for him, and that he may rely upon it that it is my intention to lay it on whenever a fitting opportunity shall offer itself. I allude especially to a quotation which, on a former occasion, he gave to the House as an opinion of Liguori, whereas it was a passage from another and a different writer. I must, however, do the hon. Member the justice to say, that throughout his speech he has exhibited no small degree of impartiality, for his attacks have not been confined to any one particular sect, for all churches and all authorities have fallen in for a fair share of his vituperation and animadversion. Some hon. Members, in the course of their speeches, content themselves with attacking some of the small States of Italy: but the hon. Member has gone so far as to assail the municipalities, authorities, and institutions of our great ally, France; and has stated to the House the important fact, that he was aware of, or had heard of an instance, in which a prefect of police in France had actually refused to allow a certain statue to be erected on a certain spot. And let me ask, is it with such trifles as these that the time and attention of this House are to be occupied, and the importance of this debate lowered? However, the hon. Member for West Surrey has taken a much wider range, and has attacked the whole of the priesthood as a body, and has actually gone so far as to call upon the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government to suppress and "put down" the priesthood throughout the whole world. Now, if I am correctly informed, I believe the hon. Member is himself a priest; and not only a priest, but something more, for I have been assured that he holds a high dignity in the community of which he is a Member. Well, then, if the noble Lord at the head of the Government were to attempt to accomplish the will of the hon. Member for West Surrey, namely, to "put down the priesthood throughout the whole of Europe," he must make a beginning at home, and commence by "putting down" the hon. Member for West Surrey. But, now, the hon. Gentleman must permit me to tell him, that, in the course of his speech, he has made very many ridiculous and absurd mis-statements. He has said that no ecclesiastic in a Roman Catholic country can be tried for an offence against the civil laws of that country by the civil power; and I say that the fact is not so. He has stated that no priest in Sardinia could be made amenable to the civil powers for any offence against the civil laws, until the existing state of the law in that country upon this point had lately been altered by the Siccardi law. But the fact is not so, because we have it recorded, in a return made to Parliament in the year 1816, that the priests in the States of Savoy were then amenable to the civil courts. And the same answer applies to the statement of the hon. Member, to the effect that, until a very recent change in the state of the Government of Piedmont, the priests were not amenable to the civil authorities. That assertion is just as fabulous and unfounded in fact as the other statements of the hon. Member I have just mentioned. But the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) has gone even a step further than the hon. Member for West Surrey; for he, in order to bolster up his case, has gone into a statement of particular instances: and in the course of the speech he made yesterday, he told the House a story, the substance of which was, that in consequence of some riotous disturbances having taken place in a certain small town in Sicily, the Government had given orders that the very first six persons who should enter that town should be seized upon and shot dead; and the hon. Member added, that that horrible command was absolutely carried into execution. Now, it is perfectly monstrous and absurd to say that such a statement can be founded in fact. I can only say that I have never heard of it, and I am perfectly satisfied in my own mind that the whole story is fabulous and unworthy of a moment's consideration. It does, however, unfortunately happen, that the hon. Member who related the story is ever ready to grasp at any story, however false or malicious, against the Government of any Christian country, provided that that Government happens to be Roman Catholic; and hence we find him grasping at, as true, this absurd and horrible falsehood against the King of Naples, a monarch whom, I do believe, whatever may be the faults and errors of those who compose his Government, to be a man of the most exalted virtue, and of the most exemplary piety, and whose whole private life is an example to every family in his kingdom. Yet, forsooth, because that sovereign happens to be a Roman Catholic, and for no other reason whatever, we find the hon. Member ready to lend a willing ear to any story against him, however monstrous and absurd; and he therefore tells the House that the King of Naples has recently sanctioned an act of atrocity, the perpetration of which could find no equal even in the records of the acts of the most despotic and tyrannical Eastern rulers we have ever heard of. Then, again, while debating upon this topic, I find even the noble Lord, the Member for the City of London, following in the same strain; and that noble Lord, in speaking of the different Governments of Italy, has thought proper to indulge in language characterised by the most bitter reprehension and the most sweeping invective against these Governments, and he has applied himself more particularly to the system of government adopted in the Roman States, where, he said, he had heard of a man who had been made prisoner by the police of his Holiness the Pope, and had been thrown into prison, and kept there for eight months, and that, at the expiration of that period of incarceration, he was liberated, not only without having gone through the form even of any trial, but actually without any accusation having been made against him, beyond the assertion that he was "suspected," though he was not told of what. Now the noble Lord must permit me to remind him, that in mentioning that case to the House, in support of his attack upon the system of government of the Roman States, he did not give either names or dates, or any circumstances whatever, whereby to support the truth of the story; and in the absence of any the slightest evidence in support of it, I will take the liberty of telling the noble Lord that I do not believe there is one word of truth in the story, and I consider that my assertion to that effect is just as well entitled to credit as the story of the noble Lord, related as it has been totally unsupported by a particle of evidence of any sort. I will give an instance of the way in which false statements of this sort are propagated. We have heard a great deal said about the assertions contained in the letters of the "Correspondents" of newspapers, in reference to certain alleged acts of the Duchess of Parma; and those correspondents have not been sparing in the aspersions they have cast upon that august lady, and for what? Because of the vigorous measures which the Government of Parma were compelled to take for the purpose of repressing contemplated assassinations which had been instigated by certain secret societies, who were desirous to bring about a revolution in that part of the country. But all these assertions have been set aside most effectually by the Earl of Clarendon; for the House will remember that that noble Lord very recently declared, in another place, his opinion upon this subject, and that was, that he considered that, taking all the circumstances into consideration, the Government of Parma had acted throughout the whole of that affair with very great wisdom and moderation. I trust, therefore, that the House will not receive or give any attention or credence whatever to those absurd and incredible calumnies, which, it must be quite apparent to all who have heard them, could only have been "trumped up," and circulated with untiring industry, by those whose object and whose interest it is to do all that in them lies to prejudice the Italian system of government in the estimation of this House, and of the country generally. The House has also heard what the noble Lord, the Member for the City of London, has said with regard to the occupation of Rome by the French army, and the noble Lord has contended that that occupation was originally intended only as a temporary measure; but let me remind the House of the observations made by Count Walewski on that subject. That experienced statesman has wisely declared, that while he was willing to admit that the occupation by France of the capital of the Roman States was an anomaly, yet it would not be prudent or judicious to put a termination to it now; out that, when it could be done with safety, it would be done. I have every hope that the day is not far distant when the Roman Government will find itself in such a position as to render the further prolongation of the occupation of the Roman States by the French and Austrian army unnecessary, and that those States will, ere long, be so consolidated and strengthened as to find their own resources sufficient for all purposes. That consummation cannot be brought about by means of fierce and intemperate demonstrations in this House, nor by still more fierce, and intemperate, and ill-timed, and ill-judged denunciations in the columns of the public press, which can only have the effect of giving encouragement to the establishment of secret societies and combinations, instead of being a means of accelerating the evacuation of Rome by the French. I think it must be quite apparent to this House that such is the opinion of Lord Clarendon on this subject, and that he must have been acting under the influence of such an opinion when he requested Lord Lyndhurst not to persevere in his intention of bringing forward a Motion which had for its object the opening up and the discussing of the whole subject of the state of the affairs and Government of Italy! and it was quite evident from that, that Lord Clarendon was under the impression that silence could much more effectually accomplish the object Lord Lyndhurst had at heart than any public discussion of the subject. But from all that has been said, in this House and out of it, on the subject of the Government of the Papal States, it would lead one to imagine that the people of this country were under the impression that the Pope and his clergy were held in such utter detestation by the people of Italy, that it would be positively dangerous to their personal safety to withdraw the foreign army now in the occupation of Rome. Now I beg to say that I myself can, from actual personal observation and experience, give the most flat, and positive, and unqualified denial to all representations or assertions to that effect. On the contrary, I feel perfectly convinced that any human being, who knows anything at all about Rome, will be ready to bear their testimony, cordially and promptly, to the fact, that there reigns not a monarch in any kingdom of Europe who is more sincerely beloved, respected, and venerated, than the Sovereign Pontiff. The Holy Father, I can assure this House, is daily to be seen moving freely and unostentatiously about amongst his people, without the least fear of molestation, or insult, or interruption, not guarded by any troops whatever, and accompanied by only a very few attendants, and respect and veneration for his person and his holy office mark his reception by the people whenever he goes amongst them. And it is worthy of remark here, that that magnificent palace in which he resides—I mean the Vatican—is constantly open to the public, and people of all classes are suffered to walk about those splendid apartments and galleries at all hours of the day, not only without being stopped, but without being asked a question. I can assure this House that there is not a Sovereign in the whole of Europe who goes about amongst his subjects, in the course of his daily life, with less appearance of being protected by guards than His Holiness; and, as a proof of this, I will mention one instance. I was myself present when His Holiness went from his palace of the Vatican to St. Peter's, where he administered the Holy Communion with his own hands to no fewer than 400 of his subjects, and on his way thither and back his whole suite consisted of only four or five of the Swiss guard and his chamberlains. And I can also state another fact illustrative of the simple and unostentatious life of His Holiness, and that is, that when the cholera was committing its ravages amongst his subjects in Rome, His Holiness went about fearlessly in the hospitals, administering the comfort and consolation of religion amongst the sick and the dying, with as much zeal and religious fervour, and anxiety for the welfare of the poor people as the very humblest of his priests. I say, then, that with such facts before us, it is not only simply absurd and ridiculous, but it is absolutely monstrous, to hear it said that a Sovereign, who thus goes about wholly unguarded, and mixes so freely amongst his people, feels it necessary to seek for protection from the violence of his own subjects in a multitude of French bayonets. Indeed, I feel that it is absolutely humiliating to attempt to rebut an absurd story, the falsehood of which is apparent on the very face of it. But having denied these false notions, I feel bound to state the true version of the occupation of Rome and the Legations. That reason is simply this: The Roman State is one of very limited extent, with an extensive frontier and sea-coast, no fleet, and small establishments, conducted on a scale of cheapness quite a model for their economy. In proof of this, I need only mention the fact, that the "civil list of His Holiness's establishment does not exceed the sum of £1,500 per annum. Moreover, the people, partly from the climate, and partly from other causes, are singularly deficient in that energy which characterises more northern races. I have not the least doubt, that if the whole of the French army were to evacuate Rome to-morrow, the public peace and good order would not be disturbed in the least. But while no danger is to be apprehended from the Roman people themselves, the Pontifical Government might be threatened with danger from elsewhere. In the event of any disturbance breaking out in any other State in Europe, the Holy City would become the centre of revolutionary societies, and the point to which refugees and demagogues would flock from all parts of the world; and then the Government, if unprotected, might, owing to the want of energy of the people, be overturned, as it was once before. But, above all, I do consider that the present would indeed be a most inopportune moment for the withdrawal of the French troops from Rome, and for this reason, that we have only just arrived at the conclusion of the late war, and the public mind is still in a state of agitation upon many questions of very great public importance; and under those circumstances, to take such a step would, I consider, be unwise and injudicious in the extreme. I quite concur in the view taken by the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for South Wiltshire (Mr. S. Herbert) upon this subject; and I consider that the sentiment he has given expression to, upon the general question of the policy of our interference with the affairs of foreign States, are sound and statesmanlike. This country is not so circumstanced as to enable us to understand thoroughly the principles of government acted upon by those foreign States; and, indeed, I may say, that our insular position is in itself a disqualification: nor can it be denied that this country has never yet gained much credit by its interference with the affairs of other countries, while at the same time the foreign States so interfered with by us have never received any benefit thereby. We have heard the noble Lord the Member for the City of London (Lord John Russell), say that he would recommend to the Sovereign Pontiff to establish a constitutional form of government for his subjects. From that it would appear that the noble Lord had altogether forgotten that His Holiness did actually grant a constitution to his people so far back as the year 1847. It was tried by His Holiness as an experiment, and the result was a most signal failure. But the noble Lord must excuse me for saying that that failure may be mainly, if not wholly, attributed to the line of policy adopted by the noble Lord, when he was Prime Minister, with regard to the affairs of Italy; and the statement of a few facts will suffice to establish this position. The House will remember that the year 1848 was considered by the different Sovereigns of Italy as a favourable time to establish amongst their subjects what is called a system of "Liberal Government." The natural consequence was, that the people of those States became greatly excited, and hopes and expectations of a character the most extravagant and absurd were created, while I really do believe that at that very time neither those Sovereigns nor their subjects could give any clear definition of what they really meant by a "Liberal Government." There, however, were good intentions on the part of the Sovereigns, and loyalty on the part of the people. While things were in this state, the English Government interfered. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) sent Lord Minto to Italy on the most extraordinary mission ever known in the annals of diplomacy. When his Lorship arrived in that country, he everywhere pronounced strictures upon the conduct of the Sovereigns of Italy, both in private and in public; and he absolutely went so far as to make speeches and harangues from the windows of his house, on the subject of the mode of governing Italy. The progress made by his Lordship through Italy has been described by one of his colleagues as a perfect ovation. Now, this, which was intended as praise, is in fact the strongest condemnation, because it forms no part of the duty of an Ambassador to create excitement in the minds of a people, nor to address popular assemblies. The duty of an Ambassador is merely to confer and consult with the Government to which he may be accredited, on behalf of the Government he represents. At the period to which I am now referring an insurrection had broken out in Sicily. Lord Minto proceeded to Naples and to Sicily, and took the part of the insurgents. Guns were sent from the Queen's stores to them; and the English Government intimated, that, if the Sicilians should elect a Prince of the House of Savoy to be their King, this Government would recognise him. And all this was done, although the King of the Two Sicilies was at peace, and in alliance with the British Crown; and delegates from the insurgents were openly received by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Lord Palmerston). Lord Minto then proceeded to Rome. The Pope had granted a constitution. Lord Minto was then in constant communication with the leaders of the mob and of the secret societies, and especially with the demagogue Brunetti, commonly called Ciceroaccio. There was a general opinion throughout the Peninsula that England wished for a revolution in Italy. Thus a volcano was prepared in that country by the policy of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London. Then came the French Revolution, which was the signal of an explosion, that overturned all order and government. The constitutional Governments were thus destroyed, not by the Sovereigns, but by the circumstances which I have described, and by the outbreak of the French Revolution. Look at Rome at that time, under the ministry of Count Rossi! The Administration was entirely composed of laymen. Constitutional government was duly established. The two Chambers were sitting and deliberating. In the midst of this constitutional liberty the Minister was murdered by a conspirator, and a horde of demagogues driven out of Lombardy, and gathered from all parts of Europe, poured into Rome. The peaceful people of Rome were overwhelmed; all their institutions were upset, and what was called a "Provisional Government" was established instead; and then followed the massacre of the clergy, and other crimes of the blackest dye. In fact, the atrocities committed by those miscreants under the name of a "Provisional Government" were of such a character, that a statement of them in detail could scarce be credited, and it is not my intention to trespass on the time and attention of the House with such horrors. The result of all this was, that the Sovereign Pontiff, finding himself a prisoner in his own dominions, and utterly powerless as a Sovereign, very wisely and judiciously sought refuge in Naples. Foreign interference on behalf of the Holy Father, the lawful Sovereign of the Roman States, and foreign occupation, thus became necessary. And yet, with such a state of facts before them, we hear the noble Lord the Member for the City of London (Lord J. Russell), and the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard), holding the very same language towards the Pope, as if it were by the act of the Holy Father himself that the liberal institutions of his country, which he had established, had been annihilated. It was then determined upon that the Pope should be restored to his dominions and authority; but when the noble Lord, the present Prime Minister, was applied to for his assistance, his answer was, that the Pope should not be restored to his rights until he engaged to establish liberal institutions in his States. The answer is, that the experiment had already been tried, and had failed. The people had themselves to blame for that failure. If they had shown energy, and had manfully resisted the demagogues and conspirators, the constitution would have remained. But that they had not done, and therefore, when the Holy Father was reinstated in his dominions, he found that the constitution he had established was gone, and that nothing was then left him but to deal with the circumstances as he found them. Such, too, was almost precisely the case with regard to Naples. In that kingdom, also, the constitution was in full play. But on the day before the meeting of Parliament, the members of the Lower House demanded the suppression of the Upper House. On this being refused by the Crown, the revolutionary club declared itself permanent, and the erection of barricades commenced. The King then, to provide for the safety of his people, called out the troops, who did their duty, and thus the constitution necessarily was overturned. The King was obliged to do this. The Lower House declared that they would have no Upper House, and thus the compact with the Crown was broken, and the constitution in reality at an end. Now, let not the House imagine that I am about to attempt to justify every act of the Government of the King of Naples, for some of its measures I cannot approve of. But gross calumnies have been uttered against the King of Naples; and whatever there may be to blame in the measures of his Government, is grossly exaggerated in this country. Hon. Members have, no doubt, seen a little work addressed to me by that distinguished journalist, Monsieur Gondon. In that book there are some inaccuracies with regard to things in this country; but I strongly recommend it to their perusal. It is written with great ability, and contains most important information, showing the real truth about the charges made against the Neapolitan Government. At Florence the fall of the constitution arose from circumstances of the same nature as those which I have related. The mild and excellent Sovereign granted a constitution to his people, and he was only too yielding and too ready to make concessions. He found at last, after he had consented that Tuscany should join the Italian Constituent Assembly, that his sovereignty was gone, and that he must withdraw or remain a prisoner. Then the intervention of Austria, under treaties, became inevitable. But before that intervention the constitution granted by the Grand Duke had ceased to exist, through the folly of the people themselves. They had dethroned their Sovereign and created a republic.

I will now proceed to the specific charges brought against the Government of the Holy See, though it is difficult to follow such a diatribe of bitter abuse as its enemies pour forth. In the first place, I repeat that this country has no business whatever to interfere with the internal management of the affairs of foreign countries. If abuses exist in the Government of those countries, I say let not the Government of this country attempt to reform them, until at least we have first swept away the abuses which are so loudly complained of at home. Something like an attempt to correct some of our own abuses has been made by the "Administrative Reformers;" but they have been quite silent and tame for some time past. They have perhaps allowed themselves to be seduced and tamed by the melodious pipe of the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government. But when in their primitive and virgin state, they used to say things which reflected considerable condemnation on the management of affairs at home. Again, I say, you should reform the defects and abuses of your own administration before you attempt to interfere with the government of foreign countries, and which do not seek for your interference. The sovereigns of other countries have been called upon to grant a free pardon to those who have been visited with punishment for political affairs; and it is said that the Neapolitan Government ought to show greater clemency and moderation in such cases than it has hitherto done. But I say to Her Majesty's Government, pardon Smith O'Brien. A short time since a considerable number of Irish Representatives waited upon the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and pleaded the cause of Smith O'Brien, and urged that he should be pardoned; but the noble Lord dismissed those Gentlemen with a very evasive answer. But how much more honourably and nobly would it have reflected on the position of the noble Lord had he seized upon that opportunity of doing a kind and a generous act? It is now quite clear that public opinion generally is in favour of an act of clemency to Mr. O'Brien, for whatever his faults may have been, it is agreed upon all hands that he has been most severely punished for them, and that the time has now arrived when he ought to be restored to his family, his friends, and his country. We all know that that unfortunate gentleman has not erred through malice, or other evil intention, but rather through excess of sympathy for the grievous wrongs of his country, and those wrongs should now be allowed to plead in his behalf. It is very well to talk of reforming abuses in other countries, but look to your own—look at the Protestant Church in Ireland. Turn your eyes to that scandal to all civilisation. There you have a vast ecclesiastical establishment maintained in opulence and splendour, all for the benefit of a mere fraction of the population, while the millions of the people have to support their own Church and clergy—the clergy of the national Church—the Church of Ireland—by the sweat of their brow. That is an abuse which may be well called the "chronic grievance" of Ireland, and which you ought to sweep away. You talk of cruelty which you say is practised in other countries; but before you ventured to pass your judgment upon other nations for acts of harshness which they are said to have done, you should have called to mind the number of human beings whom you had caused to be shot, and flogged, and hanged, in the Ionian Islands. Where was your clemency then? Contrast that conduct with the conduct of the Pope. What was the conduct of His Holiness on his return to his own dominions after a most terrific revolution, which might well be called a "Reign of Terror"? It was this: Some few political offenders were sent to prison for various periods of time, while others were told to leave the country; but in no one single instance would His Holiness suffer any prisoner for a political offence to be put to death. Let me next remind the House of what has taken place in India; and let me ask, does it not ill become our English political leaders to make attacks upon the system of government adopted in other countries, and to reprobate the laws and institutions of those countries, not one of which present a single circumstance which can be said to deserve a particle of the condemnation evoked by the revelations we have seen of the tortures inflicted in India. That system of torture has been carried on under, I may say, the very eye of the Government, who knew, or ought to have known, of the infliction of the most horrible and exquisite variety of torture in order to collect the revenue. The next charge I have to reply to is that made by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard), who has stated, that in the year 1850 there were no fewer than 10,000 in prison in the Roman States for political offences. Well, in reply to that statement, I will content myself with saying that it may be fairly taken as a specimen of the gross misrepresentations which we hear of every day, as being made an excuse for assailing the Roman Catholic governments. But with regard to this particular statement of the hon. Member, just let us see how stand the facts. Why, I am in a position to state to the House, because I have had the information from official sources, that the actual number of persons in prison for political offences at the period he has mentioned was under thirty. The next statement of the hon. Member is, that the priests in Rome do not pay any taxes; but really the hon. Member must have been grossly misinformed on these matters, because that latter statement is just as destitute of a particle of truth as the former one. Then the hon. Member has made some allusion to what he calls the "Inquisition." There certainly is something formidable about that word; but then the hon. Member will find that the so-called Inquisition in Rome is nothing more nor less than a Court of Ecclesiastics, established for the purpose of taking cognizance of all matters affecting the discipline of the clergy, and it has no power to inflict any other punishment than that of imprisonment; and even in that the punishment is very far from being formidable, for those prisoners are well lodged and mildly treated. Now, these are not mere loose, idle statements, made upon mere "hearsay" evidence, but they are made from actual personal observations, and I have also seen official documents in support of them. I am speaking of what I myself have seen, while the hon. Member for Aylesbury has not given the House one single authority of any sort in support of any of the statements he has made in reference to the Roman Government. But we have a great deal from the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, as well as from Lord Clarendon, about what those noble Lords term "Secularisation," and they have recommended the "secularisation" of the Papal Government. Now I must say that that is a term which it is not very easy to comprehend. I believe the word refers to one of those old stale Whig doctrines of which the noble Lord the Member for the City of London is such a warm adherent, namely, that ecclesiastics are unfit to take part in the administration of affairs. But history proves that this is a narrow-minded prejudice; for Wolsey, Ximenes, Richelieu, Alberoni, Mazarin, and many other great statesmen whom I could name, proved their ability for the management of the affairs of Government. Surely those illustrious men were as great statesmen as any that exist at the present day, yet they were Cardinals. I have also heard it asserted that the Government of the Roman States was entirely in the hands of ecclesiastics, and that laymen were altogether excluded from any office in the Government: but that is another statement which I must contradict, for the fact is not so. I can tell the House that the College of Cardinals has nothing whatever to do with the secular Government of the Roman States. That Government is conducted by a Cabinet of Ministers, of whom there are only three ecclesiastics, and all the rest are laymen, and the latter hold the offices of almost all heads of all the public departments in the Government of the Roman States. I may add, that though the present Minister of Finance happens to be an ecclesiastic, his predecessor was a layman, who was not by any means the abler of the two. But, to set all dispute upon this point at rest at once, I will read, for the information of the House, an extract from an authentic official document which I hold in my hand, and which shows at one view how many ecclesiastics and how many laymen at present are engaged in conducting the political Government of the Roman States. The body of persons holding various offices and places in the Roman States consists of 243 ecclesiastics, and of no fewer than 5,059 laymen, and they are classed under the following different heads:—

	Ecclesiastics.	Laymen.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.	17	30
Ministry of Home Department	156	1411
Ministry of Public Instruction	3	11
Ministry of Grace and Justice	59	927
Ministry of Finance	3	2017
Ministry of Trade	1	61
Ministry of Public Works	2	100
Ministry of War	0	98
Ministry of Police	2	404

Now these numbers will be found to give correctly the gross total I have stated; and what then becomes of the assertion, that the whole of the governmental departments of the Roman States are in the hands of ecclesiastics, and that laymen are excluded from those offices? And just let the House take a glance at the salaries paid to those officials. The sum total of all the salaries of the ecclesiastics amounts to 190,316 scudi, and that of the laymen to 1,186,194 scudi. Well, upon the other hand, a great number of laymen are engaged in the management of ecclesiastical affairs; and the exact number of each so employed I find, by the document before me, to be 161 ecclesiastics and 316 laymen, and they are classified in the following order:—

	Ecclesiastics.	Laymen.
Santa Inquisitione	12	6
Visita Apostolica	7	7
Propaganda Fide	40	68
Reverenda Fabrica di S. Pietro	3	87
Apostolic Chancery	4	60
Secretaryship of Briefs	5	13
Papal Bull Registry Office (Dateria)	9	55

So that it will be seen, from the foregoing figures, that it cannot be said that even the ecclesiastical affairs of the Roman States are entirely managed by ecclesiastics; and the salaries paid to those officials amount in the gross to 36,120 scudi to the ecclesiastics, and to 61,836 scudi to the laymen. Now, Sir, all these are facts and figures, compiled from official and authentic State documents, and therefore they admit of no doubt or inaccuracy, like the loose and unsupported statements the House has heard from the hon. Member for Aylesbury and others. I can further assure the House, that at the present moment improvements and public works of great magnitude are being carried on in the Roman States, and in the different departments of the Government; and these improvements will continue to make progress towards completion, if they be not stopped or retarded by the inflammatory harangues indulged in against Rome in this House and elsewhere, and which can only have the effect of embarrassing public business, and exciting a revolutionary spirit, under the impression that this country is favourable to revolution, and that it would lend its assistance to a revolutionary movement. And I can further assure the House that the subjects of the Roman States are much more lightly taxed than the people of this country or than the people of the Sardinian States. I am told by honourable Gentlemen to look at Sardinia; and I have been told to look at the system of government now carried on in that country. But I beg to tell this House, that perhaps some hon. Members would not be quite so favourable to Sardinia, if they had not known that the Government of Sardinia had pillaged the Catholic Church, and had committed such acts of spoliation and oppression as would not for one moment be tolerated in this country, if attempted against the Established Church here;— acts which struck at the very principles of property, and which no Minister in his senses would venture so much as to hint at in this House. And yet, so blinded by hostility and prejudice to the Roman Catholic Church have many persons in this House and elsewhere become, that they have actually approved and applauded the conduct of the Government of Sardinia, though they would not dare to defend such conduct at home.

I must say, that it has not been without feelings of very great pain that I have been compelled to listen, day after day, to threats of all sorts which are being continually held out against the Government of the Holy See, spiritual as well as temporal. Not that I apprehend that those threats can ever be of any avail. On the contrary, I beg to tell the House that they will be found to be vain and harmless, for the Popedom has long outlived all such threats. I have heard it said by some, when the late revolution broke out in Rome, that Europe had seen the last of the Popes; but those who ventured upon that assertion now see that the Papal throne still remains firm and unshaken, notwithstanding centuries of persecution. We have seen that a Pope was taken prisoner, and died in his captivity; but then his successor was immediately elected. And when His Holiness Pope Pius IX. was forced to fly to Gaeta, people said again, We have seen the last of the Popes! But that prediction proved to be as unfounded as the other, for that Pope was restored to his own doninions, and returned to Rome as great and as powerful as he was before he was imprisoned. I therefore beg to tell those hon. Members who indulge in the hope of seeing the Popedom at an end, that they will find their hopes delusive, and themselves most miserably disappointed. Before I conclude, I cannot help noticing the arrogant and imperious tone, which I regret to say I hear frequently indulged in, both in this House and out of it, in reference to the Holy See and the Roman Catholic Church. Whether a question regarding Maynooth, or ecclesiastical titles, or the oath of abjuration, or almost any matter of a religious character, is to be discussed, some honourable Members are certain to get up and speak in terms of vituperation, and almost of contempt, of the Sovereign Pontiff, and of the Church of which he is the head. I cannot but contrast this arrogance with which hon. Members presume to speak of the Holy See and the Catholic Church with recent and present events. What are you now about to do? This House is now about to proceed to lay at the feet of Her Majesty its congratulations upon the conclusion of the war, and the happy return of peace upon what were called "safe and honourable terms." You have poured out your blood and treasure like water. The finest army England ever sent from her shores has perished. But just let me ask the House to consider for a moment what this country has gained by the late war, or by the conclusion of peace. Is it to be contended that this country has succeeded in re-establishing the integrity of Turkey? I deny the proposition altogether, and I say, that instead of maintaining the integrity of Turkey, you are doing, in fact, no more than merely galvanizing a corpse. I believe that equality of position of Christians with Turks to be just; but if it be accomplished, it must end in the utter annihilation of Turkey. And I do believe that the very reforms now about to be introduced into that country will result in shattering her dominions to pieces. What the ultimate fate of all the fragments may be it is impossible to say; but one fact is quite apparent, and that is, that Turkey will now be ruled, not by one master, but by five. You have not secured the integrity of the Ottoman Empire; but I will tell you what you have done. You have humbled, I hope forever, the greatest enemy of the Roman Catholic Church. Yes, you have succeeded, by the late war, in sending the torturer of the nuns of Minsk, and the destroyer of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, to his grave with a broken heart. The prestige of Russia has been crushed forever in Europe, and that great persecutor of the Catholic Church has been put down; and so it ever has been with all the enemies of that Church. You have done your work as an instrument in the hands of Divine Providence. You have performed your task: "Inimicos Sanctœ Ecclesiœ humiliare."

MR. BENTINCK

said, he had no intention to go into the merits of the various articles of the peace, which had been so ably touched upon by many hon. Members who had preceded him. He did not, however, wish to be understood as concurring in all the terms of the Treaty now under consideration. He thought that there was great force in the able speech of the noble Lord the Member for Colchester (Lord J. Manners), who touched upon the most important and vulnerable points of the Treaty. He (Mr. Bentinck), however, was bound to say that the House would be acting, he thought, unfairly if it were to pronounce an opinion adverse to that Treaty. He had always considered that the present House of Commons was responsible to the country, both for the war and its consequences. It was the present House that had sanctioned, or he might say had tolerated, the existence of the late Government, which was generally known as the Coalition Government. To the want of decision and capacity in that Government in the conduct of the war must be ascribed all those misfortunes which had occurred during the late war. Under those circumstances, he thought that the House might fairly congratulate itself upon the terms of the Treaty, and upon having, in popular language, "got so well out of the scrape." There was, however, one exception to the value of the Treaty, which would more than counterbalance, in his opinion, all the advantages of the most favourable Treaty that was ever negotiated. He referred to the second and third articles in the Declaration respecting the Maritime Law. That subject had been already referred to in the able speech of the hon. and learned Member for Tavistock (Mr. R. Phillimore). His objection to that resolution was that they did not express with sufficient force the effects of the measure, and also to the manner in which this important point had been brought about, without consulting Parliament or the country. It appeared to him that the result of the stipulations made in those articles would be fatal to the power of England as a maritime Power, so far as the possibility of carrying on an aggressive warfare against any other country. He would view this question in the light of one of finance, and he would ask whether it was not the fact that the results of war were much more dependent upon the financial condition of the countries engaged in hostilities than in the success or failure of naval or military operations? Generally speaking, it was in consequence of financial difficulties that wars were brought to a termination. How, then, was it possible for the war to be brought to a successful termination, if the country engaged in it were to be debarred by such a stipulation as was contained in these articles from using the only means in her power of crippling the finances of the antagonistic power with which it was engaged? Let us apply the principle here involved to our military occupations. Let us suppose the case of a town besieged, which in its ordinary powers of defence might be considered impregnable. If the principle resolved in these articles be carried out, he wanted to know how we, if we were the besieging party, could prevent neutral Powers conveying provisions to any extent they pleased to the besieged garrison, and thus enabling them to protract the siege to an indefinite period? If the argument were good as applied to naval operations, it was equally good in its application to military operations. He did not know why those rights should be given to the neutral vessels which should not also be given to their carts and waggons. But there was another point of view which he thought would test the merits of this question. He contended, from the moment that a third country, calling itself a neutral Power, was employed in conveying either merchandise, provisions, or any contraband of war, to any of the Powers actually engaged in hostilities, so as to enable such Power to continue the war much longer than it would otherwise be enabled to do, that that Power so employed in the interest of the enemy should no longer be entitled to the character of a neutral. Such a Power was taking a much more active part in the war than it would be doing if it were to send an army into the field. The effect of the assistance given by Prussia to Russia, during the late war, he asserted, was more prejudicial to the interests of this country and the Allies than if Prussia had taken the field upon the side of Russia. It was a misapplication of the term neutral when a country was allowed, directly or indirectly, to assist another country that was actually engaged in war. This country never professed to be a military nation. We are essentially a maritime Power, and whenever we were engaged in war our only means of aggression were those of destroying the foreign commerce of our enemy. And if we were to be debarred from the power of using our naval forces to destroy the commerce of our enemy, he maintained that from being the first maritime nation in the world, we should sink down to the level of a second or third rate Power. In 1812 an eminent statesman of the day, writing upon this subject, stated as follows:— The enemy requires that we should recognise as a principle, that the goods of an enemy under a neutral flag should be treated as neutral goods, and that the goods of a neutral under a hostile flag should be treated as enemy's goods. By these demands the enemy requires that Great Britain and all civilized nations should at his pleasure renounce the natural and incontestable rights of war—that Great Britain in particular should surrender all the advantages of her naval superiority. That was exactly the opinion which he (Mr. Bentinck) wished to express to the House. To having acted upon the principle now sought to be established, it was that we must attribute the long continuance of the late war. Had we, at the commencement of the war, given Russia to understand that it was our determination to enforce, not a nominal, but an effectual blockade—that we should exercise our rights as a maritime power to effectually destroy her commerce, the war would not have lasted six weeks. So long as we possessed the supremacy of the seas we should always have the power—to use the words of the hon. Member for the West Riding (Mr. Cobden), whom he regretted he did not see in his place—of "crumpling up" any inimical power. If we had informed Russia that it was our fixed determination to carry out our right of search, he believed that she would have submitted to any terms rather than have her commerce destroyed, which it would be if we exercised our power to the fullest extent. Russia was solely dependent upon her foreign commerce for her existence. He would trouble the House by reading two extracts which had reference to this subject. The first was from a letter which was written to him by an officer in the White Sea, in July, 1855. It was as follows—namely— You may depend upon it that the only effect of the war in this country has been to prejudice ourselves by the policy we are pursuing. The entire trade with Russia is in the hands of the Prussians, the Dutch, and the Hanoverians; and I fervently hope that, should the war last over this year, your party in Parliament will force our Government to adopt a different line of conduct to that they are pursuing. This year the mischief is done. Now, there was another extract which goes precisely to the same point. It was an extract from a German newspaper, which had a great circulation:— What Russia has to fear in the war with England and France is, not the assistance rendered to Turkey, or any attack in the Black or the Baltic Seas. Russia's real danger is in the destruction or interruption of her trade. Russia's well-being depends upon the exports of her raw produce. Interrupt these, and you will destroy the power of Russia. That was an extract from a German paper, of extensive circulation, and one which was not favourable to this country. He would now ask this question—what section of the House had been most opposed to the right of search? "Right of search" it was generally called, but he called it right of seizure; for right of search they should maintain, because if they gave up the right of search, how could they ascertain whether a ship of a neutral power was carrying contraband of war or not? Well, the section of the House the most active and determined opponents to exercise that right were the representatives of the manufacturing interests, who held that the maintenance of our right in that respect would involve us, as a first consequence, in a war with the United States. Now, he did not mean to attempt to detract from the importance of the manufacturing interest, nor still less to argue that a war with the United States would not be highly injurious to the commercial prospects of this country. But he did maintain that the inhabitants of the United States were too shrewd and calculating a nation to make the carrying out by England of her right of search a casus belli with this country. He believed, too, that this subject was much better understood in the United States, where more attention had been given to its consideration, than in this country. He thought that the people of England would make any sacrifice to retrieve the false step which our Plenipotentiaries at Paris had made with respect to this matter; and, further, that an equal amount of blood and treasure to that spent in the late war would be well applied, if by its outlay those articles could be cancelled. He believed that if it were not the determination of the people of this country to have those articles reversed, the result must, in a short time, be the total destruction of that position which England had long held as one of the greatest nations of the earth.

MR. CARDWELL

said, that he joined with such cordial satisfaction in the terms of the Address to the Crown which had been moved by his hon. Friend (Mr. E. Denison) that he should have been perfectly ready to give a silent vote in favour of it if it had not been for the topic introduced with great ability by his hon. and learned Friend behind him (Mr. R. Phillimore) and followed up by the hon. Gentleman who had just resumed his seat. He felt, therefore, that it was in some degree incumbent upon him to address a few words to the House on that subject, having had, at the commencement of the war, in a particular manner, the duty of carrying into effect some of those regulations which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bentinck) had so pointedly objected to. He should begin by making to his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Tavistock the fullest admission possible, that what he had contended for had been up to the present time the undisputed and indisputable international law. If that law had been otherwise, the value of the stipulation in the treaty, now first given on the part of England at the Congress of Paris, would be completely invalidated. It was because the law existed in that objectionable state, and because it so existed exclusively on account of the great weight of this country alone thrown into the scale of hostile operations against peaceful commerce, that the abrogation of that law by England was of so much importance. It was an event, in one way or other, of no small importance that the authority of England had for the first time in history been given to the principle for which he contended, and against which his hon. and learned Friend with so much ability had argued. The short protocol referring to the point contained three most important provisions. By Article 4, which he would begin with, because it involved the least controversy, paper blockades were declared to be blockades no longer to be enforced by England and France. That was no addition to the existing international law, for it was the law at the present moment; but he thought that the House would feel, looking back to the early portion of this century and recollecting the signal manner in which that clear principle of international law was infringed both by England and France, and the deplorable consequences to both countries which followed, that it was a wise and judicious act on the part of the Plenipotentiaries of France and England, upon closing a war in which they had been engaged not as antagonists, but as allies, to place for ever on record their joint opinion that that principle of international law should henceforth be firmly maintained and never infringed. He would now come to the great point of controversy, namely, whether free ships ought to make free goods, and here he would make to his hon. and learned Friend another admission, which probably his hon. and learned Friend might be disposed to consider a great one. He acknowledged that this was a considerable concession on the part of belligerent Powers, and necessarily operated the most with regard to the country most powerful at sea; but to whom and what was it a concession? It was not a concession to Russia, it was not a concession to France, but it was a concession to those universal principles of humanity and justice which even more than her maritime greatness had achieved for Great Britain her paramount position in the world. Let the House regard this question not exclusively from the position of a belligerent Power, but also from the position of a neutral Power. How great an injury necessarily followed to neutrals from the strict enforcement of the present maritime law of war! When the ports of Russia were blockaded a great injury was necessarily inflicted on all those whose shipping was accustomed to resort to those ports, though they were totally uninterested in the quarrel going on; and the exercise of belligerent rights, tempered and modified as they might be, must necessarily constitute a great restriction on the privileges which the neutrals enjoyed in a time of peace. Such persons then had a fair right to demand that the infringement of the privileges and advantages enjoyed by them in time of peace should not, through the effect of martial policy, be carried further than was absolutely necessary consistently with the exigencies of war. His hon. and learned Friend said that the only circumstance which tended to break down the force and effect of the vigorous blockade established against the Russian ports in the Baltic was the facility afforded of carrying Russian goods by Prussian railways to the sea, and thus enabling them to form part of the general commerce of the world. He granted that to the hon. and learned Gentleman; but if the rigid rule of international law had been in force the door would have been opened nearly, if not quite as wide as before; for what would have been more obvious than to transfer the goods in the port to Prussian, and then export them in his name? It was unnecessary for him to detail the numerous evasions, which would have been practised, for it would obviously have been easy to find means through the ports of Prussia to defeat the law, if attempted to be enforced with all the strictness contended for. The hon. Gentleman who just sat down likened this to the case of a town besieged on land, and asked what would be thought of the policy of those who, besieging a town, permitted persons in the country around to carry munitions of war and food for the relief of the garrison? The hon. and learned Gentleman must erroneously have imagined that the stipulations in the declaration of the Allies protected contraband of war and abolished blockades, If a port should be blockaded, there would still exist the same law to enforce the blockade as before, and if any attempt should be made to carry contraband of war to an enemy, whether within or without the limits of the blockade, the same rights and powers of international law might be exercised as were exercised previous to the signature of this declaration. Then, the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Norfolk (Mr. Bentinck) told the House to look at the financial bearings of the question, and asked, whether the history of war did not show that it was not so much martial success as financial exhaustion that forced the enemy to surrender? Now, he (Mr. Cardwell) was not going to touch upon a subject on which, in all probability, the right hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. M. Gibson) would speak fully. But the hon. Gentleman ought to have borne in mind what was that one circumstance which oppressed this country with financial difficulties towards the close of the last great war. If the hon. Gentleman looked to the history of the year 1812, he would find that what caused the great distress in this country and sapped its financial resources at that time was not so much the great strength of Napoleon as the indignation and hostility of the United States of America, roused by the excessive exercise of our maritime power. He (Mr. Cardwell) would not trouble the House with extracts from histories, but he remembered a passage in Alison's work to the effect that it was the Orders in Council that caused the then financial difficulty. Those Orders in Council were in excess of international law, but that did not in any way destroy the argument. If this country went to war, carrying out the principle of not permitting a neutral flag to cover enemies' goods, it would have sympathising against it, and not with it, all the neutral Powers in the world, and he wanted to know for how many years England could carry on war with a European Power if it insisted on searching American vessels, for instance, for enemy's goods, and confiscating them when found there? He believed that a war could not be carried on upon that principle for twelve months before this country would be involved in misunderstandings and hostilities with many of the great neutral Powers. It was perfectly true that by all jurists, and, not the least, by American jurists, the law had been laid down as the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. R. Phillimore) had laid it down; but it was equally true that it was by all of them argued against and condemned. This, however, was acknowledged—that by the great authority of England as a powerful maritime Power, and by the practice in conformity therewith, the acknowledged principle of law was such as had been stated by his hon. and learned Friend. The reason for the abandonment of the doctrine that the right of seizure ought not to be enforced was given by the American text writers. The law founded upon it, in order to be effective, must be universal, and could not be maintained when it was called into operation against those who acknowledged it, but was not adopted when they claimed it in their favour. The opposition, therefore, of England had always, heretofore, been fatal to the establishment of better principles. This arrangement, however, which gave to it the concurrence of Europe, would, he anticipated, insure its universal acknowledgment and recognition as the maritime law of the world. Another valuable article was that which abolished privateering. Even if this country, which was most powerful, had made some concession in abandoning the right to search neutral vessels for enemy's goods, and to seize enemy's goods in such vessels, there could be no doubt as to the great advantage which would be conferred on this country by the abolition of privateering. What was privateering? It was an attempt by a Power weak at sea to make up for its inferiority by carrying on a war with private vessels instead of vessels belonging to the State. His hon. and learned Friend found fault with these provisions because they struck at the root of the great principle of international law which distinguished maritime from land warfare. There could be no doubt that they did go far to abolish that distinction. The abolition of paper blockades, the admission of the principle that free ships made free goods, and the abolition of privateering, were three great inroads upon that law which sanctioned the capture of private property at sea. All the jurists who had written on international law had laid down that there was a wide distinction between land warfare and maritime warfare. The law and practice of modern times with regard to warfare by land greatly limited the principle of interference with private property; but the principle of the capture of private property at sea rested on a different foundation, because it was said that the object of maritime warfare was to hamper and cripple the commerce of the enemy. He rejoiced at the blow which had now been struck at that principle of international law. He did not know why that great jurist Grotius should be honoured for the establishment of the principle of mitigated warfare by land, while they were not allowed to advocate the application of a similar principle to warfare by sea. Chancellor Kent went back to the earliest period for an example upon this question, and referred to Xenophon, a warrior as well as a philosopher, who, in his Cyropœdia, represented Cyrus as directing his soldiers, when traversing an enemy's country, to spare the cultivators of the soil. He rejoiced that by this arrangement a considerable advance had been made in mitigation of the severities of warfare by sea. It had been urged, in the course of the discussion that night, that the diminution of the pressure of war upon an enemy only tended to promote the continuance of war. But that argument, if it were good for anything, would apply equally to every mitigation in warfare which the wisdom of modern times and the influence of Christianity had produced. He believed that this country would gain far more by avoiding those wars into which a rigid prosecution of her rights would force her than she would lose by any of the mitigations to which she had assented. If, in 1780, she had not had to contend against the hostility of the Northern Powers—if at the close of the French war she had not had to contend against the hostility of America, she would have been in a much better position. The hon. Member for West Norfolk (Mr. Bentinck) had referred to the injury inflicted upon the country in the late war by the relaxations introduced in 1854, and had even said that if it had not been for those relaxations, the Emperor of Russia would not have gone to war at all; but, considering that they were not introduced until after war had been declared, the hon. Gentleman's inference was hardly just. Could any one believe that in 1854, when they were going to war in alliance with a Power which recognised doctrines different from their own—when the neutral Powers were also opposed to their doctrines—it would have been politic to insist on their strict rights? He rejoiced that by these temporary mitigations at the beginning of the war, and by the permanent abandonment of their most indisputable, but most inexpedient and most unjust, rights at its conclusion, they had made the late war no longer a mere question of humbling another Power, and had left behind them another record of the liberal, just, and exalted principles by which the councils of Great Britain were guided.

MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALD

said, he thought that the House had not confined itself to the question which they had come there to discuss—namely, was the Treaty just concluded a satisfactory and a just one, as effecting the integrity and independence of Turkey? When he said that it was not his intention to allude to the somewhat incidental discussion entered into by the hon. and learned Member for Tavistock (Mr. R. Phillimore), and to which the right hon. Member for Oxford had just addressed them, because he (Mr. S. Fitzgerald) believed that a more important subject could not be introduced to the notice of hon. Members; but it appeared to him that the question before the House was somewhat of a more limited character. It was whether they could conscientiously agree to the terms of the Address which had been proposed as the one which that House should present to Her Majesty. The hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. M. Milnes), in his speech of the previous evening, said that while he was willing to admit that the Treaty did not accomplish the objects for which the war had been undertaken, yet upon the whole it was one which he received with satisfaction. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) went somewhat further, and said that, looking to the whole Treaty of Peace, it was a far better, a far more fortunate one, than he had been led to expect. Now, he could not undertake to say what was the hon. Member's estimate of the energy and earnestness of Her Majesty's Government; but he should say, that looking to the antecedents of the noble Lord at the head of the Government, the Treaty of Peace now upon the table was not one which he (Mr. S. Fitzgerald) should have expected him to have sanctioned; certainly it was not one that he should have expected him to call on that House to welcome with joy and satisfaction. It was on this ground that he (Mr. Fitzgerald) wished to address a few observations to the House. He was willing to admit that there were many circumstances connected with the Treaty of Peace which neither that House nor the country regard with any but feelings of satisfaction. It was perfectly clear that very considerable concessions had been made by Russia to this country, and it was satisfactory that that was the first treaty by which Russia had retired from a war, not acquiring, but ceding territory. In considering the question whether the peace would fully accomplish the objects of the war, he thought that it was obvious, even from the speeches of hon. Members opposite, that the arguments of the noble Lord the Member for Colchester (Lord J. Manners), as to the importance of the forts on the Circassian coast, and with respect to leaving the territory attached to those forts in the hands of Russia, were entitled to great weight. In his (Mr. S. Fitzgerald's) opinion, the Treaty did not realize the objects of the war in two important particulars. The right hon. Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham), in his speech upon the Motion with regard to Kars, passed a most grave censure upon the Government, and, having reasoned in favour of one side of the question, voted for the other. The right hon. Baronet said:— I admit that the Government are greatly to blame in their conduct with reference to Kars—they might have sent money, they might have sent artillery, they might have sent cavalry, they might have relieved the beleaguered fortress by sending thither the army of Omar Pasha; but they did none of these things; at the same time I feel that it would be ungenerous and unfair of me to visit them with censure now when they have just concluded a successful and satisfactory peace. The right hon. Baronet added that it was unfair to visit them with censure now that they had completed a successful and satisfactory peace, which recognised the right of interference on the part of the Christian Powers of Europe in favour of the Christian subjects of the Porte, and also the independence of the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Now, it so happened that the first of these subjects was not mentioned in the Treaty of Peace at all, and that the other was absolutely contradicted and prohibited. So far as the Christian subjects of the Porte were concerned, he agreed with the right hon. Member for South Wiltshire (Mr. S. Herbert), that they were in a worse position since the Treaty of Peace than they were before the war began; because, at the commencement of the war, whether rightly or wrongly, at least there existed a right on the part of one Christian Power to interfere on their behalf. Now, however, not only had that right ceased to exist, but it was expressly stipulated in the Treaty that no right of interference should be exercised by any Christian Power, let the circumstances be what they might, in favour of the Christian subjects of the Porte. True, the Sultan had issued a firman which accorded certain privileges to his Christian subjects, but the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. S. Herbert) had told the House that that was a revocable instrument, and that the value of that instrument was not to be put for a moment in the balance against that express denunciation of interference which was contained in the treaty of peace. So far, then, as one of the objects of the war which affected the Christian subjects of the Porte, it was clear that it had not been accomplished. Another object of the war was said to be the destruction of the preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea. Now, how did the matter stand in that respect? As regarded the forts on the Circassian coast, it was obvious that we were now in a worse position than before the war broke out, and that entirely in consequence of the stipulations on the subject in the treaty. The right hon. Baronet the First Lord of the Admiralty said, in speaking on this question, that the Russians were in possession of certain forts, but that they were not entitled to any of the surrounding territory. But upon the face of the treaty we had admitted the right set forward by the Russian Plenipotentiaries at the Conferences, not only to the forts, but to the territories adjoining, and that was a right which no country in Europe, including our own, had ever recognised; on the contrary, we had always scrupulously refrained from acknowledging any such right on the part of Russia. Again, the Asiatic boundary between Russia and Turkey was to be settled, not as heretofore by special agreement between those two Powers, but by a Commission, one of the Members of which was to be a French Commissioner, and another an English Commissioner. The result of the treaty, then, would be that Russia would put forward a claim, not only to forts, but to territories, and that that claim, he had every reason to believe, would not be disputed. Another point in connection with the preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea was the strength of her fleet; but he asked any one to show him a single line in the papers lying on the table in which the claim of Russia to have transports of any size, possibly with a large armament, constantly in the Black Sea, was seriously considered or discussed. In the first instance, when the question was raised, Lord Clarendon said he could not agree to the possession by Russia in the Black Sea of such large vessels; and then the question was adjourned, as were many other questions which were raised before the Plenipotentiaries, and the consideration of which proved to be inconvenient. Further, the Sea of Azoff was not admitted to come within the principle of neutralisation of the Black Sea, although the exploits of our navy in that sea during the late war showed that armaments of considerable force might be found, provisioned, and equipped in its ports, and manœuvred in its waters. A new feature had now been introduced into naval warfare, and in future, instead of employing large vessels mounting numerous guns, the character of naval warfare would be completely changed, and a large number of vessels of light draught of water, but powerful armament, would be employed, particularly where an enterprise was undertaken against some city or town lying close to the seashore. It was clear, therefore, that as the matter now stood Russia might possess an unlimited number of transports or gun boats, capable of carrying a large force from the Sea of Azoff, or even Sebastopol, to Constantinople in two or three days. Consequently, there was another object of the war, namely, the putting an end to the naval preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea, that assuredly could not be said to have been satisfactorily attained. Much value was attached to the stipulation that we were to have the right of appointing consuls at the various Russian ports in the Black Sea; but what he should like to know was, whether we were entitled under this treaty to have a consul at Nicholaieff? because the same terms which prevented the dismantling of Nicholaieff would equally prevent our placing a public servant there, who would give us the earliest and fullest information with regard to the designs and proceedings of the Russian Government. He had made these observations because he thought it was impossible for any hon. Member of that House to say that he entirely concurred in the justice of the terms in which the proposed Address to Her Majesty was couched. It appeared to him as if the Government had taken advantage of the feeling which they knew to exist on that (the Opposition) side of the House, that an Address to Her Majesty on so important an occasion should pass without a division, to insert in the Address terms which it was perfectly clear did not represent the opinion of a great many Members of the House, and he firmly believed did not represent the opinions of the people of this country. It was impossible not to be grateful for the blessings of peace, but whilst fully prepared to accept a peace, he must say that he was not prepared to look with satisfaction at the terms of the proposed Address. Certainly he was not one of those who thought that the peace had fully accomplished the objects of the war; and being of that opinion, he entered his protest against the terms in which the Government proposed that the House should address the Crown on the subject.

MR. MILNER GIBSON

said, that hon. Gentlemen had complained in the course of the discussion, that various topics had been introduced not immediately connected with the treaty of peace. Now, those hon. Members should recollect that papers had been laid before that House by command of Her Majesty, containing not only the treaty of peace and the protocols of the Conferences, but also a declaration respecting a point of maritime law which had been agreed to by the Plenipotentiaries. He thought, therefore, although he differed from his views, that his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. R. Phillimore) was perfectly in order in moving an addition to the Address upon that subject. He had, in the year 1854, expressed his views upon that subject to the House; and, before the Orders in Council respecting the rights of neutrals were issued, he had, acting in concert with the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Horsfall) moved an Address to the Crown, in which the advisers of the Crown were called upon to adopt those principles which had been acted upon throughout the war, and he was glad to see that those principles had been incorporated in a declaration, and had become part of the public law of Europe. He cordially concurred in the course which had been taken by the Government as far as they had gone, and he could assure the House that in bringing forward that Motion, he believed that instead of injuring the power of England, it would rather add to her prosperity by strengthening her commercial interests and giving security to her mercantile marine. Doing, as we were, the carrying trade of a great portion of the world, this country was most interested in freeing commerce from the evils of war. There was one point in connection with the subject to which he wished to call the attention of the noble Lord at the head of the Government. The declaration stated that privateering was henceforth abolished, and that it was proposed to enter into treaties with foreign Powers to carry that declaration into effect. There was one Power which he did not think would concur in that declaration—he meant the United States of America. The United States had already acknowledged a principle which went much more directly to alleviate the injuries inflicted upon the commercial marine by the old system than the mere abolition of privateering. They had agreed to the principle that private merchant vessels should not be liable to seizure by public armed cruisers or privateers, and had expressed a willingness to treat with the other Powers upon that broad ground. The principle enunciated by the United States was, he believed, a good principle, for, if a ship were plundered, it mattered little who was the robber—whether it was a privateer or a regular ship of war. Robbery of mercantile ships, whether by regular cruisers or by privateers, ought to be put an end to, and he could not see that the mercantile marine would derive any remedy from the monopoly of robbery being confined to regular ships of war. With respect to the Address itself, he was in the peculiar position that, having all along been opposed to the policy of the war, he felt some difficulty in offering any opinion as to whether the objects of the war had been fully accomplished. The whole debate appeared to him to be of no practical utility, because the treaty had been ratified, and could not be altered. They had no power of exercising, so to speak, a preventive wisdom. They could not redress any evil that might be complained of in the treaty. All that they could do under the practice of the constitution, was to visit the Administration with censure, if there were anything to complain of, or to give them praise if their proceedings were approved. Their engagements the nation was bound by, and therefore he felt that hon. Members might almost be satisfied with thanking Her Majesty for communicating the treaty to them, and for allowing it to appear in due course in the Gazette. The fact, however, of being called upon to agree to an Address to the Crown entitled every Member of that House to make any observations he might please upon the treaty itself. Various Amendments had been proposed to the Address, but as the movers of them had announced that they had no desire to take the sense of the House upon them, there was little practical utility in discussing them. He might, however, say with regard to the first Amendment, which proposed to leave out the word "joy," that no man in England felt more sincere pleasure than he did that Her Majesty had been enabled to conclude a peace. As regarded the expression that the peace was honourable to Her Majesty's Crown, he looked upon it as a formal and usual phrase, and therefore was prepared to assent to it. In the expression, however, that the objects of the war had been fully accomplished, there was something indefinite, and he felt some difficulty as regarded that expression. He could only say, that if the object of the war was, what he had been informed it was—merely to obtain from Russia certain concessions commonly known by the name of the Four Points, and with a view of incorporating those Four Points in a treaty, he was inclined to admit that that object had been accomplished. He believed that the treaty before the House did incorporate the Austrian solution of the Four Points. The noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) in May last, proposed another Austrian solution of the Four Points, with a view of their being submitted to Russia for acceptance. That was before the successes at Sebastopol. Having carefully compared the proposition now made with the other Austrian solution made in May last at Vienna by the noble Lord, he could not think that the one was very dissimilar from the other, or calculated to give any greater or less security to Turkey. The present treaty of peace began by endeavouring to secure, through effectual and reciprocal guarantees on the part of the contracting Powers, the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Now, he thought it a question whether the people of this country had any interest in guaranteeing the independence and integrity of any empire on the face of the earth. What did it mean? Had England entered into an engagement to guarantee to all time that the Turks should rule over a given region now called Turkey in Europe? If so, had the Government consulted the feelings and the wishes of the population who dwelt within that region? Again, was it policy to make the Turk feel himself independent of those obligations which ought to govern the conduct of the rulers of all States—namely, to keep good faith with other nations, and to maintain peace and order at home? Was the protection thus accorded to Turkey likely to make her zealous in improving her internal administration, or was it not rather calculated to render her indifferent to obvious duties? He was of opinion that the Turks would argue, "We are a political necessity to Europe. Whatever may be our demerits, however bad our rule, we shall continue to govern this region, or Europe will be in danger from a disturbance of the balance of power." Then, again, it was in the power of the Turkish Government, under this system of guarantees, to drag us into war whenever it suited their policy to do so. Mr. Consul Calvert, in a letter published in the Blue-book about Turkey, said, The Mahomedans feel no hesitation in expressing a desire for hostilities, for, according to them, continual war in Turkey is requisite to keep alive the spirit of Islamism. Under such circumstances, what security was there for the permanence of peace? Whenever they chose to go to war, England, France, and Austria were bound to come to the rescue. He remembered the late Sir Robert Peel on one occasion exclaiming, "God forbid that the peace of Europe should depend upon the decisions of the Divan!" But, under the present guarantee, he contended that peace did and must depend upon their decision, and he therefore looked upon it as a most impolitic step to have entangled ourselves in this alliance for the purpose of defending the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire. England could always, if she thought it her interest to do so, take up arms to defend that empire without any previous treaty stipulation, and he thought that such an engagement would not be conducive to the true interests of this country or of Turkey. During the Conferences it had felt and expressed that Turkey had gone to war because she knew that France and England were bound to protect her. But what said the next passage in the treaty? Why, that we abjured all right of interference in the internal affairs of Turkey. Now, as a rule, he was opposed to interference, but surely if there should be an exception made, it was after we had guaranteed the independence and integrity of the Porte, and had fought in her defence at the cost of something like £100,000,000 of money and the sacrifice of the services of some 50,000 men. It was very peculiar that in the protocols they were invited to interfere in Naples; they were told that there was to be interference in the case of Rome and Greece; yet, in Turkey, where certainly we might be supposed to have acquired some right of interference, there appeared, singularly enough, to be a remarkable squeamishness on the subject, and it was said that every thing must emanate from the spontaneous will of the Sultan. Now, he believed that the late firman, so far from emanating from the sovereign will of the Porte, was purely the result of diplomatic interference; but what he complained of was, not that they should not interfere, but that they should involve themselves in this guarantee if they were unwilling at the same time to take upon themselves the right of looking to the internal affairs of Turkey, taking care that the Porte should do nothing which would jeopardise its own independence, and thus drag us into war. But would the firman to which he had alluded be lasting? What security had we that it would not be revoked? Had we had no experience of former firmans; and was there anything to warrant the supposition that the present hatti-sheriff would be kept any better than that, for example, issued in 1839, which was to confer such great privileges on the Christians? England and France had had some right to interference with Turkey, but now it appeared to be formally abandoned. But would France really give up her treaties in favour of the Roman Catholic subjects of the Porte? In 1850 a French Minister was sent to the Sultan to make certain demands on behalf of the Latin Church in Turkey, founded on a treaty a century and a half old. Was that treaty to be abandoned? The war had not abolished it, because it was not waged between Turkey and France. Would England surrender her right to protect her own subjects living within the Ottoman dominions? Would she consent to allow British merchants in Turkey to be dealt with by the Mahomedan law? If she would not, what became of this profession of introducing Turkey within the European system? Neither England nor France could forego their capitulations, giving them a certain influence in the Sultan's dominions, without jeopardising the rights of the property of the Franks resident in the East. The House had been told by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) that there was more religious freedom in Turkey than in Italy; and the subject of burials had been touched upon. What was the certificate or permit of burial given by the Turkish authorities to Christians when bereaved of their relatives? The following was the form of an instrument of this kind, granted last year by a Turkish cadi, and contained in Dr. Sandwith's work:— We certify to the priest of the church of Mary that the impure, putrefied, stinking carcass of Saideh, damned this day, may be concealed underground. "EL SAID MEHEMED FAIZI. Dr. Sandwith asked— How was it possible for the Christians to be well treated when judges were put over them who insulted and plundered them as a sort of religious duty. That, however, was the Government we had guaranteed and undertaken to defend against all its enemies! It was said, "We must keep the Turk in, in order to keep the Russian out;" but that was surely not sound policy to pursue. By proclaiming our determination to maintain this Mahomedan dominion over the Christians we should drive them into the arms of the very Power we dreaded, and enable Russia to exercise that moral influence over European Turkey which would be the sure steppingstone to her acquisition of that territory. The noble Lord at the head of the Government had told them in the following emphatic terms how much reliance could be placed in treaties— If any man supposes," said the present Premier, "that any treaty which we can enter into, that any diplomatic acts undertaken here or elsewhere, can prevent Russia from exercising practically a great—perhaps the greatest—influence in Turkey, that person must be blind to the geography of the world and to the influence which a powerful nation must have upon a weaker one. If we added to this state of things a feeling in the minds of the Christian population that we were pledged to uphold this rotten and hated dominion, we paved the way to the inevitable downfall of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, and most probably to its ultimate absorption by Russia—a state of things he little desired to see brought about. One part of the protocols was received with satisfaction by the friends of peace, whose thanks were due to the Government. He referred to the paragraph which acknowledged the obligation resting on Government, in cases of dispute between different nations, to have recourse to the good offices of friendly Powers for arbitration before resorting to arms. Accompanied as it was with much reservation, and, perhaps, binding nobody in practice to adhere to it, this declaration might be but a feeble tie or security. Yet it was a formal recognition, for the first time, in a Conference of the great Powers assembled to deliberate on the policy that would best secure the permanent tranquillity of Europe, of the necessity of arbitration before appealing to the sword. The hon. Member for Aylesbury, alluding to the misgovernment of Italy, seemed to concur with Lord Clarendon in recommending interference in Naples to support monarchical institutions, and repel revolution—an object which, it was thought, would be attained by inducing the King to make such concessions to his people as would strengthen his throne. The hon. Gentleman said, "Let us at least interfere to prevent other interference." But, when in Italy and Sicily, he (Mr. M. Gibson) found that England was not thanked for her interference with those countries. He was told by the Liberals of those States that we had betrayed their cause, and that they trembled when they heard that we were about to interfere with their Government in the name of liberty. If we interfered with Naples to support monarchical institutions there, on a similar principle France would retain her influence in Rome to uphold the authority of the Holy See. Yet we were advised to obtain for the people of the Roman States a constitution—though of what nature it should be, but little was said. We had interfered in Greece; and if we had decided on staying there, how could we have the face to say a word against those who proposed to carry out the same principle in the Roman Legations? A crusade on behalf of the liberties of other countries was in his opinion extreme folly. By attending to our own domestic affairs, by elevating the moral and physical condition of our people, and thus setting to the world an example of the right working of free institutions, we should do more for the cause of liberty abroad than could be effected by arms or by diplomatic interference. He would recommend the hon. Member for Aylesbury to study a letter which was addressed by the Rev. Sydney Smith to Lady Grey, and which, with the permission of the House, he would read. It was in these terms:— For God's sake do not drag me into another war. I am worn down and worn out with crusading and defending Europe and protecting mankind; I must think a little of myself. I am sorry for the Spaniards—I am sorry for the Greeks—I deplore the fate of the Jews; the people of the Sandwich Islands are groaning under the most detestable tyranny; Bagdad is oppressed; I do not like the present state of the Delta; Thibet is not comfortable. Am I to fight for all these people? The world is bursting with sin and sorrow. Am I to be the champion of the Decalogue, and to be eternally raising fleets and armies to make all men good and happy? We have just done saving Europe, and I am afraid the consequence will be that we shall cut each other's throats. No war, dear Lady Grey!— no eloquence; but apathy, selfishness, common-sense, arithmetic! I beseech you secure Lord Grey's sword and pistols, as the housekeeper did Don Quixote's armour. If there is another war, life will not be worth having. … May the vengeance of Heaven overtake all the legitimates of Verona! but, in the present state of rents and taxes, they must be left to the vengeance of Heaven. I allow fighting in such a cause to be a luxury, but the business of a prudent, sensible man is to guard against luxury. That was the deliberate advice which he (Mr. M. Gibson) would venture to give to the hon. Member for Aylesbury, for unless this country was to be what the noble Member for the city of London (Lord J. Russell) said it ought not to be—a great military Power—they must act upon those principles. They could not engage in crusades to defend the liberties of all mankind, unless they would at the same time place their own liberties in jeopardy by putting into the hands of their Executive enormous military power. He hoped they were now approaching a period when wars and rumours of wars would no longer occupy the attention of that House, and he might, perhaps, suggest that that was an opportunity of which the noble Lord at the head of the Government might fittingly avail himself to inform the House whether he was inclined to attack domestic abuses with the same vigour with which he was said to have carried on the war in Russia. He (Mr. Gibson) would like to hear from the noble Lord that night, or, if that should not be deemed a fitting occasion, on some early day, what was to be the peace policy of the present Administration. The Prime Minister was the man who had been chosen by the country to carry on a great war with vigour. That war was terminated, peace was happily restored, and they were entitled to know from the noble Lord what was the policy which his Government intended to carry out now that he was no longer Minister of War, but the minister of peace. They could not trade upon the war any longer; they must now have an effective and vigorous peace policy. The country expected to be relieved at the hands of the noble Lord from the oppressive burdens which had been thrown upon it by the war, and that he would address himself to the great work of Parliamentary reform, which the noble Member for the city of London was endeavouring to accomplish when he was interrupted by the outbreak of hostilities. They must now renew the thread that was broken by the war with Russia. Ho was certain he expressed the sentiments of his constituents when he said that they expected some declaration of a vigorous reform policy from the noble Lord's Government. He, and those with whom he acted, wished, when they visited their friends in the country, to be enabled to tell them that they might fairly support a Government which had pledged itself to carry out vigorous reforms in all parts of the Administration—not merely military reforms, or administrative reforms, but Parliamentary reform as a security for the permanence of any administrative reform that Government might in future adopt.

MR. WHITESIDE

Sir, it is not my intention to trespass long upon the time of the House, but I wish to guard against the supposition that, because hon. Gentlemen on this (the Opposition) side do not think the present a suitable time for discussing the questions involved in the protocols, they are to be precluded from entering upon such discussion on a future occasion. For example, the question relating to Circassia is one of great importance, and cannot be summarily disposed of in an incidental discussion upon this Address. The right hon. Gentleman who last addressed us has, as I understood him, propounded a very remarkable theory—that no matter what crime may be committed against the law of nations, it is a fundamental rule of our policy never to interfere with the criminal or to deal with the crime. Now, Sir, according to that point of view the right hon. Gentleman would have looked with infinite composure, I suppose, upon the partition of Poland. Edmund Burke wrote, for our learning, that that crime, the commission of which was suffered by England, would entail upon posterity an amount of misery that it would be difficult for him to anticipate, but which we, in reference to the history of modern Europe, most fully can realise: I think the conduct of the present Ministry with regard to a less important matter is of the same character as the conduct of those who abandoned Poland. I wish, however, to draw the attention of the House to the astounding conclusion of these protocols, which we wish to reserve the privilege of discussing hereafter. Having disposed of Turkey in Europe, the French Plenipotentiary, with reference to the future Government of Europe, invites— The representatives of the principal Powers of Europe to clear up certain questions, to lay down certain principles, to express intention, in fine to make certain declarations, always and solely with the view of insuring the future tranquillity of the world. The Plenipotentiary then proceeds to discuss the affairs of Greece, of Italy, of Rome, and of Naples, and tells the diplomatists what, in the names of their respective Governments, they are expected to do. He then goes on to say, that it is absolutely indispensable to interpose in the affairs of Belgium with reference to the state of the press. Now, Sir, we are all of us aware of the fact, that Belgium is a free State. Lord Clarendon may have been authorised by Her Majesty's Government to do what he did and to sign what he signed, on this occasion; but the question is one which we certainly shall claim the right of discussing with Lord Clarendon and the Government. The French Plenipotentiary complains of the conduct of the unlicensed press of Belgium, a State which has a constitutional Government and a free press. For my own part, I, for one, do not like the press of Belgium, because I remarked that it had no sympathy with us during our struggle with Russia; but it does not, therefore, follow that because I object to its conduct I would extinguish the press of Belgium. The French Plenipotentiary, however, calls upon the several States of Europe to interpose, and he says— If the representatives of the great Powers of Europe, viewing in the same light with ourselves this necessity, should find it useful to express their opinion in this respect, a great advantage would be gained. What he aims at, therefore, is to extinguish the liberty of the press in Belgium. That subject is discussed by the several representatives of the absolute Powers of Europe, and I am edified at the manner in which they express themselves. Count Buol says:— He does not doubt that one of the essential conditions of so desirable a state of things exists in the wisdom of a legislation so combined as to prevent or repress the excesses of the press which Count Walewski with so much reason has blamed, when speaking of a neighbouring State, and the repression of which must be considered as an European necessity. When Count Buol is asked for his opinion with respect to the Italian States, his reply is, that the Austrian Plenipotentiaries have no instructions on the subject, but with reference to the free press of Belgium, he can undertake that his Government is perfectly ready to assist in its repression. Baron Manteuffel, the Prussian Plenipotentiary, concludes his observations by declaring that— The Prussian Cabinet fully admits the pernicious influence exercised by the press, subversive of all regular order, and the dangers which it propagates by preaching up regicide and revolt. Thus, you see Baron Manteuffel is quite ready to assure the other Powers that they may deal with the press as they may think desirable. I now wish to draw the attention of the House to the Resolution with reference to the press which was signed by the British Plenipotentiary, Lord Clarendon, and I claim the right of discussing hereafter the question whether the Government that authorised his act is not responsible for this document. After the discussion to which I have referred, the French Plenipotentiary thought it expedient to obtain the signatures of the various representatives to a document which would bind them to enforce the moderate opinions to which he had given utterance. Now, Sir, this is the Resolution relative to the press of Belgium to which Lord Clarendon attached his signature:— That all the Plenipotentiaries, and even those who considered themselves bound to reserve the principle of the liberty of the press, have not hesitated loudly to condemn the excesses in which the Belgian newspapers indulge with impunity, by recognising the necessity of remedying the real inconveniences which result from the uncontrolled licence which is so greatly abused in Belgium. Well, Sir, that is, as I understand it, that there is a binding obligation incurred by Lord Clarendon on the part of this country to interpose for the purpose of remedying any inconvenience which may arise from the existence of a free press in Belgium. Now, if that is authorised by the noble Lord, and if he has taken upon himself the responsibility of such an engagement, then it is idle to talk of interfering with foreign States to put down tyranny while you are undertaking to interfere with a free State that has laws, a Government, and a free press of its own, and that has the power of controlling that press if it should prove offensive to any foreign Government. For the Government of this country so to interfere is to do that which I am sure ninety-nine out of every hundred of the English people will disapprove. That is a policy which we shall claim the right to examine, consider, and inquire into, and, if necessary, call upon the House to declare its opinion upon. When Sardinia complained of the presence of the Austrian army in Italy it was asked, "What do you say to the French army being in Rome? "Were all the troops to be called away? No; these armies are to remain, without prejudice, till the tranquillity of the country and the consolidation of the authority of the Holy See are effected. As soon as a great and enlightened system of Government is thoroughly consolidated in Rome, then, and not till then, does the Government bind itself that the armies of France and Austria shall quit the country. It is for this then that Italy has to wait for her freedom. Such important matters require a more extensive investigation than they have yet received, and it will be my duty as well as the duty of this House to see that they receive it.

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, the immediate question before the House does not appear to be a very broad one. My hon. Friend who moved the Address proposes that the House should express its joy and satisfaction on the occasion of the peace. My noble Friend the Member for Tyrone (Lord C. Hamilton) has moved an Amendment—but for which he has not shown much paternal regard, for he has not appeared in the House since he proposed it—in which he objects to the expression of our "joy" and proposes that we should express only our "satisfaction" at the peace. Well, then, Sir, we are told that there is to be no division on the subject. That, certainly, is consolatory. But even if a division did take place, I apprehend that it would be a great public misfortune, because, although no doubt an overwhelming majority would express its joy at the conclusion of a treaty of peace, still the minority, if they did not express their joy, would, notwithstanding, according to the terms of the Amendment, express their satisfaction at that event. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester (Mr. M. Gibson) has given us his reasons for preferring the expression of "joy." I concur with my right hon. Friend's conclusion, but I do not agree with the reasons which he has given. Nevertheless, I feel that there is an occasion of joy and an occasion of thankfulness. Every one knows and feels that, in the first place, we owe that thankfulness to Almighty God; but it must not be forgotten that to those who have been the human instruments of His will in bringing about that great boon to mankind a great debt of gratitude is due. I think, first and foremost, we owe our deepest thanks for these great advantages secured to Christendom to the Emperor of the French and to his Government; and, next to them, I likewise wish to offer the tribute of my thanks to Her Majesty's Government, who had undertaken to bring about this peace, and who have succeeded, perhaps, at some sacrifice of personal and political, and, it may be, at the hazard even of Ministerial popularity. But, referring again to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, there was one observation he made in which I could not agree. He said he was willing to accept peace, because it was peace; yet he saw in the terms and even in the principles on which it has been concluded, cause of dissatisfaction, apprehension, and dismay. He said that, as he understood this peace, we have become bound, in common with the other Christian Powers of Europe, not only for the maintenance of the independence and integrity of Turkey, considered as an empire, against any foreign aggression, and particularly against Russian aggression, but that we had become likewise bound to the maintenance of Turkey as a Mahomedan State, and of the internal institutions of that country as a Mahomedan country. All I can say is this, that I welcome this peace with joy, not merely because it is peace, but because it is an honourable peace—using that term, not as a mere idle phrase and formality, as the right hon. Gentleman termed it, but because it indicates that the objects of the war have been obtained. If I thought, Sir, that this treaty of peace was an instrument which bound this country and our posterity, as well as our Allies, to the maintenance of a set of institutions in Turkey which you are endeavouring to reform if you can, but with respect to which endeavour few can be sanguine, I should not be content to fall back on the Amendment of my noble Friend (Lord C. Hamilton) expressing that I regarded the peace with satisfaction; but, on the contrary, I should look out for the most emphatic word in which to express my sense of condemnation of a peace which bound us to maintain the law and institutions of Turkey as a Mahomedau State. But I apprehend that with the internal institutions of Turkey we have no concern further than that it is our duty to countenance the improvement of them. At the same time, standing upon the firm ground of principle and precedent—pressing forward in the interests of humanity—we are bound to see that those who profess the same faith with ourselves are not trampled upon. I now come to a second and most vital consideration, or rather misapprehension of the treaty by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester. He has referred to the 9th Article of the Treaty, which runs thus:— His Majesty the Sultan, in his constant anxiety for the well-being of his subjects, having granted (octroyé) a firman, which, in ameliorating their lot without distinction of religion or race, proves his generous intentions towards the Christian populations of his empire, and desiring to give a further proof of his sentiments in this regard, has resolved to communicate to the contracting Powers the said firman, spontaneously emanating from his Sovereign will. The contracting Powers acknowledge (constatent) the great value of this communication. It is quite understood that the fact of this communication cannot in any case give to the said Powers a right to interfere, either collectively or separately, in the relations of His Majesty the Sultan with his subjects, or in the internal administration of his empire. Now, my right hon. Friend states, that we thereby formally renounced all interference with the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire, or between the Sultan and his subjects; and he naturally infers from that, that we are leaving the Christians in a worse condition than we found them. It is my belief that my right hon. Friend has not read the Article with the care which it requires. As I read the Article, it does not at all affect or interfere with our right or duty of interference. In an early despatch written by the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he had occasion to refer to the exercise of the right of protection by Russia over the Christian population of Turkey, sanctioned by treaty and prescribed by usage. Well, sanctioned by treaty it certainly is no longer. The treaty of Kainardji no longer exists; but that obligation of duty which rests on a much broader foundation exists in full force, and is in no sense narrowed or infringed by the 9th Article of the present treaty. The present treaty recites the issuing by the Sultan of a firman and a hatti-sheriff, by which the Sultan grants many privileges to his Christian subjects. I will not deny that these advantages are not revocable at the will of the Sultan. No power, however, is renounced, and when the treaty proceeds to speak of a collective or single interference on the part of the Christian Powers, all it says is, that no right of interference, whether single or collective, shall grow out of the fact that the hatti-sheriff has been communicated to the Powers; but it says not one word of the policy and practice which from time to time have been pursued, or anything in the way of preventing us from performing that sacred duty even as we were in the habit of performing it long before the war commenced. With respect to the objects for which the war had been undertaken, it appears to me that my right hon. Friend has quite misunderstood them in the construction which he gives to the terms "independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire," and to the guarantee of that independence. I apprehend, what we sought to secure by the war was not the settlement of any question regarding the internal government of Turkey. Great Britain and France have not yet been able to afford a complete solution to the problem which has existed for 600 or 700 years. It was hardly a century and a-half ago when a Mahomedan Empire carried pillage, carnage, and terror throughout Europe; and now, since it has ceased to be an object of fear, it has become the principal cause of anxiety and solicitude to Europe. The juxtaposition of a people professing the Mahomedan religion with a rising Christian population having adverse and conflicting influences presents difficulties which are not to be overcome by certain diplomatists at certain hours and in a certain place. It will be the work and care of many generations—if even then they were successful—to bring that state of things to a happy and prosperous conclusion. But there was another danger—the danger of the encroachment upon, and the absorption of, Turkey by Russia, which would bring upon Europe evils not less formidable than those which already existed. Such a danger to the peace, liberties, and privileges of all Europe we were called upon absolutely to resist by all in our power. If it be true all the securities for Turkey against foreign aggression have been obtained by the treaty, then, looking at, not the mere details, but to the general scope of facts, if I am asked what have been the great benefits achieved by the war, I am bound to say I cannot pretend to find them in any single article, nor in the whole united terms of the present treaty. Many of them are most important, no doubt, but I apprehend the great benefit achieved for Europe is more extended than appears by the terms which have been put upon paper. It has been the moral demonstration on the part of Europe—the great physical as well as moral demonstration which may fairly be said to have been made by all Europe, and which has impressed upon the mind of Russia the great lesson that the opinion of Europe with respect to her tendencies to aggrandisement, whether they arose from policy, or a supposed necessity, they were such as to render it a duty upon Europe to combine all the Powers for the repression of those tendencies. I must confess, Sir, that there are many circumstances which tend to enhance the joy and satisfaction I feel at the attainment of that object. It is almost the first time in the history of the world, certainly it is an occasion of very rare occurrence, that we have seen a war begun and continued with such perfect purity of motives on the part of the Powers principally concerned as in that war which has just been concluded. Once or twice, indeed, unfortunately, it has been stated that a powerful motive with us for commencing the war was the security of our Indian empire, but I am sure that I shall be borne out by this House in saying that that has not been the conviction which has prompted the efforts and sacrifices of England upon this occasion. Although imprudently and lightly such a sentiment has been uttered in this House, yet I rejoice to say it has never had the sanction of the highest authorities of this House. If the purity of the origin of the war has been remarkable, what is it to the rapidity with which its operations have been conducted? We may partly measure that by the expenditure. We have been able to expand our scale of military and naval operations by the modern appliances of science to as great an extent within the short space of twelve months after the declaration of war as would formerly have been scarcely possible in ten, fifteen, or even twenty years. And although many benefits have been conferred by science upon mankind of late years in the arts and pursuits of peace, yet I greatly doubt whether any of them have realised more substantial advantages than this application of modern science to purposes of warfare, which, by enabling us to develope all our resources with unexampled rapidity, has shortened the duration of its destructive ravages, and accomplished its purpose in a time so short that would have appeared almost incredible to former generations. As I have said I do not look to any great advantage to be derived from the terms of the treaty, I need not longer dwell upon them, but there are two questions upon which I should wish to say a few words. With regard to the Principalities, I confess it would have been more agreeable to me had it been possible to have secured to them more of a substantive existence, and it is with satisfaction I find that it was not the fault of England or France that the proposal for the union of those Principalities did not meet with a more decided sanction, but that it was defeated by the opposition of Austria and of Turkey. It may be said it is not desirable to see in the Principalities a repetition of the state of things in Greece, but my belief is that, although the state of Greece may leave much to be desired, and although probably a long period will elapse before she realises all the fruits of freedom, yet I consider that Greece has gained much by emancipation from the Mahomedan yoke. She has received certain elements which go towards making a nation great. She has a free press, a system of education, and of religion, which, compared with that of many countries of Europe, may be called excellent, and a judiciary which, I remember upon the occasion of a discussion in this House, was admitted, on all hands, to have been most perfectly independent. Therefore, I should not have been sorry if, while securing to the Porte the great right it claims—the regular payment of a certain sum of money—we could have secured to the Principalities a more substantive independent existence. I pass from that part of the treaty to another part, as to which, like the right hon. Member for South Wiltshire (Mr. S. Herbert), I beg to be allowed to retain a private opinion—I allude to the neutralisation of the Black Sea. I believe no part of the treaty is more popular in this House and in the country, and many look upon this arrangement as the principal glory of the treaty of peace. For my own part, I confess I view it with far different feelings, independent of the question that neutralisation appears to be welcomed in terms not altogether justified by the facts of the case. Where ships of war are allowed to a certain extent to be kept up, and, as far as I can understand, available for war purposes, I can find no one to tell me what would be the application of that system of neutralisation in a time of war. In a state of peace no doubt the arrangement would work well, and so would all systems; but when we come to times of difficulty, when Russia may again be at war, when she may unhappily have resumed her supposed scheme of aggression upon Turkey, or when the Porte may be at war with any Power, then I believe you will find that neutralisation means nothing more than a series of pitfalls, which, when you come to test them, you will find to be deeper than you expected. With regard to the matter of the Christian privileges in Turkey, I wish to make one remark. I almost doubt whether it would not have been wiser—although I admit the difficulty—to have attempted to recognise in the treaty some rules which should regulate interference on behalf of the Christians than to leave the matter altogether to the example and authority of former policy and practice, and for this reason—in the case of the Principalities, power of interference is agreed upon in a way so that no single Power would be allowed to interfere, but there may be a collective interference. Therefore, Russia cannot interfere with the Principalities. But as to the rights of the Christians in the Turkish Empire generally there is no such provision, but it is left to each Power to do what it thinks best. Therefore, if Russia should conceive herself bound, either by reasons of policy or of general duty, to interpose, such interference will not of necessity be regulated by the obligations of the treaty. I therefore do not think that arrangement is free from the danger of future complications. But all these subjects are small in comparison with that which has been opened to our consideration. Upon that it may be necessary for me to dwell at some length, but there are other questions in connection with the treaty which I am afraid it is impossible for me legitimately to exclude from my consideration. Upon a collateral question I think the House is indebted to the hon. and learned Member for Tavistock (Mr. R. Phillimore) for having raised a discussion upon a most important question, and also for the explanation he has given with regard to the new maritime international regulations. I cannot, after the debate that has occurred, speak unapprovingly of the changes which he condemns, but I think he is entitled to the thanks of the House, both for having brought the subject under our notice, and for the able and considerate manner in which he did so. As to the proposal to submit international differences to arbitration, I think that is in itself a great triumph. It is, perhaps, the first time that the assembled representatives of the principal nations of Europe have given an emphatic utterance to sentiments which contain at least a qualified disapproval of a resort to war, and asserted, at least in qualified terms, the supremacy of reason, of justice, humanity, and religion—a policy not to be departed from except under the necessity of the highest considerations of State policy. I must venture, however, to utter one word of caution. There is one danger that may arise from giving effect to the system of arbitration—a danger easily avoidable, but one which ought not to be entirely left out of view. If by establishing a system of arbitration, instead of a resort to arms in the first instance, you give encouragement to the trumping-up of untenable claims and bad cases as a matter of diplomatic contention between nations, you will end in making more quarrels than you can possibly avert. I hold that no country ought to resort to arbitration until it has reduced its claims to what it thinks the minimum, and brought them to that state in which they are fit to be supported by force. If you lay down that rule, then a resort to arbitration is indeed a powerful engine on behalf of civilisation and humanity; but if by setting up a general tribunal to arbitrate you are to encourage all sorts of persons to raise all sorts of claims, in order that they may take their chance of getting something out of the arbitration when they know they deserve nothing, then what I believe is a beneficial proceeding would be grossly abused and those results would be entirely lost, which. I conceive a proper system of arbitration is calculated to realise. It is not necessary now to enter largely upon the other features of this question; but I may remark that the proposal to establish a system of arbitration—a proposal made, I rejoice to say, by Lord Clarendon, and therefore emphatically an English proposal—a proposal, moreover, accepted freely and gracefully by the representatives of the other Powers—may lead to a diminution of what undoubtedly has been a great scourge to Europe of late years—namely, the enormous cost of its military establishments. It may be in the recollection of many who now hear me, that in one of the later years of his life Sir Robert Peel expressed emphatically in this House the strong sense which he entertained of the needless burden imposed upon the nations of Europe by the vast extent of those establishments, and even of the grave political dangers which they were calculated to create. That favourite catchword, "there is no such good way of preserving peace as being prepared for war," has, I am afraid, been too popular in England, and I rejoice to find that the moment at length is come when we have every reason to hope the greatest military Powers in Europe—Russia and France—are about to set a bold example in the way of reduction of their military establishments. I venture to express respectfully the hope that no false course of public opinion in this country may in any degree mar that beneficial process, or may deter those Powers from proceeding boldly in a direction so consonant with the best interests of humanity and the dictates of religion. But, passing from these very agreeable topics, I feel it my bounden duty to refer to the questions which have been touched by the hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke last. That hon. and learned Gentleman claimed the right to discuss, upon a future occasion, the materials contained in that most important document, the 22nd Protocol of the Conference at Paris. No person can contest that right; but I am afraid the hon. and learned Gentleman will find it not easy, unless he is prepared to raise the question in a very distinct form, amid the pressure of business to draw the attention of the House effectually to the subject. But I feel it is so urgently pressed upon our attention by the manner in which it is presented to us as part of the Protocols of the Congress which has arranged the peace, that we are bound to speak plainly and intelligibly upon the question, unless we are willing to make ourselves parties—I would rather say accomplices—in the proceedings that have been adopted and the intentions that have been more or less distinctly intimated with respect to a subject of such vital importance. With my right hon. Friend the Member for South Wiltshire, I feel the greatest doubt as to the prudence of the course that has been taken. If I look to particular cases—if, for example, I look to the case of Naples—I would say that what passed at the Conferences pleases me extremely; it falls in with all my views. I believe it to be perfectly right and just. I have not the slightest doubt as to the state of the facts. I do not believe that if a representative of Naples had been present at the Conferences he would have been able to give a different colour to those facts. I know well that some of the best and most virtuous citizens of that country are at the present moment, and have been for a long course of years, expiating in dungeons, not their crimes, or even their follies, but their merits, their virtues, and their love of their country. But, although an individual may be justified in saying these things, yet it is a grave question to consider—and I believe it is an entire innovation in the history of Conferences of pacification—what results may grow out, first, of the entertaining of such subjects in formal Conference; and, secondly, of the publication of whatever decision may be arrived at. Now, Sir, what is the position of those Powers which are not represented in the Conferences? How will they stand if their affairs are to be discussed, and their relations to their subjects and the state of their laws handled in Conferences in which their representatives do not sit, and handled, as must necessarily be the case, and as I will presently undertake to show has been the case, by persons who have come there with quite different objects, and who cannot possibly have the information which is necessary to enable them to do justice to the question? I should also like to know what is the exact force or value that belongs to those records that are inscribed upon the Protocols. Are they treaty engagements? Certainly they are not. Do they approximate to the character of engagements? If they do, how near do they come to it? If they do not, how far are they from it? If they do not partake at all of the nature of engagements, what are they? They are authoritative documents. Those who like them may claim them as allies and powerful auxiliaries. Those who do not like them may endeavour to depreciate them. Infinite discussions may arise upon their character. Plenty of room for difference of opinion and debate, and I am afraid plenty of risk of something like confusion in international rights and arrangements, will be supplied by these semi-authoritative records, to which no man can give a certain character, and to which every man may give whatever character he thinks best. The important cases that have been raised have been those of Naples, Rome, and Belgium. I have already spoken of the first; and with respect to the case of Rome I must say, that I honour the courage and manliness of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Bowyer), who never scruples to do battle on behalf of those whom he thinks to be unjustly attacked; but at the same time I must say that I widely differ from him. I believe him when he attempts to remove the delusions of others to be labouring under deep delusions himself. That Papal Government which he represents as a Government favourable to happiness and to national freedom, I believe to be not only bad, but incurably bad. And that is the real distinction between the case of the Papal Government and that of other Governments whose institutions, whose laws, or whose actual policy for the moment may be bad. There is nothing in the nature or character of the latter which renders it impossible to reform them. There is no principle involved in their constitution which is of an inflexible and unchangeable character, and which may not give way to the demands of civilisation. But a system which establishes a clerical caste, itself appointed and founded for quite other purposes—namely, sacred and spiritual purposes and not for temporal purposes—which takes that clerical class from its own proper sphere, and makes it, now that it has ceased to be superior to other classes in general literature and mental attainments, the master of the temporal concerns of 3,000,000 of men—let the hon. and learned Gentleman rely upon it that not all the speeches that can be delivered here or elsewhere can ever prove that there is even the hope of a cure for such an evil. Let me remind the hon. and learned Member that these questions with respect to the temporal power of the Pope were long ago foreseen by the most sagacious and intelligent men in the Church of Rome, and that Cardinal Pacca himself, an enlightened, accomplished, and intimate friend of Pius VII., has intimated in a published work his opinion, that the time even then was rapidly approaching when the continuance of the temporal power of the Pope would be highly inexpedient with reference to the interests both of religion, of humanity, and of mankind. I will now refer to what took place at the Conference at Paris with reference to the press of Belgium, which I consider is a question demanding the earnest attention of this House. Using the privilege of a Member of the House of Commons, I shall venture to speak, I hope with moderation and justice, and without the slightest tinge of exaggeration, of the language of most distinguished persons belonging to other countries. There are distinctions to be drawn in this matter. I do not intend to comment upon the language of Lord Clarendon, because from the contents of the Protocols I see plainly what his feelings were. He evidently felt himself in a difficulty. He wished to discourage what was going on, and spoke with the reserve which he thought proper, but at the same time fairly intimated that the scheme which had been suggested could find no support or sympathy in England. But, Sir, while I say this of the language of Lord Clarendon, I must say, in fairness and in candour—and I am quite certain every Member of this House will join me—that some most unfortunate mishap must have occurred with respect to the passage read by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Whiteside). I do not know whether the House has fully apprehended the purport of that passage; but so important, so momentous and grave is the fact that a passage couched in those terms should go forth to the world, with the signature of the British Plenipotentiary appended to it, that I venture to bring it again under their notice, and I am sure the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) and his colleagues will see that some explanation is absolutely necessary. The substance of the 22nd and last Protocol is summed up, at the end, in four points:—1, as to Greece; 2, as to Rome; 3, as to Naples; and 4, which touches the point, as to Belgium; and, not in the name of any one, but of the whole assembled Plenipotentiaries, it recites as follows:— That all the Plenipotentiaries, and even those who considered themselves bound to reserve the principle of the liberty of the press, have not hesitated loudly to condemn the excesses in which the Belgian newspapers indulge with impunity, by recognizing the necessity of remedying the real inconveniences which result from the uncontrolled licence which is so greatly abused in Belgium. So that, according to this ill-omened passage, the licence of the press under Belgian law is greatly abused, there is a necessity for remedying the evils which arise from it, and the necessity of remedying the evils which arise from it are recognized by every Plenipotentiary, even those who considered themselves bound to reserve the principle of the liberty of the press. These propositions are of a most formidable character. They touch us very nearly. If the Belgian press be free, what is the press of England? I will presently state the law of Belgium to the House, and I think the House will see it is more stringent than the law of England, and, standing here in the first and principal fortress of European freedom—that regulated and tempered freedom which we have not seen moving forward on the continent of Europe during the last ten years quite so prosperously as we earnestly desired—standing in the first and principal fortress of European freedom, I do think these matters imperatively call for explanation. The question is opened by Count Walewski on the part of France; and let me do this justice to Count Walewski, that he is perfectly equal and impartial. If he condemns the press of Belgium, a constitutional country which is not represented, he has one and the same measure for other countries. He deals in the same way with Greece, with Rome, and with Naples. His statement is to the effect that assassination is recommended, and, besides the recommendation of assassination, that there are other abuses of the press—that a society, called "La Marianne," is supported—and that, therefore, Belgian legislation is required to be altered, and if that alteration is not voluntarily adopted, it will be necessary to have it adopted under compulsion. That is the declaration of France, and even as the declaration of Count Walewski, I think it formidable enough. I venture to express a hope—there is nothing here, I apprehend, to prevent my entertaining it —that this distinguished gentleman expressed his own personal views, and not the deliberate intentions of his Sovereign or the Government to which he belongs, when he indulged in such language. But now let us carry this proposition further. As we have done justice to the equality of feeling on the part of France, let us do equal justice to the proceedings of Russia. Russia most wisely and prudently declined to touch the matter; Count Orloff said he had no instructions, and passed by every one of the topics without comment. But what was the conduct of the representatives of Austria and Prussia? The representative of Prussia (Baron Manteuffel), after touching on the case of Greece, begins by stating that he has no doubt whatever as to the necessity and wisdom of a legislation which shall prevent and repress the excesses of the press. But what said Austria? Count Walewski, with much reason, refers plainly to a neighbouring country, but Count Buol goes further, and says that repression of the press, in whatever quarter of Europe—perhaps in whatever island of Europe—must be considered as a European necessity. Having thus dealt pretty inflictively with the case of Belgium, be arrives at the case of Naples and Rome, when his scruples suddenly arise, and he says it is impossible to consider the internal situation of States not represented at the Congress. But he forgets he has been discussing the situation of an independent State not represented at the Congress—the State of Belgium—and has committed himself to the opinion that repression in the case of that press is a matter of European necessity. There appears to have been a kind of rivalry between the representatives of Austria and Prussia; for Baron Manteuffel, while he declines to give any sort of countenance to the discussion about Naples and Rome, goes further and says, admonitions such as were proposed would probably excite in the country a spirit of opposition and revolutionary movements. He discountenances, he does not think proper to enter into, an actual examination of the condition of the Pontifical States, but he who is thus chary of touching upon the condition of the Pontifical States, is as ready as his Austrian brother to deal with the case of the Belgian press, and he not only enunciates the abstract proposition which Count Buol has laid down, but goes a stage further, and says:— That Prussia will readily take part in the inquiry into the measures which might be deemed suitable for putting an end to such practices. I must say I earnestly hope these declarations are not indications of policy, but that they have issued lightly from the mouths of these distinguished persons, and having been uttered will be regretted and forgotten though they cannot be recalled. In the meantime, are the charges just? I am quite sure that the House will not grudge a few moments of time in shortly considering what is the state of the law in Belgium. Let us see whether the Belgian Government, with which we are closely allied by respect for the Sovereign, by sympathy with the spirit of her institutions, and by a sense of the immense services which the Government and people of that little State, in conjunction with Sardinia, have rendered to the cause of orderly freedom throughout Europe—let us see whether the conduct of the Government of Belgium has been such as to justify the description contained in that unfortunate sentence read by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Enniskillen, and hastily and carelessly, he trusted, amid the pressure of affairs, subscribed by the Plenipotentiaries. Perhaps we can best judge of the law and practice in Belgium if we compare them with what they are in England. In England, I apprehend, no political refugee is expelled unless he commits an offence against the general law of the country, and political refugees, while they live in England, are not placed under a system of exceptional laws. If they conduct themselves well, they enjoy the freedom and privilege of other strangers among Her Majesty's subjects; but in Belgium, in the first place, refugees are not freely received. I have made inquiries into that matter, and I find that of the refugees who have presented themselves at the frontiers of Belgium an immense proportion have been altogether repelled. They are never allowed to enter Belgium except their passports are perfectly regular; because it is fairly assumed, if the system of passports is kept up, that regular passports will be given to none except those whom the Government wish to go out of their own and to be received into a foreign country. The number, if I am rightly informed, repelled by Belgium during the last few years is very large, being not less than from a 1,000 to 2,000 persons. The refugees received into Belgium are very small in number. They are not placed in the same condition as refugees who come to England. They are placed under an exceptional system. They are not allowed to congregate in one place. They are directed where they shall live, and if they break the conditions so imposed they are immediately expelled the country. We have no law—we have no treaty of extradition with any foreign Power which touches the case of political offenders. But, unless I am very much misinformed, Belgium has a law of extradition with France, and, while it was assumed at the Conference that refugees are permitted with impunity to preach assassination in Belgium, that is punishable by the law of Belgium, and the treaty with France binds Belgium to deliver up the person so offending to the Government of France. Is the law of the press one of unrestrained and uncontrolled licence? I hold in my hand the law as it exists in Belgium, and every Member can form his own judgment how it affects the relations with foreign Governments. Perhaps, in order that I may show that the conduct of the Belgian Government has not been altogether wanting in regard to the feelings of other countries, I may mention that this law was passed in the year 1852. The first article runs thus— Whoever by writing or print, or any representation or emblem, advertised, distributed, or sold, put out to sale, or exposed to public view, shall be guilty against the person of sovereigns, or the chiefs of foreign Governments, of culpably attacking their authority, shall be punished by imprisonment from three months to two years, and by fine of from 100f. to 2,000f. I speak in the hearing of those who can correct me if I am wrong in stating that that is a more stringent law for the punishment of political attacks by the Belgian press upon foreign Governments than any that is known in England for the repression of similar proceedings on the part of the English journals. Such is the Belgian law, which, it must be remembered, is based upon trial by jury. An indictment laid under that statute must go before a jury. But first let me do full justice to the law itself. In this country we have before now notified to the powerful Sovereign of a foreign country that, if he deemed himself aggrieved by the strictures of the British press, our Courts of Justice were open to him, and that he had as good a right as any subject of this realm to appeal to those tribunals for redress. Such was our law then, and such it still remains. The Belgian constitution recognises the same principle, and mark the righteous spirit of their legislation. To remove the prejudice with which a foreign Power might have to contend in appealing to a jury of Belgians, and to relieve it from the odium of itself instituting proceedings in a Belgian Court, it is provided that, whenever a demand is made by a foreign Government to give effect to the law in question, such demand shall be lodged as a confidential document in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Belgian Government shall itself institute the prosecution on its own responsibility and conduct it to an issue. If excesses, therefore, are indulged in with impunity by the press of Belgium, it is clear that the evil is to be attributed, not to the want of a law, but rather to the neglect of putting a law in motion, a fact with which statesmen would have done well to acquaint themselves before they ventured to talk of satisfying "a European necessity." In the protocol it is intimated clearly enough that if the Belgian law be not altered by gentle means recourse must be had to compulsion. The Belgian law, as I have just stated, is based upon trial by jury. Trial by jury for offences of the press is one of the articles of the Belgian constitution, and those articles cannot be changed at the mere will either of the Government or the two Houses of Legislature. Immediately a proposal is made to alter one of the articles of the constitution, the existing Houses of Legislature are ipso facto dissolved, and the Members return to their constituents. New elections take place. The Houses meet with double the usual number to a quorum, that is, instead of one-third of its number forming a quorum, two-thirds of it are required, and the proposed alteration falls to the ground unless it commands the approval of fully two-thirds of the Members in attendance. What is now suggested, on the vague pretence of satisfying "a European necessity," is that the Belgian people should be required to change by a deed of their own, the law relating to the press, and to do so in such a manner as to deprive it of the security and protection which trial by jury is calculated to afford. The history of Belgium is that of a very small fraction of Europe. But though small physically and as viewed on the map, morally it occupies a large position. The spirit of their forefathers dwells in unbroken force within the bosoms of the Belgian people; and as it was the object of these Conferences to dispel the clouds of war—not to create them—and to promote, not tumult and disorder, but peace and harmony among nations, I think it right to point out as clearly as it is possible for an independent Member of Parliament to do so, that this appeal to a people, gallant and high spirited as the Belgians are—an appeal which appears to be contemplated under the compulsion of foreign, and, some of them, remote powers, and having for its object the limitation by the Belgians of their own dearest rights and most cherished liberties—is not a policy which tends to clear the political horizon, but rather one which will darken and disturb it, and cast gloom and despondency over a prospect otherwise brilliant and joyous. I have to thank the House for the attention they have given to the observations I felt myself called upon to make, and I shall conclude by expressing a hope that the great Powers of Europe will devote to this question the attention it merits, and not disregard the feelings and interests of a State which, though of secondary importance as regards the extent of its territory, has yet as strong claims upon their sympathy and regard as any that the proudest and most powerful nation could possess.

MR. HADFIELD moved the adjournment of the debate.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

I hope, Sir, the hon. Gentleman will not persist in his Motion for adjournment.

MR. HADFIELD

said, he would not press his Motion for adjournment; but his object in now rising was to move the insertion of the following words between the third and fourth paragraphs of the Address— To express an hope that Her Majesty will avail Herself of the friendly sentiments now happily existing between Her Majesty and the other high contracting Powers, to negotiate in favour of commerce, not only to advance the common interests of all, but likewise to make the peace permanent. He thought the Government would greatly benefit the country if they would follow out those openings which now presented themselves by which the commerce of this country might be advanced. He trusted the noble Lord would allow his paragraph to be introduced.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

Sir, with regard to the addition proposed by my hon. Friend, I venture to submit to him that however anxious Her Majesty's Government may be—and I am sure in that respect they are only animated by the feelings of the House and the country—to promote the interests of the commercial world, not only for the benefits of commerce, but as the surest foundation of peace, yet that nevertheless this particular Motion of my hon. Friend will not altogether find its proper place in an Address to the Crown relative to the treaty now under consideration. But I hope it will not be supposed that, in declining to agree to the Motion of my hon. Friend, I am at all indifferent to the importance of the subject to which he has directed the attention of the Government, or that we are less disposed to carry it into effect than we should be if we had agreed to his Amendment. Sir, it is satisfactory, no doubt, to the Government to find, that, however various the opinions which have been expressed by different Members as to the different subjects under discussion, no one has felt such strong objections to the Address which has been proposed, and so ably proposed and so ably seconded, by my hon. Friends who discharged that duty, as to lead any hon. Members to offer an Amendment upon which it is desirable, in their opinion, to take the sense of the House. I think this is not only highly satisfactory, but that hon. Members who have strong feelings upon some particular parts of the treaty have exercised a sound discretion in not refusing to give that general assent to the terms of the treaty which is conveyed in the Address on such an occasion as the present. I cannot, however, but express some degree of surprise at the course taken by the noble Lord the Member for Colchester (Lord J. Manners). That noble Lord began by admitting that the treaty had fully accomplished, in regard to European Turkey, the objects of the war, but he contended that there were certain proceedings of the British Government during the conduct of the war which were, in his opinion, so base, and there were omissions in the treaty which rendered it so dishonourable, that it was impossible for him to concur in the Address. The remedy he proposed was by omitting certain expressions, as "joy" and "satisfaction," and, if that were done, he stated that he was ready to assert that the treaty was honourable to the Crown and fully accomplished the objects of the war. The noble Lord was prepared, if these omissions were agreed to by the Government, to concur in the unanimous expression of satisfaction by the House with the treaty laid before us. Sir, we have heard some what about mock patriotism. I know not what sort of patriotism it is that induces the noble Lord to say that he thinks a treaty dishonourable, but that he is prepared to express his satisfaction in common with the House that it has been agreed to.

Sir, I can conceive circumstances in which Parliament might express an opinion to that effect. I can conceive that if our fleets were destroyed—if our armies were swept from the face of the earth—if we had been left without allies—if the enemy were thundering at our gates—if the existence of the country were at stake—and if to save us and enable us to restore on some future occasion our strength and resources, and to give us some hope in the future it was necessary to have recourse to a dishonourable treaty to save the very existence of the country—I can conceive under such circumstances Parliament saying that although the peace was dishonourable it was satisfactory that any peace had been concluded. But, in the present state of the country, when the results of the war have been triumphant, when in the very Address to which the noble Lord agrees it is stated that our resources remain unimpaired—when, not later than yesterday evening, we heard from an authority which the noble Lord would be the last to deny, to refute, or to reject, that we are in possession of a mighty naval armament, the like of which has never been seen—that our army is in a condition that has never been surpassed—that, under these circumstances, a Member of this House should say that he thinks the peace dishonourable, yet is ready to express the satisfaction of the House at such a treaty, is, I own, what I did not expect to hear from a Member of this House. If that be the opinion of the noble Lord, I consider that he is bound to oppose the Address, and to state the reasons on which that opposition is founded. Now, Sir, on what point does this question turn? The noble Lord has admitted that the security and independence of Turkey, as far as Europe is concerned, is fully accomplished by the treaty; but he laid great stress on certain dangers that he anticipated upon the side of the Asiatic frontier, from our not having insisted that the forts upon the eastern coast of the Black Sea should not be re-established, and from our not having stipulated for the independence of Circassia. Why does not the noble Lord move a Resolution to the effect that the war ought to have been continued until these objects were accomplished? If the noble Lord really attaches so much importance to these stipulations, he ought to have taken the sense of the House upon them, to have declared that he objected to the peace because it did not accomplish these objects, and that the war ought to have been continued until the Russians had been driven out of Georgia; to have declared that we had neglected the Circassians, and that Russia ought to be compelled to cede those provinces and forts which she now occupies. But the noble Lord, I apprehend, knew too well the feelings of this House and the country to stake his reputation on a vote of censure upon such points as these. I am satisfied that the country will think that the peace which has been concluded is honourable to the country, and that it has fully accomplished the objects of the war.

Why, Sir, what were the objects of the war? The objects of the war were the rescuing of Turkey from those assaults, diplomatic, military, and naval, that were made against the independence of the Sultan and the integrity of his dominions. I maintain that these objects have been fully accomplished, that the treaty guarantees the independence of the Porte, and secures, as far as a political object can be secured, the independence and integrity of that empire. We did not engage to maintain in the Turkish territory this or that race—to maintain one dominant party or the other. Our object was to maintain Turkey independent of foreign conquest and independent of external dictation. The country and Parliament admitted at the commencement of the war that that was an object of European and British interest, that it was an object the attainment of which was deserving of our efforts, and I contend that that object having been accomplished, the purposes of the war have been fulfilled. Sir, the attitude of the people of England during all these transactions has afforded a noble spectacle to the world, and has shown how greatly foreign nations have been deceived, and how little they have understood the real character of the British people. Before the war commenced the impression in Europe was that forty years of tranquillity had sunk the spirit of the British people into a slothful clinging to peace at any price. Europe did not believe that England was prepared to draw the sword for any object short of the actual defence of her own shores. The people of this country showed that, however dear to them peace might be, however highly experience had taught them to prize its blessings, nevertheless, upon an adequate occasion, and for a sufficient cause, they were prepared to make every sacrifice and use every exertion for carrying on with vigour a just and necessary war. When that war had been carried on to a certain point, and when the negotiations for peace were opened Europe was again deceived. Again it misunderstood and misinterpreted the feelings and sentiments of this country. The report was spread that the people of England was imbued with a spirit of war, that they would not consent to any reasonable terms of peace, and that it was from England that would come the obstacles to the restoration of tranquillity to Europe. Again Europe has been mistaken. The people of this country were prepared to carry on the war; they were not, like some other nations, crying out for its cessation; but calmly looking at the objects for which it was undertaken, and, on the other hand, considering the conditions of peace which had been obtained, they accept the peace with thankfulness and with gratitude, because they are convinced that to have carried on the war after we had obtained the objects for which we drew the sword, would have been a course unworthy of a great nation. Now, Sir, the treaty and the arrangements connected with it do not offer to this country those splendid prizes which have sometimes accompanied the cessation of war. There are no conquered territories annexed to the British dominions, no large indemnities exacted from a defeated and subdued enemy; but any impartial man who will look not only at the treaty, but also at the arrangements connected with it, and will examine the bearings of the different articles of which it consists, will see that an effective barrier has been raised against future aggressions, if such aggressive designs should hereafter be entertained. No man, Sir, who looks calmly at and studies the results of the Conferences at Paris but will be satisfied that the country has reason to rejoice at the termination which has been given to the war.

I will now shortly refer to the points which have been secured. The war began with the invasion of the Principalities by the Russians, which was followed by an expedition from this country. I wish the House to go back to that period, and to consider what were then the immediate evils, and what was the remedy which was then proposed to be applied. At that time many men would have been satisfied with the simple expulsion of the enemy from the Principalities, and the obtaining of a security that they should not return to them. When our troops sailed from this country and when our fleet entered the Black Sea, people asked us whether we were going to fortify the Dardanelles, so as to secure the retreat of our forces in case Constantinople should be taken by the march of the Russians by land. Now let any one compare that state of things and the remedy then proposed with the condition in the treaty which has now been obtained, and he must admit that such a change of position in the course of two short years does credit to those by whose exertions it has been brought about. With regard to the Principalities, the Congress at Paris has decided nothing for the present, except that they shall be placed under the guarantee of the European Powers, and shall have such an internal organisation as may be determined upon by concert between them, the Porte, and the allied Powers. I think, Sir, that was the best arrangement which could have been made. If the Congress had taken upon itself, in concert with the Porte, to establish any permanent organisation for these provinces, there would have been the risk that the arrangement determined upon might not have been in unison with what the people of the Principalities thought was required by their interests and their feelings. Questions also arose as to whether they should be united or should remain separate, what should be their form of Government, and what ought to be their relations to the Porte? These were all questions which the Allies felt could not be discussed and settled by the Congress at Paris. They, therefore, adopted an arrangement which secures to the people of these provinces the free expression of their opinions in concert with the Allies and with the Porte. I think that that arrangement was the one most consistent with the principles of justice and with the ultimate interests of the Principalities. It has been asked in the course of this debate whether the elections for the assemblies which are to be placed in communication with the Commissioners of the Allies are to take place during the continuance of the Austrian occupation? Undoubtedly not. It is impossible to suppose that while these provinces are occupied by Austrian troops the elections could take place in a manner consistent with the free expression of the opinions of the people. By the treaty the evacuation of the Russian and Turkish territories is to begin immediately after the exchange of the ratifications, and is to go on without interruption. As the Principalities are close to the Austrian frontier, it of course follows that their evacuation will take place long before that of the Crimea or of the Turkish territory near Constantinople. I think, therefore, that the first point has been settled in a satisfactory manner, and one which, in my opinion, the people of this country will think flitting and proper.

The next point to which I desire to call the attention of the House is the securing of the free navigation of the Danube. On that subject I venture to say that the arrangement made by the treaty of Paris is infinitely better than any scheme which had at any former period been proposed or even thought possible to attain. That which was last year deemed sufficient was, that a Commission should be constituted for the purpose of preserving the free navigation of the Danube, the territories bordering upon that river still remaining under the dominion of Russia. By this treaty not only is the whole course of the Danube restored to the Turkish Empire, and free from any Russian dominion, but about 200 miles of the lower part of the Pruth—the only portion which is navigable for gunboats of any size—is also separated from the Russian territory, and those important fortresses, Ismail and Reni, are restored to the Porte. There is, therefore, a perfect security that the persons who are most interested in having the navigation of the Danube free for the purposes of commerce will be those in whom the charge of that river will be vested. In the first place, there is to be a European Commission, of which England and France are to appoint members, and which is to take the measures necessary for keeping clear the mouths of the Danube, at which point it was that the measures of Russia for its clearance failed. That European Commission will establish regulations by which the bar at the mouth of the river will be removed, and access will be rendered free. The Treaty of Vienna contained stipulations by which rivers which in their navigable course divided States were subjected to a Commission composed of delegates from the river-bordering States, whose duty it should be to make regulations concerning their navigation, the object being that they should be free to the commerce of all nations, and that there should be established no regulation unfavourable to such commerce. The Danube has never been subjected to that provision of the Treaty of Vienna. Whenever it was proposed that such a Commission should be established for that river, Russia said that it separated Turkey from the Russian Empire, and that Turkey was a country which did not form part of the European political community. Henceforward the Danube will be placed under a Commission of river-bordering States, in accordance with the Treaty of Vienna, and there can be no doubt that to a great part of Germany, and to the Danubian Principalities, it will become one of the most important highways of commerce. Those regulations will now be fully carried out, and I see no reason why those Principalities should not shortly become most important among the nations of Europe. Besides the commercial advantages which are thus secured, it gives to Turkey a far better frontier to the north—it gives her not only full command over the whole course of the Danube, but also possession of those fortresses of Ismail and Reni, which are most important frontier defences.

Then comes the third point, which secures the neutralisation of the Black Sea. It has been stated that neutralisation is only limitation under another name, and, to a certain extent, no doubt that may justly be said; but it is limitation without counterpoise, to which great objection was taken last year, and which, I think, would have been fatal to the independence of Turkey. It is limitation, too, within a very narrow range. It is impossible not to see that, in a great sea like the Euxine, with a vast number of creeks and harbours, with one shore occupied by a people who are under no regular dominion, if there were no armed vessels floating upon it, there would have been great danger of sea pirates springing up. The danger we wished to avoid was, that there should be on the Black Sea a great Russian fleet, threatening at any moment the capital of Turkey, as did the fleet at Sebastopol, ready to convoy a large army to invade Turkey, and therefore constituting a standing danger and menace to the independence of the Sultan. That danger has been completely put an end to. By the arrangements which have been entered into, the small vessels which the Turks and the Russians are each entitled to have in that sea cannot, by any possibility, be dangerous either to one or the other. No man in his senses can suppose that six vessels of 800 tons, and four of 200 tons, can be formidable to the safety of Constantinople. It must likewise be remembered, that the Turks are allowed to have an equal force in the Black Sea, and that England, France, Austria, and Sardinia are each permitted to have two light vessels to watch the mouths of the Danube. Then, if no force be taken into account, except that which is to remain constantly in the Black Sea, the Russian force would be in a minority, and therefore no danger can be apprehended to Turkey from that arrangement. But, over and above this, Turkey may have in the Bosphorus, in the Sea of Marmora, in the Mediterranean, any amount of force which she thinks necessary, or which may come within the compass of her means. She would, therefore, have at hand a fleet amply sufficient to protect her against any danger which may threaten her from the Russian fleet. It is said, however, that there is still Nicholaieff; that although Sebastopol is no longer to be a naval arsenal, yet no stipulation has been made in regard to Nicholaieff, which has hitherto been the building port of Russia in the Black Sea. In the first place, we have the assurance of Count Orloff that the Emperor of Russia will not build at Nicholaieff, at Cherson, or in the Sea of Azoff, any other vessels than those which by the separate convention with Turkey are to be kept in the Black Sea, and that he will not build any larger vessels, nor in greater number than are required to keep up the requisite force. When it is said, as it has been by more than one hon. Member, that these promises are mere words, and that Russia may in secrecy, or by violating her promises, collect in her rivers or in the Sea of Azoff a larger force, it only comes to this, that every treaty is liable to be evaded or violated by the bad faith of the party with whom you contract it. If you cannot rely upon the good faith of nations with whom you make treaties, then you are reduced to the alternative stated by my hon. Friend who moved the Address (Mr. E. Denison)—all wars must be à, l'outrance. There can be no peace, then, without extermination. Suppose that Nicholaieff had been included in the condition that there should be no naval or military arsenal in the Black Sea. In the first place, you were not entitled to ask that, because you were not in possession of Nicholaieff. Sebastopol we had taken, and we, therefore, were entitled on every principle to demand such conditions with regard to it as were consistent with the objects of the war; but we could with no show of reason call upon Russia to do that at Nicholaieff which we had done for her at Sebastopol—to destroy her docks, which we had never been in possession of. Such conditions, if we had proposed them, would have been rejected with scorn by any Power which had any respect for itself. Were we, then, I would ask, to have continued the war until Russia agreed to destroy her arsenal at Nicholaieff, or till we could march there and take possession of it? The people of this country, I think, would not have been satisfied with such a course. But even if Nicholaieff were destroyed, it would be perfectly competent for Russia, at other parts higher up that great river, to have established another Nicholaieff, which would be just as available for the purpose for which Nicholaieff has been used, and I think, therefore, that the assurances given by Russia on this point ought to be satisfactory to this House and to the country, if we are to place any reliance at all on treaties entered into with foreign Powers.

But, Sir, some hon. Gentlemen are not satisfied with the engagement that there shall be no naval arsenal in the Black Sea. They would wish, apparently, that that condition should be extended to the fortifications upon the coast of the Black Sea. They must forget, however, that a large portion of the coast of the Black Sea belongs to Turkey, and should we have been acting a friendly part towards Turkey if we had insisted upon conditions which would have prevented her from continuing her strong fortress at Varna, or from fortifying any other post—Trebizond, Batoum, Sinope, or any other position which she holds on the Black Sea, and which it is highly essential not only for her interests but also for her security that she should be able to fortify? We are told, too, that there are omissions in regard to the eastern coast of the Black Sea; that having led the brave Circassians to commit things which have committed them with their Government, or with their enemies (as the case may be), we have abandoned them—handed them over was the expression used—to Russia. Now, according to the plain meaning of the words, you hand over to another party that which is in your possession, and of which you have the disposal. But we, Sir, never have been in possession of, nor have had the disposal of, any part of the Circassian territory. The Russians blew up and destroyed the greater part of the forts upon the eastern coast of the Black Sea themselves. Some of them were occupied by detachments of Circassian troops after they were evacuated by Russians, but it never formed part of the operations of the war, as far as it has gone, to make any military movements on the east coast of the Black Sea. We thought—and it appears to me that the judgment of the House has gone with us—that the great object, the first object, to be accomplished was the capture of Sebastopol, the destruction of the Russian fleet, the destruction of that great naval arsenal in the Crimea, and that until that was done it was unwise to divide our forces, or to attempt operations in other quarters which might have led to the failure of both operations. But it was said, and has been repeated in this House on more occasions than one, that we entered into communication with the Circassians. Now, undoubtedly, a person was sent for the purpose of endeavouring to enter into communications with Schamyl, to ascertain his feelings and intentions, and to find out whether, in the event of the arrival of any of our forces on that coast, it would suit him to combine operations with us, and, also, whether he was desirous of having any arms and ammunition which it might be in the power of the Allies to supply him with. That gentleman, however, never reached Schamyl. We never had any intercourse with him, and, consequently, we never entered into any engagement with him. Schamyl never did anything in the world which could in any degree give him a claim upon the diplomatic assistance of the Allied Powers. In point of fact, as was stated by my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, and by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard), people in general are totally mistaken as to the whereabouts of Schamyl. The general opinion is that he lives somewhere on the shores of the Black Sea, but, in truth, Daghistan, which is the seat of his Government, lies upon the shores of the Caspian, on the northern slope of the Caucasus, separated by a wide interval from the shores of the Black Sea, and totally out of the way of all communication, except by means of an army which had already traversed the country lying between the Black Sea and the Caspian. With Schamyl there had been no intercourse and no engagement; and Schamyl, there is reason to believe, had latterly been on good terms with the Russian Government, and I apprehend that he is in no more danger from Russia now than he was before the war. Those mountaineers had maintained their independence since 1829, and I do not apprehend that, after the great losses sustained by the Russian armies, they are in greater danger than when the Russian forces were intact. Then, again, with regard to the Circassians, properly so called, and more to the south of the Kuban towards the Black Sea, there was no, communication with them, and no allied troops landed in their territory, and we had no possible ground on which we could impose on Russia any stipulation in regard to that country. To have required Russia to have ceded Georgia, Mingrelia, Imeritia, however desirable it may seem to obtain such a cession, would have been a demand sure to meet with a positive refusal; and I am certain, besides, that Europe would not have considered the Allies justified in making it. No doubt if the war had been continued through another campaign and the Russian army had been driven from the Crimea, whilst an army had been sent by us into Georgia, and fortune had favoured the arms of the Allies, we might have been placed in a position to demand of Russia terms and conditions with regard to those territories. Nothing short of a great pressure and occupation of the territory by the Allies would ever have induced Russia to consent to a permanent cession of a large and important portion of her southern territory. The value of the forts on the eastern coast of the Black Sea has been exaggerated in a most extraordinary manner. It has been said that they afford to Russia the means of invading Turkey by the Asiatic frontier, but such is not the case. The great line by which Russia would move her forces to invade Turkey in Asia would be over the Caucasus, or by its eastern extremity, or by those rivers which discharge themselves into the Caspian. She has means of collecting any number of vessels sufficient to transport men, ammunition, and stores by the ports she has there, and far greater opportunity of concentrating and supplying her forces in Georgia, than by those small forts on the coast of the Black Sea, Remember, too, that in the event of Russia being at war with Turkey, the condition by which the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles are closed would cease to exist, and the allied fleets would again enter the waters of the Black Sea, and then, with the small naval force which Russia is permitted to maintain there, those forts would be of no value to her against the overwhelming forces which would be brought against them. Whether Russia does or does not rebuild these small forts upon this unwholesome coast, and possessing such bad means of communication, it is a complete misapprehension to state that the destruction of them was a matter of importance for the defence of Turkey.

I will now direct attention to the Asiatic frontier. Ever since the peace between Russia and Turkey in 1829, there have been parts of that line of frontier imperfectly or not at all defined. It is, however, of the greatest importance to Turkey that the boundary should be finally fixed and determined. For this purpose a Commission is to be appointed, and in order that the Commission may be impartial, and act in a fair and just spirit towards both Turkey and Russia, a British Commissioner and a French Commissioner are to form part of it, and they will see that the line drawn is one consistent with the rights of the two countries. One point is essential to be borne in mind, and that is, that all the treaties between Russia and Turkey were annulled by the war, and none of those treaties have been re-established by the peace. Therefore all the rights and privileges which Russia possessed or claimed in regard to Turkey by virtue of those former engagements, whether real or pretended, have entirely ceased to exist. In treating of the boundary between Russia and Turkey upon their Asiatic frontiers, reference will be made to the boundary line as it existed before the war commenced, and not as it was fixed by the Treaty of Adrianople, although that treaty was of course to a great extent the basis of the line as it existed when the war broke out. In the Treaty of Adrianople there were words to the effect that a line should be drawn, and that everything upon one side of the line should belong to Turkey, and everything upon the other side of the line should belong to Russia. I refer to these words in order that I may remind the House that no right, either real or pretended, claimed by Russia with respect to Circassia and the eastern coast of the Black Sea, which was disputed before the war, has been confirmed by the peace. Regard being had to the words in the Treaty of Adrianople, which I have mentioned, and which might, perhaps, be contended to give to Russia everything which was between the Caspian and the Black Sea, the noble Lord opposite (Lord C. Hamilton) certainly was right when he said last night that Russia obtained from Turkey a cession of territory which she had not. She ceded to Russia, by the Treaty of Adrianople, the forts between Anapa and Batoum, and other territory. Now, she had not the whole of the territory so professed to be ceded—she had not the whole of the littoral. With reference to the case of the Vixen, to which the noble Lord also referred, I must say that I consider that that was clearly an attempt, by parties interested, to trepan the Government into making a declaration which might have been taken advantage of. The owners of the Vixen, although— The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of trade, and Providence their guide, chose to say that there was no port in the world to which they could carry their salt, except a certain port on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Now, salt is an emblem of wisdom, but though here there was a whole cargo of it, the managers of the vessel did not appear to have had wisdom enough to take it to any other port. It was a plan to trick the Government. The question, then, thus stands. Russia is in possession of those places, and is able to shut the ports on that part of the coast of the Black Sea. The actual condition of those territories is about this. Upon the south, next the Turkish frontier, is the province of Mingrelia, and beyond it is that of Imeritia, both of which acknowledge the suzerainty of Russia. There are no Russian officers or forces in them that I am aware of, but the inhabitants are Christians, and they regard themselves as being under the protection, and to a certain degree under the domination of Russia, and they go on very well, with their qualified submission on the one hand, and the forbearance of Russia on the other. One of these provinces was occupied by the troops of Omar Pasha; but an Ottoman army was there contrary to the wish of the inhabitants. Omar Pasha himself said, that he was the right man in the wrong place, as he ought to be in a Mahomedan instead of a Christian country, and that he felt all the embarrassments and difficulties caused by the religious animosity of the people. On the north of these provinces come the people called the Abassians, some of whom, to the south, are Christians, while others, to the north, are Mahomedans; they also hold a qualified allegiance to Russia. Further north, towards the Caucasus up to the Kuban, are independent tribes, over whom Russia has never been able to establish her dominion, all more or less at war with Russia, and making inroads which Russia resents. Their condition is much the same as it has been from the peace of Adrianople to the present time. None of these countries have been in the least jeopardised by the operations of the war, nor are they likely to feel any greater apprehension with regard to Russia than they felt before the war, in consequence of the peace. But to guard against the possibility that these people, or the unfortunate people of the Crimea, should suffer from any part they might be supposed to have taken against Russia in the course of the war, there is an article in the treaty by which all the parties to it are bound to give a complete amnesty to all their subjects in regard to any acts by which they may have been compromised. [Lord C. HAMILTON dissented.] The noble Lord opposite shakes his head at that argument. He thinks, perhaps, as some Gentlemen do, that all treaties are waste paper, and that you had better make none. With those who so argue there is no arguing in return, because all Human transactions depend upon the good faith of the contracting parties, whether they are private individuals or nations, and the moment you say engagements are worth nothing, you resolve society into its original elements; you go back to the condition of the North American savages or the wildest tribes of Africa, among whom the only protection of man is his own arms, and you put an end to all the arrangements of civilised life.

LORD CLAUD HAMILTON

I never advocated that view. I stated that those people never wished to be subject to Russia, never were subject to Russia, and therefore could not claim the benefit of the amnesty.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

My argument applies exactly to the noble Lord's view. Part of the territories are in a qualified degree subject to Russia, part of them are not. The amnesty applies to those who are subject, while as to those who are not subject, but who have maintained their independence from 1829 to the present period, they have had no intercourse with, they have done no action with regard to, the Allies which alters their position towards Russia; they are as able now to defend themselves against Russia if they are attacked as they have been since 1829, with this difference—during that long period Russia had no other enemy, and was able to pour on them the whole force of an army of 800,000 men, while now the numerical force of that army has been greatly diminished, for Russia herself admits that she has during the war lost something like 500,000 men. I maintain, then, that there is no ground for saying that we have omitted to obtain by this treaty of peace any conditions in regard to the Asiatic frontier of Turkey, or in regard to the forts on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, which the operations of the war entitled us to exact from Russia, or which we had any chance of exacting from her except by a continuance of the war attended by great and marked military and naval successes; and it would not, in our opinion, have been consistent with the interests of the country to continue the war simply and solely for those purposes, when the other objects of the war were accomplished.

Now, with regard to the fourth point—the Christian subjects of the Porte. Everybody, I think, has admitted that the firman which the Sultan has recently promulgated is perfectly satisfactory in its terms and conditions; the only doubt which has been expressed by hon. Members is whether it will be adhered to. It is said that that which the Sultan gives to-day he may revoke to-morrow, and that the treaty does not give to the Allied Powers that right of interference which some hon. Members think necessary for the security of the Christian subjects of the Sultan. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) seems to be of that opinion, but I do wish that those who hold that opinion to remember for a moment what was the cause of the war. It was that the Emperor of Russia sent Prince Menchikoff to Constantinople with a demand which, if agreed to, would have given to the Emperor a right of interference in favour of the Christian subjects of the Sultan, which was held by the Government of the Sultan, and by the English and French Governments, and admitted by the greater part of Europe, to have been a practical transference of sovereignty over 12,000,000 of the subjects of the Sultan to the Emperor of Russia. The war took place in consequence of the resistance of the Sultan to that demand; and if the treaty had placed that firman of the Sultan under the guarantee of the Allied Powers in a greater degree than the note of Prince Menchikoff required that the protection of the Christians should be placed under the Emperor of Russia, the only effect of a war commenced to maintain the independence of the Sultan, and to protect him against an authoritative interference of foreign Powers in the relations between him and his subjects, would have been to multiply by five the evil which he had previously resisted, and to give to all the Allies those very powers to resist which they took up arms to defend the Sultan. Therefore, a war begun to maintain the independence of the Sultan would have ended in utterly destroying that independence. We felt that it would have been utterly inconsistent with the objects and principles laid down at the commencement of the war to frame the treaty in such a manner as to give to the Allies an authoritative right of interference between the Sultan and his subjects. The Sultan, however, was perfectly willing to give to the Allies that sort of moral right which I think ought to be considered a sufficient security for the maintenance of the arrangements which were made, and which in themselves were satisfactory. The firman is not included in the treaty, and no Power, therefore, has a right to say, "Here, by treaty, I am entitled to come to you, and to tell you that you have violated your firman with regard to this villager, or that priest, or that peasant, or that farmer, or that merchant, and I call on you by right of treaty to alter your course; and I am to be the party to judge between you and your subjects, and not yourself." But, the treaty having recorded that that firman has been issued by the Sultan, it is perfectly plain to my mind that it cannot be revoked. In fact, that it should be revoked is a thing which I hold to be as impossible almost, morally speaking, as that the sun should go backwards. That which is more possible, however, is that, for some time to come, cases will arise in which the firman will not be fully executed by the authorities of the Porte in distant provinces and in places not immediately under the view of the consuls; and if that should occur, the fact of the firman having been adverted to in the treaty, and the issuing of it having been recorded in the treaty, would give to the Allied Powers that moral right of diplomatic interference and of remonstrance with the Sultan which I am perfectly convinced would be quite sufficient to accomplish the desired purpose, I do not pretend to say that, constituted as the Turkish system is, that so long as Pashas are employed, such as have been, I fear, but too faithfully described by General Williams, that so long as men are placed in command either civil or military on account of reasons having no connection with their capacity, that we shall find that this firman will in every part of the Turkish Empire faithfully be carried into execution. But at the same time the transactions which have taken place at Paris and the stipulations contained in this treaty will give to all the Powers the right of watching whether the firman is carried into effect, and of remonstrance in case of violation of it; and I am convinced that this right will, in course of time, cause the firman not only to be looked upon as law, but to be carried into practice throughout the whole Turkish Empire. It is impossible, in my opinion, to overrate the value of this firman, not only as respecting the condition of a large number of the subjects of the Sultan, but also as affecting the stability of the Turkish Empire itself. Hitherto the Sultan has been like a person with but one leg to stand on, and but one arm to defend himself, for one-half of his subjects have had no interest in maintaining his empire, and have been precluded from all participation in its defence. Now, however, if this firman be but faithfully carried out, all the subjects of the Sultan will have equal rights, and will equally contribute to the defence of his empire. I can quite understand the manner in which some of those persons, whether in this country or elsewhere, who wish to see a great change in Turkey, who wish to see the Ottoman race expelled and a Greek Empire established, run down this great charter to the Christians of Turkey. I can well understand it, because it is manifest that anything which tends to reconcile the Christian population of Turkey to the dominion of the Sultan, by putting them in possession of those civil rights and privileges which hitherto they have hoped to obtain through the influence of Russia, is detrimental to their views. I can quite understand why those persons should view with dissatisfaction any arrangement which is calculated to render contented that Greek population upon whose misery and suffering they rely to overthrow the present order of things in Turkey. I say, therefore, that, as far as the Turkish Government is concerned, I think that every man, looking fairly and candidly into the provisions of the treaty, will come to the conclusion that not only has more been accomplished than any man thought possible when first the war began, but also that all the concessions which the operations of the war entitled the Allies to demand have been obtained. He will, I think, arrive at the conviction that enough has been accomplished to maintain, as far as human foresight can do, the future independence and integrity of the Turkish Empire.

With regard to the triple alliance of England, France, and Austria to secure the faithful performance of the stipulations of this treaty, I must say that I think the ability displayed by my noble Friend (Lord Clarendon), and by his able associate (Lord Cowley), in the negotiations in Paris cannot be overrated. Their names will go down to posterity as the names of men who have taken an active part in accomplishing one of the most important settlements during many ages of history. I think, then, that as far as the Turkish Empire is concerned I have a right to say that we have accomplished the objects for which we undertook the war. But, according to my view, we have gone a little beyond the object for which the war was commenced, and obtained other advantages placed within our reach by the events of the war. The allied fleets in the Baltic had destroyed the fortress of Bomarsund, the construction of which with great care and with considerable secrecy had been begun, and which was destined to be another Sebastopol in the Baltic. We felt ourselves entitled to require that, these fortifications having been destroyed, and the Aland Islands not having been reoccupied (we might, indeed, be said to remain still in possession of them), an engagement should be made that no military or naval establishments should be maintained on those islands, and that no fortifications should be erected there. That was a stipulation which conduced much to the security of Sweden, and which was a great consolation and a great satisfaction to that country. France and England had in the meantime made a treaty which provided against the creation of a great Russian arsenal in the north of Norway, at a part of the coast where, by the sweeping of the Gulf Stream, the waters never freeze during winter, and where, therefore, a fleet supported by a naval arsenal, would have been able during any month of the year to sally forth if war were declared, and to operate over the British Islands and the whole coast of the Baltic. We had by that treaty secured the northern part of Norway. By the stipulation with regard to the Aland Islands we secured Sweden from a danger which might otherwise have menaced her. It cannot, therefore, be immaterial to the House and to the country to find that, taking a large view of the interests of Europe, we have thus not only secured, as far as arrangements could do it, the southern part of Europe from danger of Russian aggression, but we have also placed a barrier between her and the north of Europe, where the danger lay nearer to our own shores; and was more likely to threaten our own homes. I think that is also a matter honourable to the country, and which must more than fulfil the objects for which the war was begun. Then, I say, that in regard to the treaties, there is nothing of which the country may not be proud, and at which it ought not to rejoice.

Among other topics that have been brought forward during this discussion the proceedings recorded in the protocols have been alluded to. In the first place there comes an hon. and learned Gentleman who objects greatly to the declaration about neutral vessels. Now, it is almost unnecessary to say that, however true may be the statements of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. R. Phillimore), with regard to international law on this subject, the question is whether the policy of the change is not one which deserves the approbation of a commercial country. There is no doubt that the acknowledged public law of Europe is such as the hon. and learned Gentleman represented it. If it had not been so, there would have been no need for the declaration appended to the treaty. The change referred to in it was, however, practically made when the war began, and our experience of the advantage which resulted from it led Her Majesty's Government to think that it would be a wise and politic measure to make permanent an arrangement which had only been temporary, and likewise to couple it with the resolution that privateering should cease. Who are the parties who would be most benefited by the change if it should become general in the practice of nations? We ourselves are not the least likely to profit by such a change. It was owing to the actual relaxation of those laws that during the whole of this war our commercial relations have not suffered, and the interests of the country have remained unaffected in any degree. The parties most likely to profit by the change, however, are the smaller neutral Powers not engaged in war, and who certainly are deserving of encouragement from the greater Powers, alone likely to become belligerents. But let hon. Gentlemen only look at the policy of the measure. It is said that this right of capture was essential for reducing your enemy. Now, tell me any war in which any country was ever induced to make peace by the principle that free bottoms should not make free goods. The fact is, that wars are carried on by fleets and by armies—by the destruction of fleets at sea and by military operations and the capture of strongholds on land. But the idea that the results of war depend on the capture of an enemy's goods on board of neutral bottoms can only originate in a mind wholly unacquainted with the most familiar lessons of history. On the same principle, you might justify the ravages in the Palatinate, and the burning of towns, and the massacre of their inhabitants. But the moderation of recent times has pronounced such practices to be odious; and I am satisfied that these relaxations—so far from depriving us of any weapons to be used in future wars—will be likely to attract to us the sympathies of other countries. I, therefore, am decidedly of opinion that this declaration is one which the good sense and feeling of the country will think is just and proper. My right hon. Friend (Mr. M. Gibson) said that there is no difference between a capture made by a privateer and a capture made by a regularly commissioned vessel of war. But I say there is the greatest possible difference. The vessel of war is commanded by an officer of the Queen, responsible for his acts, and incapable of abusing his power, whilst the commander of the privateer is responsible to nobody, and we all know that privateers have committed acts at which humanity shudders. The declaration against privateering was, therefore, I maintain, perfectly justifiable, and the extinction of that barbarous practice, while it will not trench on the just rights of belligerents, will be a solid gain to the cause of modern civilisation.

Passing to the subject of the occupation of Italy by foreign troops, was it possible, when the representatives of the Great Powers met together for the purpose of putting an end to war, which, if it had continued, might have enveloped the greater portion of Europe in its rage—was it possible, I say, that they should shut their eyes and close their lips to the state of things in Italy? Was it possible that they should forget, when making arrangements for Turkey and Greece, that a State in Italy had been occupied by the troops of two foreign Powers for a period of seven, years, not during war, but during peace? Is that a state of things which ought to continue to exist? And I must say if the representatives of the Great Powers had departed from Paris without saying one word about the military occupation of the Roman States, I think that the English Government would have been justly called to account for this serious omission on the part of their representative. But, Sir, that occupation was discussed. It was stated to be one of those occupations which ought to cease, but the cause which had occasioned the occupation was considered—and what was that cause? The misgovernment of the State so occupied. The hon. and learned Member (Mr. Bowyer) had launched out in an eloquent description of the reverence felt by the people of Rome for the Pope. He stated that he lived in his palace, to which all had access, and that he was perfectly secure. I have no doubt that the hon. and learned Member has spoken the complete truth in that respect. I never for a moment could suppose that the head of the Roman Catholic Church—the centre of the respect of all possessing the Roman Catholic religion—could be in personal danger from his subjects. I believe the Pope to be a most well-intentioned Sovereign; but I cannot say the same of those who govern in his name. I am afraid that his power is not equal to his good qualities. Those who exercise the real power are guilty of acts of tyranny and oppression, the truth of which cannot be exaggerated, and the truth of which is but little known, I apprehend, to the people of this country. It was for the purpose of putting an end to that tyranny that the French and Austrian troops were sent into the Italian States. When my noble Friend (Lord Minto) went on his mission to Italy, he gave sound and moderate advice to the Governments of Italy—advice which some of those Governments had begun to follow when the revolution in Paris broke out, and under the stimulus thus given them the wild spirits of Italy rose against everything like established order, and committed such excesses that the Pope was obliged to quit his capital. Although some atrocities were then committed, as was to be expected in times of such popular convulsions, yet the Provisional Government of Rome endeavoured to mitigate them to the best of its power, and the Holy City had not of late years been better governed than it was during the temporary absence of the Pope. The reestablishment of the Sovereign Pontiff was subsequently effected, but not without the application of the crushing force of foreign military occupation. That measure might have been excusable at the time it was undertaken, but no man could contend that its continuance down to the present time without any symptoms of its being voluntarily put an end to, was a satisfactory state of affairs, or one that did not call for grave consideration. What had the Papal Government been doing during the last seven years, and why had it not adopted the internal improvements suggested, not only by England and France, but by Prussia and Austria, and which, if effected, would have converted turbulence into order, and dissatisfaction into content? Yet all the vices and abuses then existing had only gone on increasing, and the consequence was, that we were now told that foreign occupation was necessary to protect the head of the Roman Catholic Church from personal insult.

But, then, if the government of the Roman States was bad, that of the Two Sicilies was still worse. The representatives of England and France were, therefore, perfectly justified in calling the attention of the Plenipotentiaries of the other European Powers to the anomalous and unfortunate position in which a great part of Italy now stood.

I now come to the question of Belgium. Much unjust animadversion has taken place as to the part taken by England in the Congress relative to the excesses of the Belgian press. The occasion of these discussions I believe to have been some newspapers published in Belgium, but not by Belgians. I have a higher opinion of the people of Belgium than to believe that they would be parties to such baseness as to assist in newspapers advocating the assassination of the rulers of other States. The noble Lord (Lord J. Manners) spoke of an attempt on the part of the Conference to destroy the liberty of the press—what! was it an attempt to destroy the liberty of the press to prevent newspapers from preaching assassination? My notions of liberty of the press certainly do not go so far as those of the noble Lord. Surely newspapers may be prevented from advocating odious crimes without destroying the freedom of the press. It was not wholly unnatural that the Government of France, finding that the newspapers of a contiguous State, speaking the same language, preached up the assassination of foreign Sovereigns, should have expressed a desire to see such an odious practice checked. Lord Clarendon very properly declared that, as the representative of a country of which the freedom of the press was one of the fundamental institutions, he could not identify himself with any measure tending to destroy that liberty in any other country; and there is nothing in the concluding sentence adverted to by the noble Lord the Member for Colchester which diminished the force of that declaration. It has been asked, why did not my noble Friend (Lord Clarendon) take a more sturdy line, and denounce, in indignant terms, this unworthy attempt to injure the freedom of the press? Why, Sir, in reply to that I have only to say the Plenipotentiaries met for the purpose of agreement, and not for the purpose of quarrelling. If my noble Friend wished to break up the Conference by a fine melodramatic scene, and a piece of declamation, using fine flaming sentences upon the liberty of the press, no doubt he might have done so, using sentences which would have received the approbation of any hustings in this country. But such was not his object. My noble Friend expressed his determination calmly, that he would have nothing to do with any proceeding which tended to any practical restriction of the freedom of the press; and I think the House will perceive that, though those expressions were couched in civil and courteous language, they were not the more liable to be misunderstood, and were quite as effective as if uttered in a violent and angry manner. I can assure the House that, if my noble Friend were left to his own natural impulse, he would never give any countenance to an infringement of the liberty of the press. My noble Friend told me the view he meant to take if such a matter came under discussion at the Conferences, and we entirely agreed in his views. This is not the time or place, however, to make a public declaration on this subject regarding the future. We speak for ourselves, but the House may be perfectly certain that it will never find a British Government, through foreign interference, dictating or attempting to dictate to any independent nation what it should do for the purpose of gagging its press. The Belgian Legislature has taken measures upon this head which will, I believe, be sufficient to prevent the commission of the gross abuses complained of. What would be thought if, in this country, newspapers were published by foreigners urging the assassination of a friendly ally? Surely such conduct would excite the indignation of every honourable and right-minded man.

With regard to the peace, I know that there are some in this country who would have been better pleased if no acceptable offers had been made to us, and if the war had gone on, for they anticipated that in that event greater success would have attended our arms, and a more brilliant meed of glory. Such a feeling, I must confess, was not unnatural. Those who saw the magnificent fleet that was reviewed the other day at Spithead, who know in what an admirable condition our army in the Crimea now is, and who are aware that our commerce is unimpaired and that our resources are undiminished by the recent conflict, cling to the thought that if the war had been prolonged for another campaign still greater advantages than those already attained might have been secured. It is more than probable that such would have been the case, and certainly if no conditions likely to accomplish the objects of the war had been offered us no peace would as yet have been made, and we should have had at least one campaign more. But a grave responsibility devolved on us, and when we were offered terms of peace that seemed well calculated to achieve the purposes for which we had drawn the sword, we felt that it would ill consist with our duty and the dignity of the nation to reject them. A just and necessary war I regard as a duty, but when a war ceases to be just and necessary I hold it to be a crime. We must gratefully acknowledge that up to the point to which the late war was carried we were favoured by that Almighty Power who always regards with sympathy the cause of right and justice; but it may not be presumptuous to conjecture that if we had pressed the contest beyond the strict limits of integrity, the favour heretofore vouchsafed to our arms might, notwithstanding the number of our forces and the magnificence of our fleet, have been completely withdrawn. As my hon. Friend, who seconded the Address, said, "the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong," and, although, humanly speaking, our means seemed fully adequate to the contest, we might have had bitter cause to deplore a struggle to which we were tempted by no worthier emotions than our pride and our lust of conquest.

Of the previous century one-half was passed in war. The different wars in which we were engaged in the seventeenth century lasted altogether more than forty-four years. In this century, of which little more than half has expired, we have seen nearly forty years of uninterrupted peace. That, I think, is a good augury for the advancing civilisation of Europe, and is still more satisfactory with regard to the future. We may hope that the peace just concluded, strengthened as it is by alliances of the most extensive character, will assure a continuance of peace equal at least to that which has endured since the termination of the war in 1815. We left off that war, having been the enemy of our great and powerful neighbour, and when peace put an end to hostilities it did not put an end to the feelings which the war had excited, and although we were friends according to common parlance, yet anything but friendly feelings existed between the people of the two countries. We have now concluded a war in which England and France have fought side by side, reciprocally admiring each other's valour, having suffered the same dangers and privations, and made the same efforts which were crowned with the same success, which had cemented an alliance that I trust, is destined to endure for many, many years. But, more than that, we have associated with us a noble State, not equalling England or France in extent or population, but noble in everything that is calculated to dignify mankind—I mean Sardinia. That great people—for greatness depends, not on population or magnitude, but upon inherent qualities—has assisted the great Powers of Europe in a most important war in acquiring not only the glories of war, but the honours of peace. That nation has taken its place at the Congress table, and while other countries greater than itself had taken no part in the war, or, like Prussia, only came in at the conclusion, Sardinia has been an integral element of the Congress, and has the distinguished honour of being a contracting party to one of the most important arrangements ever made by any Congress. Austria was for a long time separated from both England and France by alliances of another kind and divergences of particular opinions. Austria is now bound by the tie of alliance with England and France. Sweden, long balancing between great fear on the one hand and trifling hopes on the other, has now associated herself with England, France, Austria, Prussia, and Sardinia. These alliances are not the offspring of a day, or the chance products of accident, but the results of full deliberation, and the tendency of great material and political interests. They are the more likely, therefore, to endure. What is the effect of that state of Europe upon the course the more likely to be pursued by Russia? Many people think that no reliance is to be placed upon Russia, but that she will continue her long-cherished projects of aggression. I, Sir, for one, do not concur in that opinion. My belief is that the present Emperor of Russia is a man of kind and benevolent feelings, not inspired by ambition of conquests, or at least that the conquests at which he aims are conquests over indolence, undeveloped natural resources, and all those difficulties which prevent the progressive improvement of a nation. My hope is, that he will turn the great power which he possesses to the promotion of the internal prosperity of his vast empire. That is a task with which the noblest man might be contented, and which the greatest and ablest man, however long-lived he might be, could not accomplish. It is said that if the resources of Russia are developed, she will only become more able to continue acts of aggression. I think that is also a mistake. In proportion as nations become prosperous, in the same proportion they value the wealth and comforts which their exertions have procured for them, become wedded to the arts and pursuits of peace, and are weaned from the occupations and objects of war. If, therefore, the Emperor of Russia should devote his energies to the development of the natural resources of his country, to the cultivation of those vast plains which are now arid wastes and barren tracts, and to the connection of distant parts of his empire by the modern improvement of railways, he will increase the probabilities of peace; but, on the other hand, if those expectations should be deceived, if a period of repose should only be used for the purpose of organising the means of fresh aggressions, then the alliances to which I have just pointed, the common union which has been established between the Powers of Europe, would oppose an insurmountable barrier to any attempt which might be made to violate the peace of the world. Therefore, Sir, looking east and west, looking north and south, looking from the centre of Europe to the extreme confines of Asia, I see nothing but sources of hope in every direction. I trust that this war will have settled the division in every part of Europe—that the nations of Europe will turn their attention to the cultivation of the arts of peace, and that those jealousies and rivalries which formerly divided nation from nation, and turned into animosity those feelings of self-pride and self-respect which ought to lead to friendship, will be extinguished. I say that, looking in all directions, I see nothing but sources of consolation and of hope; and I trust the time is far distant when it will be the lot of any Minister of England again to call upon this noble nation for support in any war. If such an occasion should arise, I am convinced, however distant it may be, however the nation in the interval may have devoted itself to the arts and pursuits of peace, the same warlike and manly spirit which was brought out by the late crisis, will be found still living in the breast of England. I trust that period may be long deferred, and that the youngest man who sits in this House may not live to see the time when it will be necessary for the responsible servants of the Crown to call upon the people of this country to support their Sovereign in the prosecution of any war.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Committee appointed "to draw up an Address to be presented to Her Majesty upon the said Resolution."

The House adjourned at half after Two o'clock.