PAPERS MOVED FOR.

HC Deb 07 May 1861 vol 162 cc1654-712

MR. MAGUIRE

Sir, I respectfully solicit the kind indulgence of the House, while I endeavour to lay before it such facts and reasons as, in my opinion, justify me in the demand which I am about to make. In the early part of last Session, I asked the noble Lord at the head of the Government if he would consent to lay the papers for which I seek on the table; and on that occasion I received one of those answers for which the noble Lord is some- what remarkable, and which generally cause considerable merriment in this House. The noble Lord said, "I will not give them." In consequence of that refusal, I then determined to submit a Motion to Parliament for the production of those papers, and I gave notice to that effect; but, in consequence of the pressure of urgent public business, mainly caused by the complicated and voluminous character of the financial proposals of the Government, I was compelled to forego my intention. I repeated the notice of Motion early this Session, and I now, using the privilege of an independent Member, bring it forward this day; and I think the present time affords an excellent opportunity of discussing a subject which is one eminently deserving of consideration from a British Parliament. The subject is one of equal importance and delicacy, and I, therefore, ask the indulgence of hon. Members while I proceed to bring it before their notice. It was a matter of surprise to many hon. Members to whom I spoke in private, with respect to these papers, that the necessity for such a Motion as I am about to make should have existed—that the Government should have persisted in refusing to Parliament any and every information with respect to the political condition of a people for whose good government, welfare, and content, Parliament and the country are responsible in the estimation of the world. It is true, Her Majesty's Ministers have taken the entire responsibility of the government of the Ionian Islands upon themselves; but, Sir, I deny that they can, either morally or in a constitutional sense, relieve Parliament and the nation from the heavy obligation in which both largely participate. If, Sir, the papers for which I now seek were of a different character from what I believe them to be there would be no necessity for this Motion. If the Ionian people enjoyed a state of profound political repose—if they were content with the existing state of things—if the Representatives of the British Crown opened each Session of their Parliament amidst the felicitations of its Members—if loyal and grateful addresses were periodically transmitted to Her Majesty, the Sovereign Protectress of these islands—if the municipal bodies, and others who may be supposed to express the popular wish, frequently testified their satisfaction at the continuance and consequence of the political connection which exists—if such were the feeling, and such its manifestations, we should have had no occasion to ask for papers in relation to the Ionian Islands; either they would be voluntarily placed upon our table by the responsible Minister of the Crown, or we should find some independent Member properly instructed to evince a laudable anxiety for their production. But when the very opposite is the fact—when, so far from the Ionian people being sunk in a condition of profound repose, they are in a state of agitation which is constant and perpetual—when their impatience of British rule has become a passion, almost a frenzy—when the popular discontent has assumed the character of a chronic disease—when your Representative regards with absolute horror the commencement of each recurring Session—when petitions and memorials, praying for a dissolution of the political tie that links two peoples, so antagonistic and dissimilar, are adopted on every possible occasion—when such is the state of tilings in these islands, I ask, is it not due to the honour of this country, and to the credit of those free institutions of which you are so proud of boasting, that Parliament shall be duly informed of their existence, and not systematically kept in ignorance with respect to them? Is it right that we, who, in the eyes of the world, cannot get rid of our heavy responsibility to these people, should only know of their condition, their movements, their feelings, and their wishes, through some sneering paragraph in a hostile foreign journal, or from some occasional taunt in the despatch of an indignant Minister of a foreign Government, which had been lectured by our Foreign Office. Sir, it is a matter of surprise that, from the year 1853 to the year 1861—a period of nearly nine years—we have not, in our public records, a single word of information with respect to the political transactions of these islands; although, as I shall proceed to show, events of great moment, at least to their inhabitants, have occurred immediately previous to, and since the date of our last information in 1852. Let me, in the first place, say something of these islands, their inhabitants, and their connection with this country. These islands are seven in number:—Corfu, Cephalonia, Santa Maria, Zante, Ithaca, Cerigo, and Paxo. Admirably circumstanced for trade and commerce, and enjoying a delicious climate, they are blessed by nature with singular beauty and fertility. Those who have ever visited them speak of them with rapture; while those who have resided for any time in them and amongst their inhabitants think and speak of them with the fondest remembrance. They are inhabited by a lively, graceful, impulsive, and gifted people—the descendants of a race whom every scholar, every man of education and refinement justly regards as the greatest benefactors of the human family—a race who have bequeathed to the world and mankind a deathless legacy in those arts which adorn and dignify the life of a people—in those monuments of genius, and beauty, and grandeur which are at once the germs and the evidences of our highest civilization—a race who, in their career of matchless glory, wielded, with equal success, the pen of the poet and the historian, the tongue of the orator, the pencil of the painter, the chisel of the sculptor, and the aword of the soldier and the patriot. The inhabitants of these islands cherish in their inmost heart, as their most precious heritage, a glorious pride of ancestry. They boast, and truly boast, that they are descended from the same Greek people who have left to all time, and all ages, and all peoples, that glorious example of what a nation can do when defending its soil from the pollution of an invader's footprints, and its freedom—its homes, its hearths, and its altars—from the yoke of a foreign despot. They sympathize with their brethren of Greece in the traditions and memories of the past; for shoulder to shoulder the Greeks of the Islands fought with the Greeks of the Mainland on the field of Marathon; and their united blood crimsoned the same sea that bore on its bosom that Grecian fleet which made the victory of Salamis memorable in the naval annals of the world. No wonder. then, that with the Greek the idea of nationality is a passionate yearning, which no circumstance can repress, much less obliterate. It is fed and fostered by proud memories which, even in the depths of slavery, are a solace and a consolation, while they are a sting and a reproach. Well, Sir, these are the people who, after many changes of fortune, found themselves, at the end of the great war, handed over, by the Treaty of Paris in the year 1815 to the protection of Great Britain. They had within twenty years passed from the Venetians to the French, from the French to the Turk, then to the Russians, again to the French, and, lastly, by treaty to England. I do not mean to question the wis- dom of that treaty; and, perhaps, under the circumstances, it was the best arrangement that could have taken place at that particular time. But it is necessary to remind the House of the fact that the other branches of the Greek family had then no individual existence. Not only were the Ionian people handed over to the protection of England by no act of their own, but it was impossible that any demand could have been made at that period for annexation to free Greece. There was then no Kingdom of Greece, as there is now, and has been for over thirty years. At that time she was Greece, but living Greece no more. She was trampled down, crushed, and scorned, beneath the yoke of her Mahommedan oppressor. Everywhere throughout that classic land the crescent towered above the cross. Few, indeed, supposed that the pulse throbbed and the life blood flowed beneath the dark pall of her slavery. The Infidel despised while he trampled upon his victim. But, at length, in one sublime impulse of a nation's agony and despair, the cerements of the grave were rent asunder, and the spirit of liberty sprang new-born from the tomb of a nation's slavery; and, on the land and on the sea, on the plain, on the mountain side, and amidst the wild crag and the savage fastness, deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice were enacted, with the applause and sympathy of all that was noble and generous in Europe, that could only be matched in the deathless struggle which their ancestors had successfully waged against the might and power of Persia. Greece then became a free kingdom, with the aid and sanction of the Great Powers of Europe; and from that moment the Grecian family had a home to which to turn, a nationality to cherish, and a common mother to honour and revere. In this new birth of Greece is the origin and the explanation of those frequent and passionate appeals which have emanated from the people of the Ionian Islands, whose dearest and most earnest wish is to be annexed to their mother country—free Greece. I shall not attempt even an outline of the history of the Protectorate from 1815 to 1849, or of the character and policy of its rulers—suffice it to say, that, as a rule, and with a rare exception, the connection between the two countries had been one continued struggle and conflict, beneficial to neither, and not over creditable to this country. I now come to the movement of 1849. Scarcely had Sir Henry Ward—a distinguished member of the most advanced Radical Party of this country, the champion of oppressed nationalities—landed at Corfu, and assumed the reins of power, than an outbreak occurred in the Island of Cephalonia. Writing on the 1st of September, 1849, from Corfu, the Lord High Commissioner assured the Colonial Minister that the movement had more of a local than a political character—that it was a civil, almost a servile war, a war of tenants against landlords; of contadini against signori; of debtors against creditors; in which hostility to the Government was disclaimed. But, when writing in six days afterwards, from Argostoli, he was compelled to write in a very different manner. In this despatch he was obliged to admit that the rising had assumed a political character—that, in fact, the whole island had been revolutionized in three days! What a commentary upon the hold which England had obtained upon the affections of the Ionian people. There is a passage in this despatch to which I would call the attention of the House. Notwithstanding that Sir Henry Ward hurled 900 soldiers upon the island; notwithstanding that its shores were guarded by a powerful navy, he—the Protestant representative of a Protestant Government—thought it necessary to have recourse to weapons of a spiritual nature. It has been the fashion in this country to ridicule the spiritual weapons with which, at various occasions, the Church of Rome has defended her freedom from the encroachment of power, or protected the peace of nations. The "thunders of the Vatican" have been a constant theme of abuse in the literature and press of Protestant England. They have been denounced by The Times and caricatured by Punch. But whenever it is for the interest of this country to employ the same spiritual resources, she, while not neglecting all material aids and appliances, does not disdain to drawn a weapon from the spiritual arsenal of the Church. Sir Henry Ward announces this important fact. He says— The Archbishop, who in common with all the dignitaries of the Greek Church has behaved admirably, has not only at my request solemnly excommunicated the priest Nodaro, Theodore Vlaco, and the rest of his gang, as men whose crimes have disgraced the religion which they profess, but has included in his Pastoral Letter to the parishes of his diocese, 'all those who shall furnish them with refuge, asylum, provisions, arms, powder, or other means tending to facilitate the execution of their guilty designs.' Let us now see the manner in which the Greek Archbishop—who, with the dignitaries of his church, "behaved admirably" complied with the request made on the part of a Protestant country and Government. Hon. Members will admit that his zeal was only equalled by his vigour. Here is the grand passage of this Greek pastoral— May they be trembling and sighing upon the earth, like Cain; may the earth he rent and swallow them, as she did of old Core, Dathan, and Avieron; may they inherit the leprosy of Giezi, and the gallows of Judas; let iron and stones be dissolved, but they never be dissolved, and remain like Tympanoes;—not only the robbers themselves, but also who would give to them, as already said, refuge, provisions, arms of any kind, gunpowder, and bullets. The outbreak in Cephalonia was suppressed with terrible severity. Not a soldier was killed, not even a wound was received by a single man; and yet 21 persons were capitally executed, and more than 100 were flogged—a punishment the most degrading that could be inflicted on a proud and sensitive people; 17 houses were either burned, unroofed, or otherwise destroyed, not, as the despatch stated, as an act of vengeance, but as a matter of policy; vineyards and plantations were uprooted; and the powers of High Police, which Sir Henry Ward himself characterized as a kind of "semi-legal despotism," were employed in the severest manner. Newspaper editors and professional men were banished from one island to another at the sole will of the Lord High Commissioner. I shall refer to the description given by The Times on that occasion of the character and consequences of the terrible severity then exercised, as it became an additional incentive to the demand for annexation to Greece, which from that moment to the present has been increasing in earnestness and intensity. The Times of the 12th of August, 1850, said— The upshot of the whole proceeding is that this lamentable display of excessive severity has proved not only a crime in the eyes of humanity, but a fault in policy of the grossest kind; for it has concurred, with the more recent attack upon the kingdom of Greece, to embitter the feelings of the whole Greek population against ourselves, and to turn their hopes in the same proportion towards Russia. One passage from the same article may not be out of place on the present occasion; especially as I am about to ask for information from the Government with respect to the wishes and demands of the same people— Some of the very men who are so eager to condemn on all other occasions the measures of foreign governments in subduing and punishing insurrections of the most formidable character, were not ashamed to give their vote on Friday evening for the purpose of stifling an inquiry into the conduct of their late colleague, and the present condition of the Ionian Isles. In the despatch in which we have an account of this fearful severity, Sir Henry Ward says— I am perfectly aware that I run the risk of being denounced as a persecutor and a tyrant for taking these steps, but I have no choice; I have to deal with semi-barbarians, as recent events have proved, and I must treat them as such. What a significant commentary upon the advantages and results of British connection! From 1815 to 1849 the Ionians had been under British Government; and yet Sir Henry Ward tells us in 1849 that he has to deal with a race of "semi-barbarians," and that he must treat them as such. It has been frequently asserted—indeed it has been stated a few weeks since in this and the other House of Parliament—that the majority of the Ionians had no sympathy with the cry of annexation to Greece—that it is got up by agitators and demagogues, and in no way expresses either the feeling of the people, or the sentiment of the middle and higher classes. We shall see how this really is. I assert the contrary is the fact; and, if the papers for which I ask are laid on the table—especially the papers connected with the mission of the right hon. Gentleman opposite—the House and the country will have a distinct answer to and refutation of the assertion that the demand for annexation is merely factitious. I desire to have authentic and reliable information—therefore, I move for the papers. Sir Henry Ward thus describes the manner in which he is met by the Legislative Assembly in 1850—just after the suppression of the outbreak, when the influence of the terror which he had inspired might be supposed to have been generally felt. The despatch is dated Corfu, April 20th— MY LORD,—The Legislative Assembly having, after a delay of eleven days, thought proper to return an answer to the speech which I delivered at the commencement of the Session, as offensive in its tone as it was unusual in form—for, instead of dwelling, as is customary, upon the topics adverted to in the speech, it introduced matters for which I was totally unprepared, in order to found upon them a Bill of Indictment against British protection for the last thirty years. I beg to call special attention to the concluding words, for they were not then em- ployed for the first or the lasttime—"a Bill of Indictment against British Protection." This is the stereotyped form of phrase with which every successive High Commissioner describes the claims of the Ionian people to better institutions, or to annexation with Greece. The answer so stigmatized was unanimously adopted by the Assembly. It breathes the most enthusiastic national sentiment throughout, and speaks of the "glorious distinction of being a Greek people." As an exemplification of the spirit in which the document is written, I quote this passage— Such institutions due to the Ionian people by right, to the faith of treaties, to British honour, will make appear less tardy the approach of that hour which is known alone to Providence, and which human calculation cannot foresee, when the arbitress of the seas shall erect a trophy more glorious still than that raised at Navarino, when it shall, with Europe, just and grateful, have united in one body all the scattered members of the Greek family, which, though divided by policy, have in common—origin, language, religion, recollections, and hopes. Well, it has been stated—it was asserted by Sir Henry Ward, and it was also asserted by Sir Henry Storks—that the Ionian people had no sympathy with these manifestations of national feeling. In a despatch dated Corfu, January 24th, 1851, Sir Henry Ward encloses a very remarkable document, to which, because of its importance, as expressing the views of the moderate, the cultivated, and the thoughtful class, he directed special attention. This document is an elaborate reply made by Count Roma, the President of the Assembly, to certain charges brought against him by those who might be called the extreme party in that body. I quote two passages from this document in order that the House may really understand what is the feeling of the educated and enlightened classes—of those moderate politicians who are commended as being so worthy of example. Alluding to his assailants Count Roma says— Men who have laid their hands on that which we hold most sacred and most precious—our nationality—that nationality which was preserved to us amidst the vicissitudes of time, the assaults of barbarians, the violence of the middle ages—and using it as an instrument to their designs, have converted that which was, and is, and will be, the leading desire and scope of the Greek family—its unity—into a means of private vengeance, and of subversive acts, to render more difficult the attainment of our liberty and progress; and even of that very union of which they would wish to be considered the ardent promoters. Here is a passage still more explicit. He says— I do not speak of those generous spirits who, with heartfelt impatience, await the moment when they shall see the regeneration of all Greece, and the union of its scattered members. This is a general sentiment, and not as I before stated to the Chamber, the exclusive privilege of the above gentlemen. I am entitled to take these words as proof that the national sentiment, the desire for union, is not confined to demagogues and agitators, but is common to all ranks and all classes of the Ionian community. It would be a wearisome task to describe the conflicts in which Sir Henry Ward and the Assembly were engaged; suffice it to say that in about three years the Legislative Assembly was four times prorogued, Take, however, one example more of the difficulties of Sir Henry Ward's position, and another evidence of the existence of the aversion of the people to British connection. In a despatch dated 2nd June, 1851, Sir Henry Ward thus speaks of the newly elected Legislative Assembly— From the first hour of its meeting, the new assembly assumed an attitude of hostility, not merely to me personally, but to the political system of which I was the representative. The oath was altered, in order to meet the views of the Cephalonian members, who wished to repudiate British connection altogether. The address presented, in reply to a most conciliatory speech, was a bill of indictment against British rule. In framing that address, many members took a part, who had been loudest in their professions of 'moderation' a few days before. The struggle thus carried on between the Lord High Commissioner and the Ionian Parliament had become a flagrant scandal, not only to this country, but to the cause of representative institutions. Sir John Young was at length appointed to succeed Sir Henry Ward. Now comes a most important period in the history of these transactions. Scarcely was Sir John Young established in office than he found how difficult it was to rule his new subjects. Many a man had before then said—" In Heaven's name, let us get rid of the Ionian Islands; they are of no advantage to us, either in a commercial or strategical point of view." This I know to be the opinion of Members of this House to whom I have spoken upon the subject. The Times expressed the same opinion a few days since. But the country was taken by surprise by the accidental publication of a despatch from Sir John Young, recommending the abandonment of these Islands.

Now, this is not the expression of opinion by an Ionian agitator—by one of those "contemptible demagogues" of the Assembly, as they have been described; but it is the deliberate advice given by a responsible officer of the Crown, communicated in confidence to the Home Government. In fact, the scandal had risen to such a height, that Sir John Young saw no other way of abating it than by getting rid of the Islands altogether. In his despatch of June, 1857, which was followed by a despatch in the same spirit, he said— England is in a false position here, and the islands are too widely separated geographically, and their "interest is too distinct, ever to form a homogeneous whole under foreign auspices. The sooner, therefore, she extricates herself from the position the better for her own reputation and for the cause of representative institutions generally. The despatch thus continues— England could retire from the protection with a good grace. I mean especially from the Southern islands, in which all the difficulties really originate. With respect to one of them"— Here is a bit of a bull— Santa Maura, it is not an island at all—it is a bit of the Continent. Grivas, the noted Greek chieftain, rode from Greece into the citadel, to pay a visit, without dismounting, some weeks ago. To part with it would be a happy boon to the other islands; for while it does not half pay its expenses, it is a heavy clog on the resources of Corfu, its pretensions for patronage and expenditure know no limit. There is one passage in this despatch worthy of special comment, inasmuch as it elicited a very remakable declaration in reply. Sir John Young thus alluded to the people of Corfu—" In Corfu alone, of all the other Islands, there exists no desire to be separated from England." But no sooner was this despatch copied into the Ionian journals, and thus made known to the people of Corfu, than it excited very great indignation; and, as soon as possible, in November, 1858, this protest was published by all the ten representatives of Corfu, with their names attached— A feeling of deep affliction and irritation has been caused in this country by the perusal of the Lord High Commissioner's letter of June 10th, 1857, and July 14th 1858, in which the abominable assertion that the inhabitants of Corfu and Paxo desire to be incorporated with Great Britain is attempted to be proved by a memorandum of the Procurator General, who is considered by the Lord High Commissioner as 'perfectly informed of the sentiments of his fellow countrymen of Corfu.' The undersigned representatives of Corfu, being the interpreters of the wishes and desires of their country, and witnessing the general bitterness excited by these documents, fulfil a sacred duty in giving a solemn denial to the sentiments, deceitfully attributed to their fellow-citizens; and protesting against all machinations, they again raise their voices, as they did on the 2nd July, 1857, in the Assembly, declaring once more that the only wish and desire of the inhabitants of Corfu has been, and still is, to be united to free Greece. Surely, it is not possible to believe, after hearing these documents read, that the feeling of the Ionian people is not in favour of union with the Kingdom of Greece. After these disclosures, the Government of the day wisely thought that something should be done; and they accordingly resolved on a very extraordinary step—that of sending a very extraordinary man upon a very extraordinary mission. The Government of the day certainly did nothing wrong or unwise in sending out a man of the right hon. Gentleman's high character and great reputation, to see what was the political condition of these people, what were their real feelings, and whether they could or could not be propitiated by the offer of constitutional Reform. In his despatch of November 1st, 1858, the Colonial Minister thus described the object of that mission; and in the tribute paid to the right hon. Gentleman I must say I fully agree—for, whatever may be the differences between hon. Gentlemen on party questions, there is not one in this House who is not proud of the singular gifts by which he is distinguished. Writing to Sir John Young the Colonial Minister said— With a view to assist you in discharging the trust committed to you, and also to derive the great advantage of a weighty opinion on Ionian affairs, pronounced by a statesman who belongs to his country rather than to any party in it—who has already occupied with marked distinction the highest offices of the State, whose mind has grasped foreign as well as domestic questions with equal vigour and success, and whose renown as a Homeric scholar will justly command the sympathies of the Hellenic race, Her Majesty's Government have resolved on despatching the right hon. W. E. Gladstone as a Special Commissioner to inquire into and report on the whole state of government of the Ionian Islands, and on the political relations between the protecting Power and the people, so, let me hope, as to lead to the equitable and constitutional adjustment of every existing difficulty. The object of my Motion is to ascertain of what character that inquiry has been, and what were the recommendations which the right hon. Gentleman had made. No one off that Treasury bench has seen this Report, whatever it may be; and it is to afford Parliament and the country an op- portunity of knowing what so eminent a man really did, and said, and recommended, that I ask for the papers connected with his mission. It was understood at the time that he was to follow the example of Lord Durham in his celebrated mission to Canada, and make a Report in the same manner. Lord Durham's Report was published, but not that of the right hon. Gentleman. When the Colonial Secretary received the formidable protest from the representatives of Corfu, who so indignantly repudiated, as a calumny discreditable to their patriotic feelings, any desire for further or closer connection with England, he expressed great regret at receiving it, and he thus alluded to the extent which Mr. Gladstone's mission did not reach:—"It is not within Mr. Gladstone's power to consider the abrogation of the Treaty of 1815, or the cession of the Ionian Islands to any State in Europe. Her Majesty's Government cannot invest him with such power, nor would they, if they could." I say, then, that Parliament knows nothing of the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman prosecuted his inquiry, or the result of that inquiry. We want the Report, and the recommendations of the Report; and it is not to the credit of this country, nor is it respectful to Parliament, that all knowledge of so important a mission should longer be withheld. The right hon. Gentleman arrived at Corfu on the 24th of November, 1848. No sooner was it known that he was to come on his great mission, than a feeling of passionate hope passed, like electricity, from Island to Island, from community to community. Even before they caught one glimpse of that pale, thoughtful countenance, or heard one sweet tone of that voice which can lend enchantment even to the details of the dryest Budget, they hailed him as a political saviour, who was to free them from a detested connection, and grant to them the fulfilment of their wishes—union with their mother country, free Greece. As he approached the shore, the cannon thundered their noisy welcome, and the bells rang forth their joyous peals; but the thousands who crowded from all the islands met him with a more impressive greeting—with shouts, and cries, and the wildest enthusiasm. The right hon. Gentleman held levees, which were attended by all classes, including the highest in rank. The dignitaries of the Greek Church—who, according to Sir Henry Ward, had behaved so "admirably" in 1849—were also pre- sent. Hardly anyone approached the right hon. Gentleman that was not armed with a petition in which the universal wish was expressed. The right hon. Gentleman was frequently compelled to put these petitions aside, and to explain that he had come for the purpose of inquiring into their political condition, and, if possible, ameliorating their institutions; but that, in fact, he did not come to hear one word on the only subject that seemed to be dear to their hearts. It is alleged that the feeling of nationality is not general, and that it is confined to a few who trade upon this sentiment. Let us see how this really is. I shall read two or three passages from addresses to the right hon. Gentleman from the chief municipalities of the Island, from the clergy, and from the Legislative Assembly—from all those who could legitimately express the public feeling—which must refute such an assertion. In the address, or proclamation, of the Council of Cephalonia, one might almost recognize the fine Roman hand of that eminent expounder of constitutional doctrines, our Foreign Secretary. Its doctrines of national right were nearly the same as those laid down in his famous despatch to Sir James Hudson, which aggravated everything, and rendered everything ten times worse than it was before. In their address the municipality say— Seeing that the independence, the self-government, and the nationality of every people are its natural and indisputable rights; seeing that the people of the Septinsular States, forming an integral part of the Hellenic race, is deprived at the present day of the de facto exercise and enjoyment of those rights; seeing that the causes which led to their being placed under the protection of Great Britain, in virtue of a treaty to which they never gave any assent, no longer exist; seeing, lastly, that part of the Hellenic race to which they belong, namely, free Greece, has obtained its rights of self-government and nationality; for all these reasons the first free Council of the deputies of this Island proclaim that the joint feeling, the fixed and irrefragable desire, of the Septinsular people is the recovery of its independence and its union with Greece. It is absolutely necessary that I should trouble the House with two other documents addressed to the Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary, in order to show what the feeling of the Ionian people really was and is. The Municipality of Zante transmitted to Corfu an address of which I give the following extracts:— The people of these Islands have expressed their firm and unalterable will to return to the bosom of their mother, free Greece, as soon as Great Britain had guaranteed them freedom of speech and of election. That was made known to the whole of Europe by the declaration of the 26th of November, 1850, which the unexpected prorogation of the Chambers prevented from being unanimously adopted; by the persecutions which followed, directed against those who proposed that declaration of union, and supported the sentiments and the just demands of the people, and against which the Chamber vainly protested on several occasions; by the rejection of the reforms proposed in 1852, and by the unanimous declaration of the Chamber on the 20th of June, 1857.… Now, if the gracious Queen is desirous, through your Excellency, of promoting the happiness of this people, she certainly cannot satisfy that Christian duty without giving it its emancipation, as it can only find its real happiness in its annexation with free Greece, with which it forms one family. The Municipality hope that your Excellency, as the interpreter and defender of the real happiness and rights of the Hellenic people, will represent that appeal to Her Majesty's Government, that, by its high co-operation with the other Powers which signed the Treaty of 1815, its realization may be accelerated, and an act of justice and humanity be rendered, worthy of the English nation. We cannot, surely, refuse to hear the voice that came from Ithaca, an island which must have such peculiar charms for our modern Ulysses. Here is an extract from the address of the deputies of Ithaca— Excellency, we fulfil a sacred duty in appealing to so distinguished a statesman, and we owe it to the people whom we have the honour to represent to speak to you respectfully, but also with that sincerity which is due to the character with which you are invested, respecting the feelings and wishes of the population of Ithaca, which are shared in by the populations of the other Islands. Excellency, be assured that the population of these islands entertain the most profound respect for the English nation, that they only feel gratitude for all the good which the British Government has done them, and that they forget all the evil which its officials may have done, misunderstanding their mission. Belonging to the same family with the inhabitants of enfranchised Greece, the Ionians feel the most ardent wish to behold their fate united with that of the Kingdom of Greece, to share good or bad with our national family. These few words sufficiently express the character and the sentiments of the population of Ithaca, as well as that of the whole Ionian Republic. Knowing what weight the precious words of your Excellency will have on the position which will be taken for our country's future, we entertain the flattering hope that your Excellency, whose nobility of heart and Phil-Hellenism are no secret to us, will exert your best efforts in favour of the populations of Greek nationality, who desire nothing so much as to behold the great English nation acquiring new claims to their gratitude and devotion. I could quote similar addresses, but it is unnecessary. Now as to the feeling of the clergy, who behaved so admirably in 1849. The Bishop of Corfu, on the 5th of January, 1859, published a declaration in these words— I declare to the world at large that the inmost, unalterable, and highest desire and wish of myself and the clergy of Corfu was, is, and will be, the national liberation of the seven islands—that is, their union with their mother—free Greece. On one occasion the Bishop of Zante was about presenting the right hon. Gentleman with a petition in favour of annexation to Greece when he was stopped by the right hon. Gentleman, who then read him a lecture on nationality, which it is to be hoped the Foreign Secretary has had the opportunity of studying. The right hon. Gentleman said— The mandate of the Queen Protectress requires me to hear the complaints of every class of persons, to invite suggestions and advice, but not to invite or listen to anything else. … I speak with due respect of every sentiment of nationality so long as it keeps within the limits of possibility and justice; but they who, without considering time, method, circumstances, and consequences—in a word, facts—would like to take the sentiment of nationality as the rule for human things, may be styled out of their senses. I may add that doctrines of nationality couched in certain terms, become doctrines of disorder and anarchy. What is the idea of nationality taken as an exponent of the policy of these Islands, when neither time, method, circumstances, or consequences—in a word, facts—bear it out? It must not be imagined that the doctrines of nationality, as laid down by the Foreign Minister, have at all tended to the peace or happiness of the world. We shall see whether the demand of the Ionian people is within the limits of justice. The lecture thus proceeds— A higher authority, the British Government, has expressed its opinion on the subject. It is not a month since. Lord Malmesbury, the British Minister for Foreign Affairs, sent a circular despatch to all the English representatives at European Courts, to inform them that England recognized the obligation imposed upon her by the Treaty of Paris, and never had the intention or the wish to disown them. That despatch will shortly be published. There is no doubt that Lord Malmesbury did express great reverence and respect for the Treaty of Paris. But I have heard the Treaty of Paris and the Treaty of Vienna spoken of with great contempt by hon. Members opposite. I have also, on other occasions, heard those treaties spoken of with much respect by Gentlemen on the Treasury bench, notwithstanding that we have been told by Prince Napoleon that his distinguished relative had cut them through with the sword. But the treaty which binds the Ionian people to this country is, of course, to be held sacred. The crowning expression in favour of nationality was made on January 29, 1859. When the right hon. Gentleman was at Corfu the following resolution was adopted by the Legislative Assembly, on the Motion, I believe, of Signor Dandolo— That it is the unanimous and sole wish of the Assembly that there should be an union of the seven islands to the kingdom of Greece. The right hon. Gentleman objected to the form, and suggested a petition or memorial. They took him at his word, and a Committee met and drew up a petition, reiterating that it was the dearest wish of their heart to annex the islands to free Greece. Before reading the answer I will quote a passage from a speech of the right hon. Gentleman— I can affirm to you that Her Majesty's Government and myself are animated with the most sincere wish to approve the condition of the people, and the object of my mission is that their improvement may prepare them for the union which seems designed by Providence.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

What are you quoting?

MR. MAGUIRE

I quote from a speech attributed to the right hon. Gentleman by the Trieste Gazette.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

I do not recognize it.

MR. MAGUIRE

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will recognize the subsequent part. The Times of the 31st January, 1859, copied from the Trieste Gazette a speech of Mr. Gladstone in reply to the Bishop of Cephalonia.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

I never made it.

MR. MAGUIRE

Sir, it is because I do not want to rely on fallible sources of information, that I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give Parliament and the country an account of what he really did and what be really said. The right hon. Gentleman denies a speech attributed to him by a public journal, which could have no object in misrepresenting him. But, assuming that this information is not reliable, the right hon. Gentleman alone can give us correct information, and it is to attain that correct information I make the present Motion. Well, then, the right hon. Gentleman was alleged to have said— If the Republic of the Seven Islands were the only Greek country subject to foreign dominion, my nation might be induced to make a great sacrifice; but the inhabitants of Thessaly, Epirus, and Canada, who desire, like the Ionians, to be united to their brothers of free Greece, are subject to a foreign power. For that reason the Ionians ought to limit themselves to possible desires, and to accept the reform offered to them by the Queen. I really cannot see that the right hon. Gentleman has any special reasons for repudiating that speech. Of course, if he did not make it, he has a right to deny it. But, in my mind, it has a marvellous similarity to several other eloquent children given birth to on that memorable occasion. The Nord, however, believed that the right hon. Gentleman made the speech attributed to him; and the foreign journal thus answers, fairly and reasonably enough, the conclusive argument of the Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary— Doubtless, if the Ionian Islands were annexed to Greece, that Power would not have gathered together all her children under the protection of her crown. Thessaly, Epirus, and Crete would still remain subject to foreign rule, and be so kept in virtue of the treaty which guarantees the territorial integrity of Turkey. Doubtless, their populations also would continue ardently to desire, like the Ionians, union with their brethren of free Greece. But what has that to do with the enfranchisement of Ionia? Because justice cannot be rendered to all at once, is it not to be rendered to any? Because Turkey cannot be reduced, is Ionia, which is not dependent upon it, to remain subjected to a detested protectorate? The formal answer of Her Majesty was delivered by the right hon. Gentleman to the Legislative Assembly on the 5th of February, 1859. It was in these words— Her Majesty has taken into her gracious consideration the prayer of the petition presented by the Legislative Assembly of the Ionian Islands, with reference to the interests of the islands themselves, of the states in their neighbourhood, and of the general (or federal) peace. Having regard to those objects, Her Majesty, invested as she is, by the Treaty of Paris, with the exclusive protectorate of the Ionian States, and constituted the sole organ of those States in the Councils of Europe, can neither consent to abandon the obligations she has undertaken, nor can convey nor permit any application to any other Power in furtherance of a similar desire. Her Majesty does not desire to impose new fetters on opinion, but she will enforce, wherever it is placed in her charge, the sacred duty of obedience to the laws. Her Majesty has adopted on her part the measures which she deems most conducive to the good of the Ionian people, and she awaits for the co-operation of their Parliament. I do not know whether I am rightly instructed—for really I cannot say upon what information I can rely in the absence of these official documents which have been so long denied Parliament, owing to the Government's reticence, or the right hon. Gentleman's modesty—but I am informed that on the same occasion the right hon. Gentleman offered to the Assembly a new Constitution, enlarged popular powers, and great reforms. The right hon. Gentleman, however, left the Island immediately after, and Sir Henry Storks the next day assumed the duties of the office of Lord High Commissioner. Whether the proposed constitution was "a mockery, a delusion, and a snare," I know not; but this I do know—that it was indignantly rejected. Then commenced the troubles of Sir Henry Storks. A legacy of embarrassment was left to the ordinary Lord High Commissioner by the Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary. Alluding to this offer of a Constitution, it is rather curious to see that Russia, in 1803, offered and gave the Ionians a Constitution more liberal than that which they possess at this moment. In a celebrated pamphlet by an Ionian, published in London in 1851, I find the following statement:— The Russian Protection, also by this Constitution of 1803, gave the vote by Ballot, the free election of a Representative assembly, consisting of forty members; threw open all the offices of the State to the Ionians solely"— which England has not done and does not do— instituted an Upper House of seventeen members, chosen by the Electoral Body, in whom were vested the Executive Power of the State, foreign or domestic, and the management of the revenue and expenses, according as they might be settled by the Legislative Body. This liberal Constitution was given by Russia, at a time, too, when there was no demand for annexation; when, in fact, there was no country to which the Ionians could be annexed. I want to know what the character of the Constitution proposed by the right hon. Gentleman—what he did really offer the Ionian people as an equivalent for the nationality which they demanded; and I desire to have it, not from the right hon. Gentleman's own statement alone, because his memory may be fallible, but from the documents of the time. If an offer of a liberal nature were made, and it did not satisfy those to whom it was made, then it is obviously impossible to satisfy them with anything less than what they desire; and, therefore, as it is stated they are of no advantage to this country, why then, in God's name, let us get rid of them. An article upon the subject appeared in The Times a few days ago (cries of "Oh!" from the benches below the gangway on the Ministerial side of the House). I really do not know why some hon. Gentlemen murmur. If there were any other newspaper of equal authority with The Times, I would quote it. The Radical papers used constantly write on this question, but they have not done so lately; and if I want to see what is the expression of public opinion I am obliged to go to the only journal which has written a word upon the matter. That is a fair reply to the murmurs; but besides that, what I am about to quote just suits my purpose. The following is the opinion of the leading journal:— There is no doubt that we can confer enormous benefits on the Ionian Islands by keeping them under our protection, and there is as little doubt that we receive none in return. Corfu is not, as has been so often asserted, the key of the Adriatic, or of anything else, except the treasury chest of England. It is not long since the whole French Fleet sailed passed it to Venice without being either seen or heard of, and we only enjoy this glorious possession because the other Powers at the Treaty of Vienna who could have held it were wiser than we, and would have nothing to do with so costly a possession. If the Ionians are weary of us we can assure them with all sincerity that we are quite as tired of them. For our part, we should see with great satisfaction the only course adopted by which the islanders could be brought really to appreciate their present situation. We should be glad to see them handed over to the kingdom of Greece, with the consent of an European Congress, and we doubt not that a few months' experience of the financial and police system of King Otho would instruct them better than all the homilies we can preach as to the true extent of the miseries they endure under the English Government. The change would be highly beneficial to us, and, as their representatives earnestly desire it, we cannot see for what reason it should be deferred. Let the islanders seek happiness where they believe they will find it, and where, if they do not find happiness, they will acquire the wisdom that never fails to come from experience. The right hon. Gentleman, one of the most eloquent and persuasive of living men, could not satisfy the Ionians. If he could not do it, who could? But he failed, although he approached them with his hands loaded with gifts. The Ionians received him as the Trojans did the insidious offer of the wooden horse by the Greeks— Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes. "We will not have British Protection even when accompanied by the most liberal institutions." I hope hon. Gentlemen like my free translation. It has been asserted, over and over again, that the feelings of the Ionian people are in no degree represented by the petitions of the municipal bodies, the declarations of the clergy, and even the resolutions of the representatives. I have in my hand a pamphlet just written by Signor Dandolo, in which, while condemning the arbitrary conduct of Sir Henry Storks in proroguing the Assembly in March last, he appeals to the right hon. Gentleman for assistance and sympathy, and calls on him to refute those who dare assert that the feeling in favour of nationality is not universal. The following passage is interesting, as it affords us a glimpse of the pleasant manner in which the right hon. Gentleman was occupied on his arrival in Corfu:— The conduct of his Excellency, under similar circumstances, is in striking contrast to that of his very noble predecessor, Mr. Gladstone; who in 1859, when I proposed to the Chamber the union of our Islands with Greece, not only did not oppose the resolution or think of proroguing the Parliament, but went about the streets for several hours at night, delighted to behold the joy and enthusiasm of the people, as well as the general illumination. He stopped with pleasure to read in the transparencies the numerous inscriptions expressing the vows and hopes of the people, and their gratitude towards that distinguished personage himself. But what was the reason why the Ionian Parliament was so abruptly prorogued this year? Because they were going to discuss—not some extreme resolution to which many members of the Assembly objected—but the principles of that dangerous despatch to the British Minister at Turin of which the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary is the author. The noble Lord in that despatch gave poor Sir Henry Storks a bard nut to crack. I ask, could there be greater degradation conceivable than that the representative of the British Crown should be obliged to ask what he was to do if the principles of that despatch were forced on for discussion in the Ionian Parliament? The poor unhappy military man—utterly bewildered with the rule of a people who hated and abhorred British connection—thus wrote to the Duke of Newcastle on the 18th of January, 1861— If the principles laid down in the despatch of Her Majesty's Secretary for Foreign Affairs to Her Majesty's Minister at Turin, of date October 27, 1800, are brought under the consideration of the Legislative Assembly, am I at liberty to stop the discussion, and, if necessary, prorogue Parliament? "In the name of Heaven," cried that poor, bewildered military gentleman, "what am I to do with a bombshell of this kind? If I allow it to explode in the Ionian Parliament, there is an end to British rule in these islands." The Duke of Newcastle saw the danger, too; and so Sir Henry was empowered to prorogue the Parliament—of course, not because they were afraid of the principles of the despatch, but on mere technical grounds. No wonder the Government at home felt alarm; for the Foreign Secretary had distinctly laid down the doctrine that a people were the only true judges as to who were to rule them; and that, if they were discontented with their rulers, they had a clear right to rise and depose them. Nay, the noble Lord went farther, and said that in such a difficulty a people had a right to appeal for foreign aid—and that under certain circumstances (such as we have witnessed not many months since), the Power applied to was justified in responding to that appeal. Let us remember to what rulers and what people these principles were applied. It was not against foreign despots—for I suppose you will have them styled despots—but against native princes, born amidst the people over whom they ruled, that a native population was justified in rising in rebellion; and it was the yoke of a native ruler that they were to shake off. We are told that the principles which are applicable in the case of the Italians are not applicable in the case of the Ionians. Let us see. An Italian people may rise against an Italian Sovereign, and may call in the aid of another Power to further their designs; but the Ionian people, who have no connection with you, by sympathy, feeling, race, language, or religion, have no power to decide whether they are to be ruled or "protected" by England; and if they dare to propose the discussion of a resolution asking for foreign assistance, that moment their Parliament is to be prorogued; and, if they attempt to persevere in their appeal to the European Powers, who were parties to the treaty which placed them under the protection of the British Crown, the authority of the law will be severely and terribly enforced. I should like to have a rational explanation of the doctrines of the noble Lord as applied to these two cases. Signor Dandolo, in a special letter to the noble Lord, assured him that his famous despatch had filled the Ionians with confidence, and that they felt satisfied that he Would apply his principles in her own case. When the right hon. Gentleman went to Corfu, he was received as the representative of a great and magnanimous people, whose boast it was that they were the friends and protectors of liberty throughout the world—that their country was the asylum, the shelter, and the bulwark of endangered freedom; and it was fondly imagined that he had come, in pursuance of the principles so often laid down by his present colleagues to give them, not a paltry, nibbling improvement in their Constitution, but that to which they believed they had a right—annexation to free Greece. English Ministers have said that this connection is not for the advantage of England. If such be the case, why not give it up? I am afraid that England is too selfish to keep what is disadvantageous to her. But it is said that this is a trust confided to her by the Powers of Europe. If, then, these islands be of no advantage to England, but rather the contrary, is it not possible to come to some arrangement with those Powers in respect to these Islands? Why not ask the European Powers to relieve England from the charge. The right hon. Gentleman is alleged to have said that union with Greece is the manifest destiny designed for them by Providence. If this be so, is it for man to stop the way? Does Providence decree that which is not just? How, then, can it be said that there is no justice in the demand of the Ionians? I call on the right hon. Gentleman to state what was his impression of the feelings of the Ionian people on this subject. I also demand the despatches themselves, giving a detail of what he witnessed, and his impressions, written while they were fresh, of the wishes and feelings of the people, of the clergy, of the municipal bodies, and of the Parliament of the Ionion Islands. Let not the House shrink from making this demand. It may not be, it is true, convenient for the Government to have published to the world a glaring contradiction to the principles which they have announced for other countries. In the name of justice, I ask that you, who proclaim liberty to all the nations of the earth—that you, who are the propagandists of rebellion in other countries—should not stifle the free voice of a people with whom you profess to have sympathy, and whom you are bound by treaty to cherish and protect. We have frequently denounced the vice and the folly of concealment. But was there ever a more glaring case of concealment than the present? For the sake, then, of the Government, of the honour and consistency of the right hon. Gentleman himself, and of those principles in which he so largely participates, and which his colleagues so audaciously proclaim, I call on the House of Commons to assist me in obtaining the information for which I now respectfully ask.

MR. CONINGHAM

seconded the Motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that She will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, Copy of Papers and Correspondence relative to the Mission of the Right honourable W. E. Gladstone to the Ionian Islands, as Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary, in November, 1858: And, of Papers and Correspondence in continuation, namely, from the arrival of Sir Henry Storks in Corfu, on the 16th day of February, 1859, to the latest period, including those in relation to the Prorogation of the Legislative Assembly by Sir Henry Storks, in March, 1861.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

Sir, on grounds which are personal to myself, but with the approval of my colleagues, I shall beg to be excused from voting on the present occasion if the hon. Member should press his Motion to a division. But I am desirous also on grounds personal to myself to take the earliest opportunity of explaining my opinions with respect to his proposition. And I shall commence what I have to say by explaining to the hon. Member that I think he is under some degree of misapprehension with respect to the intentions of the Government. It is not the intention of the Government to accede to his Motion, but the grounds on which they feel it to be their duty to decline do not reach quite so far as he supposes. It is by no means their duty or their desire, as appears to be imagined by the hon. Member, to withhold all official information on the subject from this House. The information to which he refers, in point of fact, divides itself into two classes. There is a series of papers which it was my duty to send home from the Ionian Islands, and which bear immediately on the constitutional question of the mode in which they are and have been governed, and in which their relation to this country has been conducted. These are the reports which as Her Majesty's Special Commissioner I sent home; they are documents which run over a good deal of history, and contain much free comment on details, both as to men and as to things. Some part of them are of a nature which probably would make it inconvenient at any period to produce them. The greater part of them on the contrary, might perhaps, under other circumstances, be produced; but, on the ground of their containing comments of the nature I have described, and I will say, in the name of the Government, on account of the opinion entertained by those who who are now responsible for the peace, order, and government of the islands, we think it not desirable at the present period that these reports should be laid before the House. But it does not in the slightest decree follow that we should, therefore, withhold from the House all information. For example, the hon. Member thinks that correspondence of mine would be found to contain evidence with regard to the state of feeling in the Islands; he has also observed, with great truth, that proposals of great importance were made by me in the name of Her Majesty to the Ionian Assembly, and that the House is entitled to be informed of the nature of those proposals, and of the reception with which they met. Now, as to the first of these—namely, the correspondence—my hon. Friend the Under Secretary for the Colonies will explain that he is perfectly prepared, exercising a proper discretion, with a view to the public interests, in any casual particular, to produce the correspondence which will give the hon. Member the information he seeks as to the state of feeling in the islands. And as regards the proposals I made in the name of the Queen to the Ionian Assembly, I am afraid the hon. Member, great as has been the laudable pains he has taken to acquaint himself with the history and details of this subject, has been so unfortunate as to miss just one chapter of information, and that, perhaps, the most vital and most material of all, because both the proposals made to the Ionian Assembly and a very full address delivered to that Assembly on the part of the British Government by myself, containing the whole sum, upshot, and substance of my reports, and of the recommendations in which they resulted, not were produced, but were published in every journal at the very moment when they were made known to the Ionian Islands; and, unless my memory very much deceives me, they were also at the time made the subject of very free comment, not in this, but in the other House of Parliament. Although, therefore, we do not accede to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, yet in substance out of what is contained in these reports, historical in their character, that which he principally desires, can and will be laid before the House.

The hon. Member has entered into matters of very great interest and importance in dealing with the Motion he has made; and I quite agree with him that we are not to suppose that because the population of these seven Islands occupy a very small space in the public eye, therefore, we can afford to deal lightly with their concerns. The character and reputation of England must be dear to us alike in great matters and in small; and small as are the Islands themselves and the immediate interests connected with them, yet from a variety of circumstances a very considerable portion of historical interest attaches to them and their concerns, and undoubtedly their affairs have been and may be from time brought under the eye of Europe in general, as well as of this country, in a much greater degree than might be supposed from their own intrinsic importance. The hon. Member says that at the time when Sir John Young recommended that Corfu should be converted into colony a protest was issued by the representatives of the people at Corfu, and that the publication of that protest was probably the origin of the mission I undertook to the Ionian Islands. Now, there is one conclusive reason why that could not be the case, and the reason is, that the protest was not published—nay, the despatch out of which it grew was not published until after I had left England on that omission. The argument post hoc, ergo propter hoc, is not always a strong one; but the argument ante hoc, ergo propter hoc, must be a good deal weakened. It would have been absurd either in my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire (Sir Bulwer Lytton) to have projected or in me to have undertaken that mission after the feelings of the people of the Islands had been vehemently excited on the subject of the union with Greece by the publication of that despatch; but the publication took place not only after my mission was arranged, but after I was on my way and could not possibly relieve myself by abandoning the charge which I had undertaken. I must add. Sir, that I never repented of having undertaken that mission. In the first place, I should not lightly regret any proceeding which like this one had the effect of placing me in close relation with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire (Sir Bulwer Lytton), of whom, I am bound to say, simply rendering the testimony which experience enables me to give, that even the brilliancy of his genius is, in my opinion, less conspicuous than the thorough high-mindedness of his character and his conduct upon every occasion. But, apart from the pleasure I had in all my dealings with my right hon. Friend as the representative of his colleagues—and, of course, when I speak of him I mean to make no invidious distinction, for I know no grounds for any, between himself and the Government that concurred in his proceedings—there was another and a main reason which appeared to me also greatly to recommend my accepting the offer, when it was made to me, of such a mission. I confess it was not my opinion, viewing the state of the institutions and government of the Ionian Islands antecedently to that period, that the position of this country with respect to them was altogether clear and satisfactory. I was not sanguine even at the outset in the hope that in the existing state of these islands it would be practicable to do what might be desired, and the unhappy publilication of the despatch of Sir John Young greatly diminished any hope that might have been entertained of immediate success. But I was sanguine in the hope and expectation that, through what was tendered by my right hon. Friend and the Government then in power, it would be practicable thoroughly to set right the character of England in the face of the Ionian people and of Europe by at least offering to the people of those Islands institutions undoubtedly and unequivocally founded upon those principles of freedom and armed with those guarantees of freedom which are so inexpressibly dear to ourselves. That was the object for which I undertook that mission, and whether the mission was effective for that object we may be hereafter, even if we are not now, fully able to determine.

I stop for a moment to notice a point to which I ought to have before adverted. The hon. Gentleman has seemed to think that blame was due either to the late Government or to the present one for not having produced those papers, because papers of a similar description were produced in the case of the mission of Lord Durham to Canada. But the cases were altogether different. Lord Durham went to Canada, not te consult a people possessed of free institutions, but rather to consider the circumstances of a country wherein all institutions had been brought to a standstill by the action of positive rebellion. The work of reconstruction lay in the hands of England. It was to Parliament, and to Parliament alone, in the first instance, that the appeal was made; and, of course, it was necessary at once to supply Parliament with the means of coming to a judgment upon the matters submitted for its decision. Canada was a colony owing allegiance to the British Crown, while the Ionian Islands are, by the law of Europe, a distinct and independent State. The Act of Union between the two Canadian Provinces was determined by debate upon this floor, and the legislative and political constitution of the Canadas was the result of that operation. But here, on the contrary, the result of the mission, whatever it may have been, was to be effected in the Islands themselves. It consisted of certain proposals made to the local authorities, and, inasmuch as those proposals were declined on the spot by those to whom they were made, nor was there any occasion or any room for a reference to Parliament, or for raising any issue in this country, the reasons which dictated the reports of Lord Durham entirely fail to apply to the present instance.

Now, Sir, the hon. Member spoke tonight as an enthusiastic advocate of what are termed nationalities, I really did not know to what heights of eloquence he was about to attain. He does me the honour to say that I am sometimes moved by feeling. That may be so, but I seem to myself cold as marble when matched with the fervour that the hon. Member has exhibited tonight. As we listened to him it was hardly possible to resist the contagion, or to withhold ourselves from inwardly resolving that we would cast all considerations of prudence and policy to the winds and follow this ardent, this almost ungovernable advocate of nationality and freedom to any point, however remote or extreme to which he might be disposed to lead us. And can it possibly be that the hon. Gentleman who addressed us with such conspicuous ability was the same person whom we have lately heard on the subject of Italian liberty, unity, and independence? There is no breadth of interval on a thermometer which ascends from zero to boiling heat that can for a moment avail to give an idea of the amount of difference between the hon. Member whom we have seen so hyper-fervid to-night as the representative of popular and liberal sentiments, and the hon. Member who has occasionally addressed us with not less determination in support of the sacred rights of the Papal Government and of all the other had Governments, as we think them, of Italy. This is, I know, so far, merely the argu- mentum ad hominem; and the hon. Gentleman may say, in reply, "What you have urged against me does not justify you, for there is equal inconsistency on your part; you are for the Italians, what do you say for the Greeks? but there is also this difference, I speak individually, you are a servant of the Crown, associated with a Government, and I have a right to challenge you in this respect." Well, Sir, I do not think of evading the appeal, and as I proceed the House will judge between us.

The hon Member stated that great popular excitement prevaded these islands, of a nature to threaten the public tranquillity. Of course I have no minute information on the point at present, but as far as I have previously seen and have the means of judging I do not think it possible to convey a more gross and entire misapprehension. I do not hesitate to say that the sentiment of these populations when I was among them was one of general contentment. At the same time I will no less frankly state what I believe to be the fact as to their Hellenic sentiment—their desire to realize the idea of their own nationality. It is true, as has been stated by the hon. Member, they are the inhabitants of a set of Islands which have been politically grouped together on account of peculiar historical circumstances, but which do not form a geographical or natural whole. It was a saying of Prince Metternich, used for purposes of which I will not now speak, that Italy was a geographical expression, meaning that it was not and could not be a political expression. Now, the precise reverse of the expression of Prince Metternich holds good in this case. The Ionian Islands are not a geographical whole, they are only an accidental whole, and small, scattered, and remote from one another as they are, they bear witness, even upon the face of the map, that they must hope at some time to pass into new conditions of existence. A real unity of a political kind cannot possibly exist in these Islands, which are mere fragments scattered along the coast of Greece, brought together and also kept together by causes which are entirely exceptional. Under these circumstances, their people value the connection in which they stand towards one another, provisional though they may think it to be, because it binds them together as Greeks; for it is a palpable fact that they do entertain a strong sentiment of nationality, and do desire that the day may come when the Greek race shall be again united and powerful. And, Sir, I confess it grieves me to the last degree when I see, as I occasionally do see, that sentiment on the part of this long unhappy and often oppressed people treated in this country with ridicule and scorn. We assume the care of a people who have been for centuries in the most unfortunate circumstances, and who have always been subject, in one form or another, to foreign domination; we couple that assumption with an express recognition of their independence; we find that they retain the memory of the glorious origin from which they sprang; and then that very sentiment, which is in truth the very proof and badge of national, political, and moral life among them, and their best hope and pledge for the future, we set up and expose as the butt for wanton, cruel, and, I must say, dastardly ridicule. Sir, that is not the tone in which I for one can venture to speak of that sentiment. But let me tell the House what I believe to be the exact state of facts with regard to its prevalence. It exists among all ranks and all classes, it exists perhaps almost without an exception, but it exists in very different forms. It is entertained by the people, not as a sentiment which makes their present condition miserable, but as a hope which they cherish for the future, and of which they would gladly find that occasion would enable them legitimately to avail themselves. It is traded upon accordingly by the worst and most corrupt part of the population; and the worst and most corrupt part of the population of the Ionian Islands are not the masses of the people. I must say that, as far as I am able to judge, they are an amiable and a good people, singularly refined and courteous, not difficult to govern, anything but estranged in sentiment and feeling from the English throne and nation, but, on the contrary, entertaining a warm respect, regard, and even a strong sentiment of gratitude towards them, because they regard England as having been a benefactress to the Greek race. It is a mistake, in my opinion, to suppose that foreign agitation has had power either in former years or at this moment over these islands; that there were or are intrigues for uniting them to Russia or to France. I believe they prefer by far a connection with England, notwithstanding their identity of religion with Russia, to a connection with any foreign country whatsoever. For they desire the blessings of political freedom, and they look upon this country as the chosen seat and principal fountain of those blessings.

Sir, under the circumstances which I have described, there being a natural prevalence of national feeling, its existence affords obvious room and facility for the operations of demagogues. And here I must observe that the demagogues of the Ionian Islands are by no means exclusively those who hold popular opinions respecting freedom and nationality. On the contrary, I am sorry to say that, in my judgment, the very worst of them are certain persons who profess a particular attachment to England. The demagogues of this most mischievous class, and of all classes, trade largely though differently on this sentiment of nationality, and use it as a means of producing excitement whenever a favourable opportunity offers. But let it not be supposed that I seek to stigmatize the upper class as a class. Among the upper class are many gentlemen of much respectability and high character and accomplishments. I have never seen one of these who did not say that he hoped the time and circumstances might come in which the Ionian people might be reunited to the stock from which they sprang. On the other hand, I have never seen one of them who did not also say he believed that that period had not yet arrived. Prudence teaches them that there are practical objections of an insurmountable kind to their union with the Kingdom of Greece, or with the Greek race at large, existing at the present moment. And those gentlemen deprecate in the highest degree those precipitate measures which, under the influence of popular zeal, fomented by selfish men for selfish purposes, are recommended in other quarters. That I believe to be the real state of the case with respect to the prevalence of a sentiment of Hellenic nationality in the Ionian Islands.

The character of these people is certainly a very mixed one, especially as regards the upper classes. There is one fault by which it is strongly marked, and it is a fault which almost invariably attaches to a race that has long been in a subordinate position. It is what may be called moral cowardice. It is peculiarly difficult to obtain a free, genuine, honest expression of opinion in these islands; and of course that difficulty becomes stronger in proportion as popular excitement may prevail. The hon. Member has alluded to the character and condition of the Greek clergy in the Ionian Islands. That allusion leads us to a very curious portion of the case. The hon. Gentleman stated, and stated truly, that in the month of January, 1859, the Greek Archbishop of Corfu had with his clergy expressed a desire for the union of the Islands with Greece. That is, I believe, quite accurate. How came they to express that desire in the month of January, I having arrived in Corfu, and the despatch which was the occasion of the excitement having been published in the previous November? The fact was, at least such is my opinion of it, that the Archbishop and his clergy did not wish to enter into that movement, but that the pressure of popular feeling, being employed as it was by what I may term the professional politicians of the place, certainly left them no choice. The position of the Greek clergy in these Islands is very singular, I know not how many Members of this House may belong to that important association called the Auti-State Church Association, but if those hon. Gentlemen would only transplant themselves to the Ionian Islands they would find themselves with absolutely nothing to do. I do not believe there is so pure an example of a voluntary church on the face of the earth as that which exists in these Islands. As pure an example is by no means to be found in Ireland. In the Ionian Islands, with the rarest exceptions, there are no endowments whatever; there are no parishes, and the organization is simply congregational; the priests are elected to their parishes without any intervention of the bishop, and they are chosen, except in very few instances, by the votes of certain lay bodies, I think termed confraternities, which are attached to each church, and which are sometimes very numerous. In certain instances where there are endowments there is also patronage, but these cases are very few. Those priests, with the exception, perhaps, of those filling high offices or engaged in the work of instruction, are in general persons of small attainments in point of education, but they are intensely identified in feeling with the people. I do not believe they have ever been leaders in the matter of an union with Greece or have spontaneously provoked the sentiment of nationality, for I think they have no desire to mix themselves unduly in political affairs; but when the popular sentiment leads in that direction it is for them to follow, and, sooner or later, follow they must. And here, Sir, in passing, as to the speech which the hon. Member says I addressed to the Bishop of Cephalonia, I can only say that I made no such speech as he has quoted, and that which he has read must be some unauthorized gathering from what was, in fact, a conversation by whom made I cannot say, and with what assistance or what guarantees for accuracy I do not know. I cannot, therefore, be responsible for the document; but at the same time so far as concerns what the hon. Member has cited respecting importance of the considerations connected with the state of Thessaly, and of Albania, and their bearing upon the Ionian question, I adopt the sentiments expressed in the passage which he has read. The hon. Member has made a grave attack upon my noble Friend the Foreign Secretary, who, he says, has one set of weights and measures for Italy, and another set to govern the policy of England towards the Ionian Islands. It is not for me to enter upon a defence of my noble Friend, especially as we have been reminded within a very few days by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) that the policy of my noble Friend upon the vital and all-important questions connected with the state of Italy has not been challenged in this House, the free and open assembly of the representatives of the people. But without entering upon a defence where I cannot admit that any is needed, and where if it were needed my noble Friend would wield his own weapons with a master's hand, I must venture to disclaim, on my own part, the admission of any selfish or separate interest on the part of England in this Ionian question. In my opinion, we must be prepared firmly and steadily to apply in our own case the same principles which we urge for the adoption of others. But, though the principle be the same its application may out of regard for the very principle itself require to be varied. It ought not to be varied for considerations of selfish or separate interests, but it must be varied according to the wider considerations of prudence and policy in connection with great European interests, and the question here to be weighed really is, what is the bearing of those considerations of policy upon the position of England in her relations with the Ionian Islands. The hon. Gentleman finds an article in a newspaper which says the Ionian Islands are of no advantage to England, and then he thinks he has proved his case and says, if they are of no advantage to us, why do we not give them up? Now, as to the question whether they are of no advantage, there ere, I believe, differences of opinion. Some persons think that Corfu is of great value as a military position. Others think that there is great political influence in Eastern or other affairs attaching to the possession of the Protectorate. I must confess I am rather disposed individually to agree with the views of the hon. Member, and to say that, as far as I can see, England has no separate, or selfish, or peculiar interest whatever in maintaining that protectorate. It is in my view entirely a matter of that kind of interest only which is in one sense the highest interest of all, and in another sense no interest at all—namely, the interest which is inherent in her character and duty, and her exact and regular fulfilment of obligations which she has contracted with Europe. The obligation she has contracted with Europe was for the benefit of Europe. She undertook that protectorate because it was deemed to be safest in her hands; she contracted, then, an obligation which she can never surrender until it can be surrendered in a manner that is likely to conduce to the benefit of Europe. The hon. Member asks why do we not apply to the other Powers and see whether they will agree to release us from our obligation? But, Sir, there are conditions preliminary to any such application. You must be convinced in your own mind that it is desirable in the interests of Europe that you should be so released. That is a question which the hon. Member has entirely overlooked. He thinks that when once the admission is made that England has no separate interests in maintaining her present relation to the Ionian Islands, the whole question is disposed of. He quoted from me a sentence, the substance of which I dare say may have been spoken by me, although I do not remember the words, that as long as Thessaly, Albania, Candia, and the Greek islands were in political relation with the Turkish empire it would be a matter of great and serious risk to remove the Ionian Islands from the British potectorate. I must say that it appears to me, both upon that ground and also upon another and more specific ground, it, is a serious question to adopt the advice of the hon. Member forthwith to unite the Islands to the Kingdom of Greece. I am bound to say that I have no evidence of any great wish on the part of the Kingdom of Greece for such an union. Though with imperfect means of information, I am inclined to believe that opinion in Greece is divided upon the question of an immediate union with the Ionian Islands, and no one who considers the differences of laws, usages, and social condition between Greece and those Islands will be disposed to think that there is any very strong prima facie case for such union. But has the hon. Member considered the condition of affairs in free Greece itself? I am not going to indulge in general invectives against Greece. She has had great difficulties to contend with. The establishment of the Greek kingdom is closely connected with a name which must ever stand among the most illustrious in the history of the foreign policy of England—I mean the name of Mr. Canning—and that name is almost as much revered in free Greece and the Ionian Islands for services rendered to Greece as it is in England, the country of his birth. I need not enter into the question of the establishment of that kingdom which I conceive to have been a most happy event in the interest of Europe. I need not attempt to examine the history of its progress, or the state of some political questions intimately affecting its condition, or the conduct of its Sovereign, or its Government. But I am bound to say that such information as is at my command does not give the belief that the political condition of free Greece is so consolidated, her laws and institutions so matured, that it is at the present moment in a condition to offer itself as a nucleus and rallying point for the scattered members of the Greek race. It is my belief that for the present it is better for free Greece to confine herself to looking after her own concerns than to undertake the concerns of other people. And I believe it would be nothing less than a crime against the safety of Europe—I might even say against its immediate tranquillity—as connected with the state and course of the great Eastern question, if England were at this moment to do what the hon. Member recommends, that is to say, if they were to apply to the Powers of Europe to be allowed to surrender the protectorate of the Ionian Islands for the purpose of uniting them to free Greece. Consider, again, the bearing of this union, if it took place, upon the condition of what I may call the Greek provinces of Turkey. What! are we to say to the people of the Ionian Islands, "It is so intolerable that you should remain apart from the kingdom which has its capital at Athens, that we will disturb the European arrangement, and remove forthwith the protectorate of England, in deference to the principle of nationality?" And could we at the same time say to the people of Candia, of Thessaly, of Albania, "You shall remain, not under a Christian protectorate, but under a Mahommedan sovereignty, and your desire for nationality shall remain ungratified? A Christian protectorate was too bad for others a Turkish domination is good enough for you." In point of fact the closeness and urgency of their high political considerations, immediately inherent in the question, have been wholly overlooked by the hon. Member in his zeal for nationality. That zeal undoubtedly is but of recent development, for I think we have only seen it upon this occasion; but it has made such rapid progress, and the hon. Member is so promising a pupil, that when the Italian question comes again under debate I entertain most sanguine expectations that we shall have the gratification of adding the hon. Gentleman to the number of Friends of Italian unity and freedom in this House. But, again, let us for a moment advert to the situation and state of Corfu, from which I may add you can hardly separate the small Island of Paxo, which, though it has a separate civil organization, is little more than a dependency of Corfu. Corfu itself is only separated by a narrow channel—in one place not wider, I think, than two miles from the Turkish territory; and I must confess I think there would be great risk indeed, nay, that it would hardly he compatible with good faith to Turkey, if we were to allow Corfu to become, under present circumstances, a portion of the Greek territory. Men may differ as to the practicability of maintaining the Ottoman dominion in Europe; they may differ as to whether it is desirable to maintain it; but all will agree that whatever is done upon this question should be done above-board upon principle, and with forethought; that we should not by any piecemeal measures bring into operation unawares any source of disturbance which might tend to perplex and break up a great European question, and might have a most detrimental influence upon the future not only of Corfu and Turkey, but of the entire East, and of all Europe, as connected with the great problem of the settlement of the East. If I, for my part, have declined in any way to recommend that the question of union with Greece should be entertained, it is not because I deny the application of the principle of nationality to the Ionian Islands; it is not on the ground of the interests of England, for I think England has none but those of character in this matter—it is because, in respect to that protectorate, we are stewards and guardians of the general peace of Europe, and must do faithfully and courageously whatever the general peace requires to be done.

I should now like to say a few words on the actual condition and the political institutions of the Ionian Islands. Here, again, considering that at the time we assumed the protectorate full power was given into our hands, the character of England is materially at stake. As far as I can perceive the common and popular opinion in this country is that the Ionian Islands enjoy at this moment in spirit and in substance if not in every minute detail, a free government. I am sorry to say, that, in my opinion, this is far, indeed, from being the truth. I do not think that any Englishman thoroughly acquainted with the laws and the system of the Ionian Government would ever dignify it with the name of a free Government as we understand the term; at the same time it is very far from being the consistent and intelligible opposite of a free Government. It is a strange and extraordinary mixture of incongruous elements that are always, and must continue to he, hopelessly in conflict with one another, till they have undergone a reform amounting almost to re construction. Let me mention, first, in what way it is and in what way it is not a free Government. There is perfect liberty of the press, that is a great item of freedom, and I am far from desiring that even under the present circumstances it should be withdrawn; but it is an item which ought to come in its own place and time, and the possession of entire liberty of the press when it does not stand side by side with effective Parliamentary institutions, I must say, a very doubtful and a very mixed benefit. With respect to the franchise it is a great mistake to say—as it is frequently said in this country—that the people in the Ionian Islands have a franchise amounting nearly to universal suffrage. On the contrary, the population of the seven Islands is nearly 250,000, and the number of those who are enfranchised, or possess the Parliamentary vote, is not, I think, more than 6,000 or 8,000. If the Islands, therefore, go wrong it cannot be said that that they are ruined or corrupted by the influence of universal suffrage. There is in that country a power called the "high police;" it has not been exercised for some years, but it is one of the most despotic powers that can be conceived. In the exercise of that power, the Lord High Commissioner, if he thinks fit—that is, if he believes it is demanded for the public safety—can fasten upon any man he pleases, separate him from his family, friends, and occupations, and banish him to any portion of the Ionian territory. Perhaps that does not sound a very formidable punishment; but if we consider that these seven Islands have appended to them several others, some of them containing not more than twenty or fifty inhabitants, and if we suppose, perhaps, the editor of a newspaper [Mr. MA-GUIRE: Hear, hear!] may no such mishap occur to the hon. Gentleman! just as he is preparing a leading article, to be sent off to employ his leisure, and he would have plenty of it, for six months or a year on an Island where a score of fishermen constitute the whole population, and their cottages all the means of lodging and entertainment, it will be seen that this power of punishment may he made a formidable and fearful engine. The total abolition of this power of the "high police" was one of what the hon. Gentleman calls the insignificant boons I was commissioned to offer to the Ionian Islands. Again, the Assembly is not possessed of the right of a free initiative in matters of money and legislation. That, I think, is far from being a free deliberative Assembly according to oar idea of the meaning of the words. Further it has no legitimate means of influencing the choice of the Executive; and lastly, it does not possess the power of the purse. It is quite true that there is a machinery for passing all taxes and ordinances through the legislative body; yet, in case the action of the Legislature is suspended—and these cases unfortunately have not been unfrequent—then a power of raising and applying a revenue sufficient for all practical purposes is reserved to the High Commissioner. That is a clear and sufficient proof of my assertion that a free Government, as we understand it, does not exist in the Ionian Islands. But while they have not a free, regular, and orderly Government, they have a Government that contains within it not only liberal but ultra-democratic elements. Of the press I have already spoken. Next, there is the question of the ballot, a question which has a very large amount of support in this House. Even many of those who oppose the ballot in this country say, as I remember an excellent friend of mine stated in an address to a great constituency, "I have always been for the ballot, but I am bound to tell you that, in my opinion, if the ballot were established, ninety-nine Englishmen out of every hundred would insist upon having it known how they voted." That I believe is the case; and the necessary effect, if anything like that be true, would be to reduce the ballot to a much smaller question than it would otherwise be. But in the Ionian Islands there has never been any difference of opinion about the ballot. All men of all parties have been for it, yet it is impossible to conceive anything more pestilential—Iwill not say pestilential because that is a strong word; but I say it is impossible to conceive anything more injurious than the operation of that system among a people whose greatest misfortune and whose greatest curse at this moment is a want of moral and political courage. I think I have now done something towards showing that while, on the one side, if these institutions are totally inefficacious for the purpose of constitutional Government, upon the other side they are in a bad sense ultra-Liberal. What is perhaps not less mischievous than the foregoing, yet remains to be stated. An Assembly, consisting of forty-two gentlemen meets in a hall where the galleries hold a crowd of, I know not how many, certainly many hundreds, perhaps a thousand persons. We know perfectly well what would be the consequence if we were an Assembly of forty-two gentlemen meeting, not in the mere presence, but under the practical domination of that kind of popular sentiment which prevails under such circumstances. Even this is not the worst. Still there is one great characteristic of Ionian institutions worse than all this. It is this: every member of the Assembly is, in point of fact, a highly-salaried officer of the Government; and, for my part, I trust that of all the changes that may, in the course of generations be made in the institutions of this country, the very last and latest will be the payment of Members of this House. But we are now dealing with the Islands. Not only is the principle dangerous, but there has never been anything like it in degree anywhere. It is not even the mere payment of the Ionian members that prevails; for that, as in America and some states of the Continent—I will not now allude to France—has been bonâ fide in- tended rather to reimburse the members their actual costs than to operate as a pecuniary inducement to seek for election; but every member of the Ionian Assembly is, relatively to the standard of the country, a highly paid political officer, and unfortunately the principle does not stop there, it runs even further, and passes downward from the Assembly through the municipalities of the whole seven Islands. Altogether the operation of the system is to produce the most hopelessly corrupting influence that it is possible to conceive. The extensive and frequent elections, by popular vote, of salaried public officers is enough to destroy and eat up the heart of all political life and virtue in any country. This payment is carried to such a point that a member of the Ionian Assembly receives two or three times as much as a member of the Greek Chamber receives for his attendance at Athens. How has that come about? Unfortunately, it is a retribution which, though late, has come upon us for the manner in which we tampered with duties of our own when we first established a Government in the Ionian Islands under the British Protectorate. And here in one point I agree with the hon. Member. It is a happy characteristic of this country, that when faults have been committed it is our custom to confess them before the world. When the Government was first established under the British protectorate it was founded on the principle of bribing a certain portion of the Ionian people in order to establish the political servitude of the rest. On that principle the Assembly was constituted. But while that body was though nominally elected yet virtually nominated, the members of the municipalities were virtually nominated too. Both were well paid. The time came when they changed from virtually nominated into actually elected officers; but the system of paying the members was, unhappily, not abolished. Hence the hopeless corruption that pervades the Civil Government of the Islands from one end to the other. And the result is curious. Though England bears the entire cost of the military defence of the Islands, and though for this purpose the people are the most lightly taxed in Europe, yet they are on the whole rather more heavily taxed than the people of other countries, from having to contribute to the support of a whole crowd of functionaries, great and small, appointed to do nothing, or to superintend others in doing nothing in num- bers, much as if an actual army had been formed for the defence of the Islands. Now, Sir, I have spoken freely of these fundamental vices of the Government established under the protectorate of England. But I must in common justice to my country say, that while I believe we perhaps, too, finally shrank from giving the Ionians a real constitution in the full sense of the term, I think in every other point our policy and proceedings towards them were intended to be generous. We have made no exactions from them for the support of English interests. They have enjoyed a general security of person and property, such as I apprehend they had never before known. We have introduced many beneficial laws, and we have effected many material improvements that have greatly contributed to the comfort and well-being of the population. This being the state of the Ionian Islands, it certainly appeared to me, as Commissioner—and in this I obtained the assent and support of the right hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for Hertfordshire—that, though from European considerations we could not hold out any expectation that we should abandon the protectorate, yet it pertained to the character and honour of England that the offer should be made to the Ionians of a really free Legislature and of really free institutions. That offer was made, nor do I repent having been the organ through which it was made, whether it was accepted or not. I honestly confess I desire the wellbeing of the Ionian Islands. I am convinced that free institutions would confer upon them great benefits. I know their introduction would be a work of great difficulty, but they would tend gradually to produce a different phase of public opinion, and, likewise, bring out all the best elements of Ionian society—elements which are now smothered and kept down by the foul atmosphere generated by the existing corruptions. The habit of mind produced by such institutions would be the best guarantee and the best preparation for the future. But at the same time these gentlemen in the Islands have thought otherwise. Why have they thought otherwise? Because you have created there such an extraordinary mass of private and personal interests connected with the maintenance of great and little jobs in every form and in every quarter that you have a greater power enlisted against improvement than you can almost hope to bring into action in its favour. That is the real state of the case. The political life of the people is little developed, and the very same men—I beg the House to remark this, for it is of the first importance—the very same men who adhere the most closely to this system of corruption, and who as long as it is left undisturbed proclaim themselves the fast friends of England, are the first to assume the garb of the demagogue and to raise and inflame the cry for union with Greece the very moment you attempt to introduce those practical improvements which would do something to lay waste the rank pastures whereon they fatten. Such is, I believe, Sir, a true statement of the case of the Ionian Islands. I shall not enter into details of the nature of the Constitution which was offered to the people, but shall simply say that it was one which afforded a full and absolute power over the public purse in the sense in which we understand it, and that it, likewise, assigned to the Election Assembly of the Islands at all times a large, and ultimately a commanding influence over the composition of the executive Government, with entire guarantees for personal liberty under all circumstances, and with adequate means of bringing public functionaries to justice in case of malversation. That was in substance the offer which was made with the Executive Government of this country. It was made, both because we desired—I certainly desired it, and I may say the same for my right hon. Friend—to promote the welfare of the people of the Ionian Islands, and, likewise, because we felt the matter to be of great importance in reference to that which we prized still more—namely, the honour and character of England, which we believed to be at stake even in her dealings with that very limited people. Having trespassed thus far upon the patience of the House, I shall not detain hon. Gentlemen for a moment by saying anything that is personal to myself. If it is deemed even ridiculous—I do not mean by the hon. Member for Dungarvan, for nothing could be more kind than his speech—that I should have undertaken so small and limited a mission, and that I should have been obliged to retire from it baffled and disappointed, without any visible result, I am willing to boar without complaint any comment, any criticism, or any ridicule that may attach to my finding myself in that predicament. The object which I had in view, if it has not been gained so far as the advantage of the Ionian Islands is concerned, has been gained at least in one respect—namely, that we have effectually placed England in her right position as the friend of free and constitutional laws and institutions, and have thus enabled ourselves to look Europe in the face and say, that if evils and abuses still prevail in the Ionian Islands, they prevail not by our fault, but in despite of our honest endeavours to cure and to remove them.

MR. CONINGHAM

said, he heartily thanked the right hon. Gentleman for the disclosures he had made with respect to the condition of the Ionian Islands. The picture which the right hon. Gentleman had drawn of the Government which existed in those Islands afforded ample justification for the deep-seated discontent which prevailed among the people. Nothing could excuse the continuance of a Government so hateful to the people who lived under it; and now that the irresponsible head of a great and powerful country seemed disposed to lead the movement in favour of nationalities it was time for free and constitutional England to place herself in her true position, to abandon the obsolete doctrines of diplomacy, and to identify herself with the ideas and aspirations of the age. He trusted that after the speech which had just fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer Her Majesty's Government would reconsider their determination on the question, and not refuse the proposition of the hon. Member for Dungarvan.

MR. LAYARD

said, the question of the Ionian Islands was a very troublesome and mischievous one, and on that account he thought the opinion of the House should be expressed upon it, in order that a term might be put to an agitation mainly promoted by a factious minority, and that the people might be permitted to turn their attention to the development of their resources. If those who, like himself, were known to have raised their voices in favour of oppressed nationalities, without reference to country or creed, should express opinions unfavourable to the existing movement in the Ionian Islands, he could not help thinking that a good effect might be produced among the people. He regretted that the hon. Member for Dungarvan was not prepared to give a little of the sympathy which he had expressed towards the Ionian Islands to the Italians; but if the speeches of the hon. Gentleman proved one thing more more than another, they showed the mischief of hon. Members discussing questions of foreign policy in relation to countries with which they were not acquainted. Only a short time ago an hon. Member addressed the House on the affairs of Italy after a few weeks' residence in Rome, where he was not allowed to see anything which he was not wanted to see, and with little or no knowledge of the Italians as a people or of their language. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Dungarvan, (Mr. Maguire), in like manner had never visited the Ionian Islands, and had no knowledge of them beyond what he had gained from books or newspapers; if he had been as well acquainted with the islands and the country adjacent as he (Mr. Layard) was, he would not have expressed such opinions. The hon. Gentleman had endeavoured to make out a case for the Ionian Islands, but he had in reality shown the opposite of what he intended to prove. It might really be supposed from the language held on the subject that the Septinsular Republic had existed from all time, but the fact was that the Republic was only constituted in 1800. The result of the creation of the Republic was that in two years the island was in such a state of anarchy, and assassination was so rife, that the Ionians were obliged to appeal to the Emperor of Russia to defend them against themselves. In 1815, after mature deliberation, it was considered that, for the prosperity of the Islands, and for the peace of Europe, there should be an English protectorate. For many years afterwards, no doubt, the government of the Islands was not very good. We were inclined to govern them more for our own advantage than for theirs. But this state of things did not now exist. The hon. Gentleman assumed that they were governed now as they were governed thirty years ago. That was not the case. Yet, even during those thirty years, the inhabitants had experienced great prosperity. Lord Guildford gave them a magnificent university; Sir Howard Douglas covered the island with roads; and, in fact, notwithstanding certain periods of misgovernment, nearly every Lord High Commissioner had been a man of liberal opinions, desirous of promoting, as far as lay in his power, the prosperity of the people committed to his charge. Lord Seaton introduced to a certain extent a liberal form of Government, and gave the Ionians vote by ballot. That did not satisfy them; and then the right hon. Gentlemen the Chancellor of the Exchequer was sent out to see what additional concessions could be made. He (Mr. Layard) confessed he had feared at the time that the result of this mission would be a mischievous one; and what he foresaw had really occurred. The right hon. Gentleman, whose broad sympathies were well known, and whose reputation as a Greek scholar was also known, was received in the Ionian Islands, not as a great English statesman, but as a Phil-Hellene, favourable to their annexation to Greece, and when the inhabitants were disappointed they turned upon him. He made as generous a proposal as the protecting Power could offer, and if the Ionians had accepted it they would have been in a position in which no nation in Europe was placed. Indeed, their liberty would have been so great that the Lord High Commissioner could scarcely have had any jurisdiction. The right having been conceded to the Ionian Assembly to send an agent to England to complain of the Lord High Commissioner, wherein they considered that they had cause to do so. A party in the Chambers, however, not only rejected the constitution but refused to take it into consideration. They might have pursued their plans for annexation with Greece and at the same time have ameliorated the condition of their own country, but they preferred to take the course he had stated. Signor Lombardo, among other things, complained that the finances were badly administered, and that public instruction was impeded, but the responsibility of this rested upon the very persons who complained of the present state of things. As to the statement that the Ionians had no liberty for the expression of ideas, the fact was that in no country in Europe would the press have been permitted to publish such articles as were published in the Ionian Islands; and though the Lord High Commissioner had the power of resorting to the extraordinary measures described by the right hon. Gentleman, in no case of late years had he exercised those powers. Then there was a statement That the Ionians had not received the protection to which they had a right under the English flag. That was false. When he was Secretary to the Embassy at Constantinople he had to go to the Porte with claims on the part of Ionians which he was often heartily ashamed of advocating. The Ionians received from our consular agents in the East equal justice with British subjects, and sometimes more. The English flag protected their commerce (and the Ionians were now becoming the carriers of the East), and wherever they went they enjoyed the protection of English consular officers and of English treaties. But what they wanted was annexation to Greece; and why? It was really absurd to represent this as a question of nationality on the same footing with a country like Italy, which had common boundaries, a common language, and one great common literature. There were here seven small islands, containing a population of some 240,000. If they could assert their nationality, might not Malta and Gibraltar do so too, or even some island which it might be still more inconvenient for us to part with? He certainly did not deride what was sometimes called "the jargon of nationalities." He regarded it as the important question of the day; but they ought first to define in what nationality consisted. Did it mean identity of race, of language, of religion, and of geographical limits? If identity, on all these points, were required, the Ionian Islands had no right to claim nationality with Greece. The Greeks were fond of talking of planting the Cross upon St. Sophia's, at Constantinople, and asserting a nationality extending over all Turkey. The thing was perfectly monstrous. In European Turkey, out of 15,500,000 inhabitants, only 1,000,000 were Greeks; and in Asiatic and European Turkey together, out of 31,000,000 inhabitants, only 2,000,000 were Greeks. In Constantinople there were 891,000 inhabitants, of whom 130,000 were called Greeks, though more than one-half were Sclavonians. Thessaly, no doubt, formed a part of Greece, and he regretted it was not added to that kingdom when Greece was made independent. But in Albania there were only a few Greek families, and it had nothing to do with Greece, while the Bulgarians, the Bosnians, and the inhabitants of Roumelia were Sclavonians, who had no sympathy whatever with the Greeks. But were the Greeks themselves Greeks? Even this fact has been questioned by a distinguished German writer who had endeavoured to prove, and to the satisfaction of some, that there was not a single Greek in the whole of Greece. Nay, more, those gentlemen who took so prominent a part in the agitation which was the subject of discussion were not Greeks, but Italians by descent as well as by name, while in point of geographical position Corfu was not Greek, but Albanian, and if given up to any Power ought to be surrendered to Turkey, It would, however, in his opinion, be preposterous to give up Corfu at the present moment. If we were to do so that island would become a nest of pirates and the home of disaffected spirits of all kinds, who might eventually involve this country in a war and bring about that state of things in the East, for the prevention of which we had spent thousands of lives and millions of treasure. He did not think, therefore, any feeling of fancied nationality ought to be allowed to weigh with us in the matter. For his own part, he was anxious that the Ionian Islands should be as prosperous as possible, and if their inhabitants would only turn their attention to working out their own resources, and avail themselves of all the advantages which their beautiful climate afforded they might be as happy as any people in the world. He might observe before he sat down that he regretted very much to hear the hon. Member for Dungarvan speak in disrespectful terms of Sir Henry Storks, who was eminent not only as a military man, but who possessed civil and administration qualities of the highest order. Sir Henry Storks had long resided in the Ionian Islands; he was well acquainted with the language and customs of the native population; and no one, he would venture to say, could have behaved towards them in a "more liberal spirit. To that population—if the words of one who loved the Ionian Islands could reach them—he would repeat the advice to strive to develope their great resources, and to set agitation aside. The time might come when there would be a really free and well-governed Greece, and when it might be the interest of England as well as to the true interests of the Ionians to part with those Islands, but that time had not yet arrived. Meantime, he would make two suggestions of a somewhat practical character; one was that the pay of those gentlemen who put themselves forward so prominently in the cause of agitation should be stopped so long as they were not legislating in the House of Assembly; the other, that Santa Maura should be handed over to Greece for five years, and if at the end of that time she wished to continue in the same position, why, in God's name, let her remain annexed. If those steps were taken, agitation would, in his opinion, be soon at an end, and a great source of mischief to the Ionian Islands removed. He recollected having spoken to a Greek gentleman, who had once held office in Greece, on the subject, who said to him, "You do not know how to govern these people. If they belonged to us we should send a few Albanian regiments two years in arrear of pay, and you would soon see that they would keep them in order." What was the present condition of Greece? With the exception of Athens there was no security for life or property in any part of the country, There was no liberty of speech, no one dared to write or say anything in opposition to the Government, and the despotism which existed was painful to those who, like himself, were in favour of Greek regeneration. If the Ionians felt that they could expect no support from that House to the movement for an union with Greece, he believed the agitation would cease, and they would be led to direct their energies to some more profitable pursuit.

MR. WHITESIDE

said, the discussion in which the House was engaged was—as often happened in the case of debates in that House—of a nature to leave an attentive listener in a state of greater perplexity than he had been before it commenced. No Gentleman in that Assembly possessed in a higher degree those qualities for which the true Greek was remarkable—brilliant eloquence, fine imagination, and, he might add, all the gifts of nature—than the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and when the right hon. Gentleman had been sent out on his mission to the Ionian Islands he, for one, felt confident that, whatever the troubles might be which prevailed in that quarter of the world, they would be, under such distinguished auspices, arranged with more than the wisdom of Nestor and the cunning of an Ulysses. It was, there fore, no less with surprise than concern that he learnt the mission of the right hon. Gentleman had been marked by a failure so conspicuous. Never had a person of such gravity of character and of powers of eloquence so great as the right hon. Gentleman addressed an audience in the hope of reducing chaos to order, and out of confusion creating method and regularity in Government. That evening the right hon. Gentleman had made an able and interesting speech, in which he sketched the people of the Ionian Islands at first as being a docile and amiable race, and easy to govern; but, having laid down that position, he had proceeded, as was not unusual with him, to show how really ill-founded was the picture which he had drawn, and sought to prove to the House that there was scarcely a vice or a bad quality, whether public or private, which might not with justice be attributed to the interesting people in question. That being so, he ventured to say that if Government were before difficult in the Ionian Islands it would after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman be found impossible. Nay, more, whatever the popularity of the right hon. Gentleman might have been in those islands, it would, as soon as his speech had reached them, at once and for ever terminate. He had spoken of the Ionian Parliament as being composed of men who were all bad and corrupt, and had gone on to point out the remedies which he had suggested for those evils which he had so graphically described The result, however, was, that he loft matters in a state of greater perplexity than they were in before, except, indeed, that he had pointed out the impossibity of doing anything effectual. The right hon. Gentleman had failed to show what could be done with the Ionian Islands, seeing that they were not to be given up to Greece, and were not, according to him, fit to govern themselves. He contended that the people of those Islands were absurd and corrupt, and there he left them. Nor did the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken seem to know what was to be done under the circumstances, so the House must appeal to the noble Viscount at the head of the Government, who might not give expression to his opinions with so much eloquence as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but who, nevertheless, might deal with the subject under discussion with more of common sense. For his own part, he believed that the inhabitants of the Ionian Islands had, so far as their personal liberties were concerned, no complaint to make against England; but he must, at the same time, observe that he believed the question of nationality which the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had disposed of so summarily, was, after all, the real question they had to address their minds to; for he understood the right hon. Gentleman to say, that the Ionians were everywhere in favour of the nationality of Greece. The hon. Member for Dungarvan had said, that that was not a matter to be got rid of upon the materials contained in the despatch of the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary of the 10th October; for that despatch led to the conclusion that a people, no matter what were the principles of their Government, were to be masters of their own form of Government, and that when they decided what that form of Government was to be they were to be at liberty to build up the edifice of their constitution as they thought fit. When he read that despatch he knew what use would be made of it. It was immediately laid hold of and applied to Ireland and the Ionian Islands. The noble Viscount knew very well that he could not apply one law to a strong state and another to a weak one, and one principle to one state and another principle to another state. However true it might be that a nation like that of Italy had a right to choose its form of Government, it was not politic for the Foreign Minister to write an essay to that effect, any more than to say that it would be right to sanction the Poles in endeavouring to throw off their allegiance to their present rulers, although he disapproved of the iniquitous means by which the partition of Poland had been brought about. One thing had struck him very forcibly during the debate, and it was that there was a case very much in point. An Irish Gentleman, Mr. Smith O'Brien, was once prosecuted for his life, and the Whig Crown lawyers wished to give a particular colouring to acts he had committed in the county of Tipperary and the adjoining district, his life or death depending on the question of treasonable intent. They alleged that he, a British subject, had paid a visit to Paris and asked Lamartine to interfere in the internal affairs of this country, and that whatever might be the political abstractions on such a subject, in the case itself he (Mr. O'Brien) must be banged on the ground that to ask a foreign power to interfere in the internal concerns of another country was, on the part of a subject, an act of high treason. Mr. S. O'Brien was tried, not for his speeches, but for his acts. The Judges admitted the evidence, which was relied upon as evidence to explain the motives of all his actions, and to justify his condemnation to the scaffold. But had the noble Lord ever read the answer of Lamartine? It was a recorded fact that it was placarded all over the south of Ireland with a view of allaying the political fermentation which prevailed there. And why? Contrast that despatch with the answer of the noble Lord of October 10, and then they would see how a gentleman, a literary man—though not skilled in diplomacy, though not provided with Vattel, though not one of the school of international law of which the noble Viscount opposite was the founder, and of which another noble Lord near him was the most eminent professor—dealt with the same question. Lamartine answered—and on the answer depended, it was thought, whether or not the south of Ireland would be deluged with blood—that his ambassador was in England and the English ambassador in Paris, that the two countries were at peace, and that no matter how great the oppressions under which the Irish laboured might be—and Lamartine did not pretend to deny them—the inflexible principle of the law of nations made it impossible for him by any inducement or promise of assistance to excite or stimulate against a friendly Power an internal insurrection. It was the true principle which the Republican asserted, and while everybody might maintain the right of an oppressed people to judge of their own oppression, it was not proper for the Foreign Minister of England to write essays to show in what particular case subjects might rise against the authority that governed them, it if was desired to keep this country at peace with the world. He trusted that the hon. Under Secretary for the Colonies would acquaint the House with the scheme by which, as anticipated by the hon. Gentleman who spoke last, the population of the Ionian Islands would be restored to that state of contentment and happiness which the Chancellor of the Exchequer wished to give them, but which the right hon. Gentleman had most unfortunately failed to impart.

MR. MONCKTON MILNES

said, that the position of the Ionian Islands at the time of their union with this country was somewhat peculiar. They had been the great frontier between the Christian and the Mahometan world for many years. They had been governed by Italian rulers in an irregular form, as a sort of Italian colony, and all their sympathies were with those people on the mainland of Turkey whom they believed to be of the same race and knew to be of the same religion with themselves. What could be more natural than that, when placed under the British protectorate, they should take a deep interest in that Phil Hellenic movement, which he remembered so well occurring at an early period of his life, when political subjects first began to attract his attention? The noble Lord at the head of the Government took a part in that great movement, and he asked the noble Lord whether he did not see in the history of those times the germ of the principle of nationality which had now grown up in the Ionian Islands to be so troublesome in this country and so useless to the inhabitants themselves? If the Greek kingdom had progressed rapidly to a successful condition this matter might now present a different aspect, and the Greek Government might, perhaps, have been allowed, when able, to incorporate with their kingdom these portions of adjoining territories sympathizing with them. But the question was now complicated. The Greek Government had shown no disposition hitherto to appropriate the Ionian Islands, and he believed he was justified in stating that the Greek Government regarded as strangers the people on the islands in their possession, and did not allow to them all the privileges of Hellenic citizenship, not even to the inhabitants of the magnificent island of Hydra. Therefore, it would be very difficult to proceed by any formal Act to incorporate the Ionian Islands with Greece. But something might be done to show to the Ionian people that this country respected their feelings in the sense explained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, he believed that, if their feelings had been treated with the same regard and sympathy as had been exhibited by the right hon. Gentleman, matters would not have reached the inconvenient position in which they now were. It was because their feeling for nationality had been treated as something hostile to England that they were so difficult to govern. But that feeling was irrepressible; and he utterly denied that it was of a mere transitory nature. It was thoroughly internal and permanent, arising out of our historical past, and growing up to an historical future; and he trusted that the Government, whatever measure they might take, would remember that they had no right to treat the Ionian people as belonging, in the ordinary sense, to a British possession. Our business with them was to protect them from the assumption of other Powers, and it was a fact that it was only after the protectorate had been refused by Russia and Austria at the Treaty of Vienna that it was forced upon us. He had long been desirous to have the subject discussed in Parliament, because he had always felt that after a man of the high position and character of the right hon. Gentleman had been sent on so important a mission it was neither respectful to him nor in accordance with the usages of Parliament that no other information should have been laid before them as to the results of his labours than could be gathered from the newspapers or private sources of information. He could not understand what advantage was to be gained from keeping the right hon. Gentleman's reports so long shrouded in secrecy, when every statesman connected with the administration of our foreign affairs must have known that sooner or later the gist of it must creep out. The concealment of these transactions had been injurious to the character and position o the country in Europe. In every little German newspaper the story of the Ionians had been repeated to the disadvantage of England; but if this debate had taken place at an earlier period none of these accusations would have been beard. The Ionians must he governed on the principles of justice, and at the same time we should do well not to disregard those expressions of political feeling which, so far from being objectionable, were, as the right hon. Gentleman had well said, the very salt of their character, and the groundwork of that energy of character which at some future period would enable them to dispense with our protection. No one could have remarked the elasticity, energy, and activity of the Greek character without acknowledging that the nation was destined to play a great part in the world's history, and to that result he believed the Ionians would in due time contribute.

MR. MONSELL

said, he had listened with the greatest pleasure to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who evidently desired that, by the improvement of their institutions, the Ionians might be gradually educated so as to fit them to become part of that great people to which the hon. Member for Pontefract had just referred. And if the debate had closed with that speech, he should have been satisfied to have remained silent. The hon. Member for South-wark, however, in a speech which jarred harshly with the general tone of the discussion, had laid down several propositions in the dogmatic manner peculiar to him, to which he completely demurred. He said that though in former times the Ionians might have had something to complain of their Government now was a very good one. But was the hon. Gentleman aware that an arrangement made by Sir Thomas Maitland, by which the High Commissioner obtained very considerable influence over the archbishops and bishops, tad recently been taken advantage of to banish to a small island two priests who had been guilty of no other offence then the getting up of an address from the clergy to the Chancellor of the Exchequer? That was an act which every hon. Gentleman in the House he was sure would reprobate. He spoke in high terms of the roads in Corfu, but was he aware that the roads in Zante had been allowed to go entirely out of repair, and that it was almost impossible to traverse them except on horseback? The speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was calculated to sooth the pride of the islanders, and to lead them to acquiesce in the offers which the Government might think it expedient to make them. The speech of the hon. Gentleman, on the contrary—if the Ionians should unfortunately think that his opinions were generally shared by the people of this country—were calculated to alienate them still further. Nothing could be more to be regretted than that, for he looked forward to a gradual improvement in their position without that union with Greece which they desired at present. At some future time he hoped they would be united with the Greek people, who, by their energy and abilities as a commercial people, had vindicated for themselves a great national position. Every friend of the progress of civilization in the East must look forward to that day. The hon. Gentleman was a great admirer of the new doctrines laid down by the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary, who, by the way, was not present that night, thinking, probably, that the discussion might be an awkward one. The noble Lord had laid down the principle that when a people considered themselves to be badly governed they had a right to throw it off. They were to be the sole judges. On that principle the noble Lord would be unable to deny the Ionians the right of joining themselves to Greece or any other country if they thought fit. It was the doctrine laid down by all revolutionists for the last seventy or eighty years, and carried to its legitimate extent by Mr. Jeffreson, who maintained that every people ought to have an opportunity of revising its Government every twenty years, as the sons might not be satisfied with the institutions of their fathers. His main object in rising was to protest against the unsympathizing tone in which the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Layard) had spoken of the inhabi- tants of the Ionian Islands. He rejoiced to think that the hon. Member stood alone, and that Ionian people would learn from the debate of this evening that the English Parliament sympathized with them, and were not averse to the ultimate realization of the national desires and aspirations. He trusted, however, that they would not go faster than reason, justice, and policy, prescribed, and that they would be satisfied with accepting the liberal propositions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whereby they might train themselves in due time to be a part of the great nation which would one day, he trusted, be established in that part of the world.

MR. LAYARD

said, he wished to explain. He denied that he had said anything calculated to irritate or wound the feelings of the Ionian people. His intention was quite the reverse.

MR. CHICHESTER FOKTESCUE

said, that after the admirable and exhaustive speech of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer he only rose to explain somewhat more fully the nature of the Papers which the Government were willing to present to Parliament on the subject. The Papers were of two classes. Three or four reports were sent home to the Crown by his right hon. Friend (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) during his mission at Corfu, which the Government in their discretion, supported by the House, did not think it expedient to present to Parliament. These were documents of a very peculiar kind, and not at all of the nature of Lord Durham's report on the Canadas to which allusion had been made in the course of the debate. The Ionian Islands were not colonies, and Parliament had no power of legislating for them; whereas the result of Lord Durham's mission and report was the passing of an Act of Parliament for the government of the Canadian colonies. Nor were these reports in the nature of diplomatic negotiations with a foreign Power, such as were frequently laid before Parliament. They were reports of the most confidential character addressed to the Crown, the result of which had been embodied by his right hon. Friend in an Address to the Legislature of the Ionian Islands and in a number of Resolutions containing the plan of constitutional reform he proposed. There were, however, many suggestions that had not been adopted—many discussions of a free character which might be of use at some future opportunity, but to publish which at present would do no good, but only furnish texts for a violent press and for political agitators in the islands. On the other hand there were Papers which the Government were both willing and ready to lay on the table. There was correspondence of a public nature that would explain the character of his right hon. Friend's mission, its result, and the reasons why his plan of reform had been rejected. A great deal of the information had already been made public, but it would be now laid upon the table in a Parliamentary shape, and some of the facts might add to the knowledge already possessed by the House. He thanked the hon. Member for Southwark for the way in which he had spoken of Sir Henry Storks, who deserved every word of the eulogy which had been passed on him. He could answer for Sir Henry Storks, that he had carried forbearance to the limits of duty, and that nothing would have induced him to terminate before the proper time the Session of the Assembly but the adoption of violent and unconstitutional measures by an unscrupulous minority, encouraged by a turbulent and disorderly crowd in the galleries. But, although that had been done, he trusted that the House would not be led to suppose that the Ionian Islands were at the present moment governed by force. The state of the case was that the Ionian Assembly had by its own act deprived the Ionian Islands of the full enjoyment of free institutions for the time being. He could himself bear witness to the fact that valuable measures of improvement would have been laid on the table of the Assembly but for the unconstitutional measures which had rendered the interference of Sir Henry Storks necessary. At present the islands were governed by the Ionian Senate, assisted by the Lord High Commissioner. The Senate was virtually, though indirectly, an elective body drawn from the body of the Assembly, and comprising some of its most eminent members, so that the utmost hardship the islands could suffer was that they would be governed by that eminent Ionian Council. As to the Ionian Islands being in a state of turbulence and agitation, nothing could be further from the truth. They were, on the contrary, in a state of the most profound tranquillity. No repressive measures had been found necessary. The agitation was merely on the surface, and was, indeed, to a great extent, factitious. No doubt the agitators and some honest en- thusiasts had a real national sentiment to work upon, but that sentiment was one of the most mild and peaceful character, which did not interfere with the happiness and tranquillity of daily and family life. The echo of these storms was, in fact, louder in London than in Corfu, and he doubted whether so much had been said about the feeling of nationality in six weeks in the Ionian Ialands as had been uttered that night in the House of Commans. He felt a sanguine belief that the discussion which had just taken place would do good in the Ionian Islands. It would convince the inhabitants that not only the British Government, but that the liberty loving Parliament of this country was determined, in the interest of Europe, to retain the protectorate over these islands—a link so light that it need scarcely be felt, and which might be consistent with the enjoyment of the fullest domestic freedom and order in those islands.

MR. MAGUIRE

said, he should accept the offer of the Government, and appeal to their liberality to give the fullest possible information on the subject. It was far from his intention to say anything disrespectful of Sir Henry Storks. He meant only to remark that it was a scandal that the gallant Gentleman should have been placed in such a difficult position as to be obliged to apply to the Colonial Government for advice on such a subject. The description given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer must have made a painful impression on the House, and vindicated many things which he had said. The Government might, according to their belief, be perfectly right in laying down the doctrine that, no matter what was said to other countries, the protectorate of the Ionian Islands must be maintained at all hazards. But when it was said, some time since, that the great interests of the Catholics required that the temporal power of the Pope should be maintained, the hon. Member for Southwark, and other Gentlemen were ready enough to exclaim, "We do not care for those large interests—what do the Roman people say?" He retorted now, "What do the Ionian people say?" Wriggle out of it as they might, the same broad principle should be made to apply to one country as well as to another. It was insinuated that he was a recent convert to liberal opinions. It was not so. His sympathies extended to the whole world. He wished every man to be free—black or white, civilized or savage—and he wished the Italians to enjoy true freedom. But what he objected to was that, under pretence of leaving people to manage their own affairs, the Government had done their best to excite the people of other countries to revolution. If the Government maintained a dignified neutrality he should be quite satisfied. Let foreign Governments and their people fight it out, but let not the Government use the influence of England to crush feeble monarchies and destroy the dynasties of small States. There was no inconsistency between what he had advocated during his whole life. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to think that he had described his offers as very small. On the contrary, he said the right hon. Gentleman went with his hands full of gifts, and as they were rejected, the fact of their being large proved how strong was the feeling of the people in favour of annexation to Greece. He should be sorry if he had injured the cause of the Ionians; but he did not believe that he had, and he was quite satisfied with the result of the debate.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

Sir, I will just say that the hon. Gentleman has shown a very fair and candid spirit, and on the part of the Government I thank him very much for it. I am convinced that he will find in the papers to be presented all the information which he is justly entitled to ask, or which it would be expedient to give. I also concur in thinking that the course which this discussion has taken must do good in the Ionian Islands. It will, I trust, convince the people that on the part of Her Majesty's Government, of Parliament, and of the people of this country there is no feeling with regard to them except that of an earnest desire to contribute to their happiness and prosperity, and I hope that they will be impressed with the conviction that we are so strongly anxious to promote their happiness and prosperity that nothing will induce us to consent to inflict on them the serious injury and evil which would arise from annexation to the Kingdom of Greece. Of course, it is all very well to talk of that as an object of desire to the people of the Ionian Islands; but if hon. Gentlemen knew the present condition of Greece, the discontent which there prevails and the indication of events which are inconsistent with internal tranquility, I am sure they would think that, in the interest of the Ionian Islands, Her Majesty's Government have judged rightly in declining to comply with the wish expressed for a junction with Greece. We are discharging a duty imposed on us by treaty, and at the same time by a due sense of regard for the best interests of the people of the Ionian Islands, in steadily refusing to comply with that request. I trust that the people of those islands will concur with Her Majesty's Government in endeavouring to effect those internal improvements in their condition of which that condition is susceptible, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that if this discussion should, in any way, contribute to facilitate such an arrangement, we shall thank the hon. Gentleman for having originated the discussion this evening.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.