§ MR. MONSELLsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether there is any objection to laying upon the table of the House, the Correspondence which took place in 1825 1407 and 1826, between the Government of this Country and that of Russia, with reference to the Affairs of Greece? The correspondence for which he asked had a direct bearing on the question of Poland. The answer of Russia to the notes of England, France, and Austria, was before the House; and the Russian Government, in that their latest communication, put forward principles which they conceived would justify them in hounding General Mouravieff against the women of Poland, in setting peasants against the landed proprietors, and in carrying on the most barbarous system of extermination that was ever witnessed in the civilized world. It therefore became a matter of importance to find out a case in which the Russian Government had stood towards another country in the same position that we now occupied towards Poland. The case of Greece afforded a remarkable parallel. He appealed to the noble Lord at the head of the Government to print the despatches of which the Duke of Wellington, then extraordinary ambassador at St. Petersburg, was the principal writer, which would show the principles which actuated the Government of Russia at that time. Into the general question he would not enter, but would leave the responsibility entirely with the noble Lord, upon whom it then rested. From the conduct of Austria, and the feeling exhibited by France, there could be no doubt at all, that if England remained firm, great results would be achieved for Poland. The passages hitherto in the history of England connected with Poland were not the most glorious to look back upon. In 1772 France, then under a feeble sovereign, and weakened by a sanguinary war, appealed to England for assistance in preventing the partition of Poland, and England refused. Again, in 1831 France was ready to act, but England refused. The circumstances of the times might have justified such a policy in those days; but now, at all events, Russia was weak, Austria had shown a chivalrous determination to stand by her engagements, France was ready to act, and Prussia by her conduct had, for the moment, almost blotted herself out of the number of the great Powers of Europe. As he had before said, the responsibility rested on the noble Lord, who, better than any other statesman in Europe, was capable of judging how far he would be able to carry out the ends he proposed to himself. In two particulars 1408 the case of Poland was far stronger than that of Greece. In the first place, in 1826 there were no treaty engagements like those of Vienna relating to the Kingdom of Greece; and in the second place, the Greeks, in 1821, had undoubtedly been guilty of a most frightful massacre of the Turks living among them, of men, women, and children to the number of 20,000. No act of barbarity of that sort could be charged against the Poles; under most trying circumstances they had acted for the last two years with the greatest moderation, avoiding offensive demonstrations of any kind. The points of resemblance between the two nations were very striking. One of the great difficulties which had to be encountered in the case of Greece was that it was almost impossible to define the geographical limits of the country, whether it extended to Thessaly or Epirus or Albania. Questions of precisely the same character had since arisen with regard to Poland. In the second place, the war was produced by the strong feelings of animosity which prevailed between two races. Precisely the same feeling existed in the case of Poland. The whole population of Greece were unanimous in their desire to shake off the Turkish yoke, and determined at every sacrifice to do so; in Poland, at that moment, precisely the same spirit existed. What was the course pursued by the different Governments of Europe? It was a remarkable circumstance that Russia was the first to act. The insurrection broke out in 1821, and in 1823 Russia communicated to every Court in Europe a project for settling the question of Greece. It proposed to interfere directly in the struggle, although it had no treaty rights whatever, and objected in the present day to the interference in Poland of other Powers having treaty rights; and it suggested that Greece should be divided into three different governments, with a governor at the head of each, subject to the general suzerainty of the Porte, but having each the power of managing their own concerns. As in the case of the Six Points of our own day, the project was distasteful to both the contending parties. The Greeks did not want to be divided, and the Porte resented interference with its authority. That proposal fell dead, the war proceeded with frightful bloodshed and massacre for a year or two, and in 1826 Mr. Canning sent the Duke of Wellington on a special embassy to St. Petersburg, where a protocol was drawn up, in concert with the 1409 Russian Government, recommending certain arrangements to the Porte, but without menace in the first instance. These propositions were rejected, and England and Russia then concluded a treaty to which France afterwards gave its concurrence. Sir J. Macintosh said that that treaty was not only founded on principles of reason and justice, but was conformable to the soundest principles of the law of nations. By it the three Powers, in the interests of humanity and for the sake of the tranquillity of Europe, offered their mdiaetion and demanded an armistice, as a preliminary condition of any negotiations. They further required that the Greeks should be entirely independent, paying a certain tribute and remaining under the suzerainty of the Porte, but having power to buy up all the Turkish property and turn the Turks out of the country; and stipulated that the limits of territory should be settled by negotiations. The contracting parties engaged that they would seek no augmentation of territory or exclusive advantage for themselves; and there was a secret article providing, that if these propositions were refused, the three Powers should take counsel together as to the course to be pursued. The Turks refused to accept the propositions. They dwelt a good deal upon the revolutionary spirit which was displayed by those who took the part of the Greeks, and declared that if foreign Powers did not interfere, they would be as quiet as possible. That answer was not satisfactory to the Powers, and therefore, with Russia at their head, they took steps to enforce the armistice which they had recommended. The battle of Navarino was fought; and although it was considered in England an untoward event, Sir E. Codrington was applauded by the Emperor of Russia in the highest terms for all that he had done. It was of the highest importance that full details of these negotiations should be laid before the public. The world would then see how Russia acted when she stood towards Greece in a position similar to that which we now occupied with regard to Poland; how different were the principles by which she was then guided from those laid down in Prince Gortschakoff's despatch, and probably even Russian statesmen would be shamed into taking a course somewhat different from that which they were now pursuing. He therefore hoped that the noble Lord would consent to the production of these papers. Statesmen and philosophers had dwelt 1410 much upon the value and importance of that comity of nations by which the public law and public morality of civilized Europe were maintained; but it would be at an end if Russia was allowed to continue the course of murder and extermination by which she had disgraced herself during the last few months.
§ MR. HUNTsaid, he thought they were indebted to the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Cox) for bringing forward the subject of infanticide, which he (Mr. Hunt) knew, from his magisterial experience, was largely on the increase. He did not, however, think that the bastardy law had much to do with the matter. The real cause of half the child-murders in this country was the desire to conceal the shame of giving birth to an illegitimate child. There were two reasons why this crime was on the increase. One was a proper subject for the consideration of the House; the other was beyond the scope of the House, and though very important was calculated to provoke a smile. It was the existing style of dress of the females of this country. He believed that the dress of females in the present day conduced very seriously to immorality. The crime of infanticide was very prevalent among domestic servants, to whom the large full dress had descended, and that dress not only interfered with their usefulness in household work, but assisted greatly in the concealment of pregnancy. With such a dress it was almost impossible for any one living in the same house with a pregnant woman and even sleeping in the same room to know that she was in the family-way. He repeated that this matter was entirely beyond the power of the House; but hon. Members would do themselves a good turn, and at the same time promote morality, if they forbade their female servants to adopt the present fashionable mode of extending their dress. The other cause was the way in which the law was administered, or rather altered by the Judges with regard to child-murder. In former times the questions put in such cases were—whether the child was born alive; whether it came by its death by violent means; and, if so, whether the child came by its death by the hands of the prisoner. The first question was generally answered by a surgeon by means of the lung test. If the child had breathed, it was held that it had been born alive, and could be murdered. That was the old and he believed the right principle, but the Judges, from tenderness and a re- 1411 luctance to convict a woman for the crime of child-murder, had explained away that doctrine. One Judge held that the question was not whether the child had breathed, but whether it had done so when it was entirely separated from the mother. That, he believed, was not a correct interpretation of the law; but yet it had recommended itself to the minds of almost all the Judges. It was now almost impossible to convict a woman of the murder of a new-born child unless she confessed, and even a confession was sometimes not sufficient for conviction. There was a case, for instance, which recurred to his memory in which a woman was brought up at the assizes of Northampton for the murder of her child—a crime which she appeared to have perpetrated in the most deliberate way. She was a widow, she sent every person out of the house when she expected her confinement; she delivered herself; she tied some portion of her dress round the throat of the child, she placed the body under the bed, and she slept upon it for some time until she found time to bury it. The Chief Baron was the presiding Judge, and the woman pleaded guilty. The Judge asked her whether she understood what was meant, and she insisted on pleading guilty. He, however, would not receive the plea, and she was consequently sent back to prison, the result being that when she was brought up the next morning she pleaded not guilty under the tuition of the Judge. The usual question was then put as to whether the child had an independent existence. The doctor said, "No," and his Lordship persuaded the jury to find, which they did with great reluctance, the prisoner guilty of concealment of birth, and not of murder, and he only sentenced her to one year's imprisonment. It would have been much better for the morality of the parish from which she came, that the crime should not have been detected than that it should have exposed and made known that the law only gave one year's imprisonment for such an offence. As a sequel, he might mention that in the garden attached to that woman's house there was found the skeleton of another child to which she had given birth, and which she had no doubt also murdered. Now, such a thing as a woman being hanged for the murder of a new-born child was never heard of. Such being the case, they ought to pass an Act to give some severe punishment for the destruction of child-life, and 1412 not leave the Judges to the alternative of convicting a woman either of child-murder, which they would not do, or of the concealment of the birth, when the evidence clearly proved a murder.
§ SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that owing to the desultory nature of the discussions Which had taken place, he felt himself called upon to mix up several subjects in replying to the Questions which had been addressed to him. He wished, in the first place, to answer those which had been put in the early part of the evening by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) with respect to the state of the law affecting the rating of Compound Householders claiming to vote at Elections, and he must observe, without making any general statement on the subject, that the complaints which arose in connection with it, had their origin principally in the provisions of those local Acts which authorized the imposition of the rate in certain places on the owners, instead of the occupiers. The hon. Gentleman had asked him to look into those private Acts during the recess, and that he was very willing to do. It might be a question for consideration hereafter, whether there might not be a general Act declaring that the provisions of general statutes which did protect voters in the exercise of the franchise under those circumstances should not be made applicable to all private Acts, but he did not wish to express a positive opinion upon the point without further consideration.
He should next advert to the Question put to him by the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Cox), which was one of general importance. There was no doubt that the crime of infanticide did exist to a very great extent, but whether it was or was not on the increase was more doubtful. He was not sure, whether, taking into account the increase in the population and increased facilities of detection, the number of this description of crimes did bear a greater ratio to the population than was the case some time ago. A great many cases were brought to light through the agency of the police which previously to their establishment escaped detection, and the Returns were therefore not to be taken as conclusive on the point. Be that, however, as it might, the suggestions made for the prevention of the crime did not appear to him of a very practical character. The hon. Member for Finsbury suggested that there should be an increased allowance to the mothers of illegitimate children, 1413 but he doubted whether, if such a proposal were carried into effect, it might not tend to the increase of their number. Then, as to the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman opposite with regard to the dress which women should wear, he must say that it appeared to him to be a matter rather for the consideration of heads of families than of the House of Commons. He should be very slow to condemn the rules of evidence in cases of this nature laid down by the Judges, and in reference to the case mentioned, in which the Lord Chief Baron was concerned, he thought that learned Judge, who was a man of great experience, was perfectly right in the course he took, if he believed the woman to be ignorant of the legal effect of the plea of guilty which she put in. The best means of checking the crime of infanticide, in his opinion, was to improve the morals of the people, and for that they must look to an improved education and the spread of religious instruction. No law which Parliament could frame would be effectual to prevent it.
With regard to the question of the erection of monuments in Westminster Abbey, he had the other day road a letter from the Dean explaining the grounds on which he acted in such cases. The Government, he might add, had no power to interfere in the matter, and the Dean and Chapter were, he thought, quite right in principle in objecting to any interference with that portion of the building devoted to the celebration of Divine service. Every facility ought, at the same time, to be given, in his opinion, to the erecting of monuments to distinguished men, provided they did not trench on the space devoted to public worship. With respect to the erection of busts in the Abbey, the Dean and Chapter reserved to themselves the right of granting or refusing permission, permission being granted in no case without the payment of £200. In laying down this rule no sordid motive could be imputed to the Dean and Chapter. They had no pecuniary interest in it, but it was deserving of their consideration how far they might be able in the case of distinguished men to avoid imposing charges of such an amount.
MR. KINGLAKEsaid, that taking into account that that was probably the last occasion in the Session on which the House would have an opportunity of discussing the position of that great nation the Poles—for a great nation he would call them—and bearing in mind also the grave 1414 peril which at that moment threatened the peace of Europe, he hoped to be allowed to address himself briefly to the interesting question which had been introduced by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Monsell). In his opinion, the right hon. Gentleman had succeeded in establishing the analogy which existed between the situation in which Greece was in 1825, and the position of affairs at the present moment with respect to Poland. The right hon. Gentleman might have added one or two circumstances tending to clinch the analogy which he had so well established. The right hon. Gentleman might have said that the condition of Greece at the time she was taken up by France, England, and Russia was inferior in point of strength in many respects to that of the Polish insurgents. Again, the right hon. Gentleman might have strengthened his argument by a reference to the language recently used by the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary, which brought the two cases into a condition of strong resemblance. After deprecating war, and saying that it would take a great deal to cause England to pass from a state of peace, the noble Lord said it would nevertheless not be tolerable, in the existing state of feeling in Europe, that the Polish nation should be destroyed. That was the principle upon which the Powers proceeded in the case of Greece, and that was a principle which he ventured to say could not now be neglected. He regretted that the debate which took place the other night did not occur twenty-four hours later, when they would have been in possession of the despatch addressed by the Russian Government to the Government of Her Majesty. In one sense it was an advantage that the discussion took place without knowledge of the terms of that despatch, because he was inclined to think that a production of that despatch during the discussion would have generated a feeling of indignation in the House of Commons which would have been hardly compatible with the maintenance of peace. Every word which he uttered on the last occasion was spoken with a full sense of the duty which was incumbent on every one of making great allowance for the situation in which Russia was placed. Therefore he hoped that nothing he might say now would be regarded as the result of a too hastily-formed sympathy with Poland, or a too hastily-kindled indignation against Russia. But he confessed he 1415 was unable to read the Russian despatch without feelings of the greatest astonishment. In the first place, the tone was more extraordinary than even the contents. There was a tone of sarcasm which, considering the grave situation of which it treated, was altogether surprising, and must tend to irritate every man who cast his eye over the document. The despatch set out by saying that it was the right of every country to put forward any interpretation which it liked of a treaty, provided that the interpretation was consistent with the words of that treaty. There was some other trifling of that kind, and then there was a great deal of satirical writing founded upon an expression in Earl Russell's despatch. It commented on some words of the noble Earl that every Government should be founded upon the confidence of the people, by raising the question whether the people ought to begin by having confidence and then respect, or begin by having respect and afterwards confidence. It then went on to speak of the despatch itself as giving an indication, forsooth, of compliance by the Russian Government with their own proposal to have an exchange of ideas. In effect the Russian Government put it thus:—"You say one thing; we say the opposite. Now there is an exchange of ideas, and we have fulfilled our promise." Passing from the tone of the despatch to the purport of it, they found no comfort at all. The despatch held out, in the harshest terms, that there could be no end to the sufferings of Poland until they were ended by the unconditional surrender of the Poles. It then went on to reject altogether the idea of any further negotiations with any of the eight Powers who signed the Treaty of Vienna, and proposed to confine all negotiations to the three partitioning Powers. Russia would not consent to any consultation with the eight Powers, but only with the three Powers who were all in the position of participes criminis. The despatch ended with the extraordinary request that the English Government should declare in clear and categorical terms that the insurrection in Poland should not be interfered with by any kind of intervention from this country. Now, not to intervene was one thing; but to declare that they would not intervene was another. In one point of view be hoped that the demand on the part of the Russian Government would be 1416 complied with. He hoped that the answer of Her Majesty's Government would be categorical and clear, and he also hoped and ventured to believe that it would be a categorical and clear refusal. If the despatch from Russia was of a nature calculated to make them despair of any good likely to result from negotiation, they had some consolation in finding that the course taken by Austria was exactly such as the friends of Austria and the friends of Poland would desire to see her taking. The noble Earl at the head of the Foreign Office spoke the other day in very strong and almost enthusiastic terms of the position which Austria was resuming in Europe, and he could not but think, knowing the noble Earl's sympathy with the cause of a suffering people, that when he uttered those words he had some foreknowledge of the honourable and bold course which Austria was about to take. The despatch which had been forwarded by the Government of Vienna to the Cabinet of St. Petersburg was little short of what all the friends of Poland and Austria would desire. The Government of Russia had affected to believe that Austria suggested a conference merely on the supposition that possibly Russia might like it. Austria repudiated the notion, and declared in plain and open terms that the conference she suggested was so suggested that a refusal to grant it must involve the responsibility of the Russian Government. Then, again, the Russian despatch had submitted that Galicia, an Austrian possession, should be brought into the same arena of controversy as the Kingdom of Poland. The Austrian despatch explained that there was a material difference between the two—a difference illustrating that honesty was the best policy; for in the one case all constitutional Government was wanting, while in the other constitutional Government was in full operation. But, above all, Austria declined to enter into any separate negotiation. Austria declined to take any course which could by possibility separate her from the Western Powers; and he perceived by the newspapers that Austria had instructed her representatives in all the Courts to declare that no consideration should induce her to separate from the understanding which she had contracted with the two Western Powers. He thought a despatch in these terms was in a high degree satisfactory. Still, he desired more. Considering that Austria was a Power whose territories bordered upon Poland, he must hold that 1417 it was her duty to take a more prominent part in putting down the sufferings of Poland than was incumbent on the other Powers. Her frontier was disturbed. She had the means of action. He held that where the power existed responsibility followed, and that Austria would do less than her duty if she only did what France and England were prepared to do. He could not but feel that some intention of that kind was shadowed out in part of the Austrian despatch; for in words sometimes used in diplomacy, but not often used unless there was a prospect of negotiations coming to an end, Austria had declared, that if Russia should persevere in the course she had adopted, the grave responsibility involved in that course would rest entirely on the Government of St. Petersburg. He considered that in those grave words there was shadowed out something like an intention on the part of Austria to fulfil the duty which devolved on her. The papers moved for were of great importance in regard to their bearing on the Polish question. It might be that they were in the library, but that would not be an answer to the Motion, because it was extremely desirable that they should be in the hands of hon. Members, and he should see their production with pleasure because of the significance there would be in producing papers relating to Greece, as an illustration of the way in which it might become necessary to deal with Poland. Before Parliament separated, he trusted the Government would consider the position in which this country would stand if massacres and executions in Poland should be horrifying the people of this and of the adjoining country at a time when no negotiations were going on to give a hope that those massacres and executions would cease.
§ MR. HENNESSYsaid, he considered it fortunate that the responsibility of criticising the important despatch recently laid on the table had devolved on an hon. Member distinguished alike by his ability and his moderation. The replies sent by Russia to the three Powers were in truth an insult to each; and the invitations which Russia sent to Austria to join her and Prussia in another Holy Alliance of the partitioning Powers was an insult to Europe. He had no doubt that Russia would receive from this country, France, and Austria, fitting answers. Indeed, it was stated that Austria had already rejected with indignation the invitation of Russia. That was a most critical time in 1418 the history of Poland. For fifty years this country had been giving to Poland words in every shape and form, and there seemed to be at length some appearance of a practical and even speedy settlement of the Polish question. How was that to be brought about? Was it to be achieved by the further continuance of diplomacy? Did they believe that the Government which had sent those insulting despatches could be any longer convinced by the arguments of diplomacy? He thought not, and he would urge on the Government to pay particular attention to the wishes of the people of England, as expressed at numerous public meetings, that they should act in cordial alliance with the Emperor of the French. He believed that the people of this country had full confidence in an alliance between England, France, and Austria, in favour of Poland, and would rejoice to see an end put now to the old policy of words. The time had come for something more creditable to England and more useful to Poland than diplomatic notes.
MR. SOMERSET BEAUMONTsaid, he did not entirely agree in what had fallen from the hon. Member for the King's County (Mr. Hennessy), because it appeared to him that the only subject of suspicion and mistrust, in reference to the solution of the Polish question, was what would be the conduct of France if there was a joint intervention on the part of Poland; for France never made war without an object of aggrandisement. He thought, however, that the hon. and learned Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Kinglake) had shadowed out the policy which would remove all grounds for mistrust. It was the first time that there had been an alliance of Austria with this country on behalf of Poland, and it was not merely the alliance of Austria, but of the whole German nation, as appeared from the opinions of all the British Ambassadors and consuls who had alluded to the subject. According to Mr. Buchanan, writing from Berlin, the Chamber there was in favour of the policy of Austria, not that of Prussia. Sir Alexander Malet, writing from Frankfort, said the whole of Southern Germany was in favour of the Austrian policy. And Bavaria, Saxony, Wurtemburg, and the whole of Germany looked to Austria to lead them. He therefore agreed with the hon. Member for Bridgewater that Austria rather than France had better be looked to in order to solve 1419 the question. Austria would not much longer remain in the situation in which she now found herself—of being obliged to arrest her own subjects, and to prevent arms being sent to people with whom she sympathized. She must soon take an attitude more decided. When she did so, Germany would follow her, and then the solution of the Polish question might be hoped for. He trusted the House would receive such an assurance from the noble Lord at the head of the Government, that it might continue to give him that cordial support and approval which he had hitherto received on the Polish Question.