HC Deb 27 March 1877 vol 233 cc553-67
SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

Mr. Speaker, I rise with great reluctance to take a course which has been imposed upon me in consequence of a letter which appeared in the papers yesterday, and which was written by the right hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone.) I should not have taken this course had it not been at the advice of many Friends of mine in the House, on whose judgment, both in social and in Parliamentary matters, I place the greatest reliance. But it is their opinion—and I think it will be borne out by the opinion of this House—that when any hon. Member is to be questioned by another as to any state- ment he has made in debate, that Question should be put in this House, so that both the Question and the Answer should be given in the presence of those who have heard the cause of it. I must state, Sir, for my own part, that nothing would give me greater dissatisfaction than to say anything which I thought would be considered a misstatement of the right hon. Gentleman, or anything which would improperly wound his feelings. Had I made such a misstatement, had I misrepresented him wilfully, or had I thought I had done so, I should at once have made reparation. I will go further, and say that I should infinitely regret if, in the heat of debate, any expression should escape me which, though technically correct, was not consistent with the deference and consideration especially due to the right hon. Gentleman from his great fame, his long career as a statesman, and the pre-eminent ability which he possesses. In these circumstances, I confess I was somewhat astonished at seeing in The Times and Daily News of yesterday a letter, the terms of which are, no doubt, in the knowledge of most hon. Members. I do not complain of a circumstance which occurred—namely, that I did not receive that letter till after its publication, because the right hon. Gentleman sent it to a house in which I lived last year, but which appears as my address in some of the ordinary books of reference. At the same time, the right hon. Gentleman had to take one of two courses—either that suggested by his position as a Member of this House or that of a writer to the public Press. As a Member of this House he should have challenged me in this House; as a public writer he ought not to have sent a letter to the Press until he knew from an acknowledgment from me that I had received it and had an opportunity of publishing my reply along with his charge. The right hon. Gentleman begins— In the debate of last evening, at the time when you knew I could not reply to you, you produced citations from a speech of mine in February, 1867, on the affairs of Crete, and had your reward in the cheers of your friends. Now, it is perfectly true that the right hon. Gentleman under ordinary circumstances could not reply to me; but the same observation would hold good of any speech made after an earlier speaker. It was not entirely my fault that I did. not speak before the right hon. Gentleman. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dublin University (Mr. Plunket) was sitting below me; and I said to him—"If you are not going to follow the noble Lord (the Marquess of Hartington) I should like to do so." My hon. and learned Friend, however, had made his preparations; he had taken notes of the speech of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett); and, of course, after the noble Lord he was first and I was second. But the right hon. Gentleman opposite had opportunities that night of answering me if he had thought proper to do so. There were numerous Motions for Adjournment upon which the right hon. Gentleman might have spoken; or if he did not take advantage of these, he might have made on Monday night such an opportunity as I am making now, especially as the publication of his letter only preceded that occasion by a very few hours. However, the right hon. Gentleman has made against me in print a very serious charge. I do not know whether the words "garbled citation" and "garbled quotation" are Parliamentary words; but certainly I do not think they are words which should be used from one Member to another, either in this House or out of it, without considerable reflection, and without first calling upon the Member so charged for some explanation. Now, the quotations of which the right hon. Gentleman complains are these, and I must ask the indulgence of the House, as the letter is of some length, to allow me to make the question clear. The right hon. Gentleman says— Into such a citation you have been led, certainly not by an intention to mislead, probably by an eager haste, or by an injudicious friend; but I beg to state that in speaking as I did I was not led into anything by an "injudicious friend;" that the quotations which I gave were deliberately made; and that if any blame attaches to any one in consequence of their having been given, that blame I distinctly assume. In the first of the quoted passages, says the right hon. Gentleman— I deprecated the severance of Crete from Ottoman rule. Now, this is what I have steadily done throughout the present controversy with regard to the Slav Provinces. That I acknowledge. I admit that the right hon. Gentleman deprecated the severance of Crete from Ottoman rule, and that he has on several occasions deprecated the severance of the Slav Provinces from that rule; but the question now is as to mode in which peace is to be maintained at the present time, and not the severance of the Slav Provinces. The right hon. Gentleman then says— In the second reference words are so selected as to convey the impression that I had laid down seine general doctrine that humanity was to be set aside whenever it came into conflict with neutrality. If you had read what is omitted from your quotation, it would have been perceived that I did nothing of the kind—that I was giving no opinion on the Cretan case as a whole. Now, I distinctly deny that either the words I quoted or the intention with which I quoted them "laid down some general doctrine that humanity was to be set aside whenever it came into conflict with neutrality." It would be absurd for me to say so. What I did then I do now, and that is to point out that the present policy of Her Majesty's Government is inevitable, from the previous policy of Governments to which the right hon. Gentleman belonged, and to the dicta which at different times he has laid down, whether in office or out of it. I showed that in 1856, in 1862, in 1867, and again in 1871 the right hon. Gentleman and his friends and political associates laid down a policy for this country the inevitable consequence of which is the policy now pursued by the Government. The right hon. Gentleman goes on to say— On certain Papers then just presented to us, not the principal Papers on the subject, but those which made known to us the earliest stages of the insurrection, I conveyed my opinion that those Papers did not furnish a case in which the claims of humanity called for a departure from the laws of neutrality. If the House will allow me to read—["Order!"]—I must ask the indulgence of the House to read a quotation, not per se, but with the phrases which precede it and the phrases which follow it, from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and in protesting against the charge of garbling I think the House will see that the citations which I made were complete in themselves and are not modified by the context. The right hon. Gentleman commenced in that speech by alluding to the Papers, and, therefore, I will begin at that part of his speech in which Papers are mentioned. The right hon. Gentleman said— I am happy to observe that, as far as I can gather from the Papers before us, the noble Lord at the head of the Foreign Office (Lord Stanley) has exhibited much discretion and forbearance in this matter. Then follow the phrases I read— I agree in the opinion"— the right hon. Gentleman does not say the opinion expressed in the Papers, but the general opinion— that he rightly determined to observe and enforce the laws of neutrality, even though at the expense of the calls of mere humanity. The calls of mere humanity it was his duty to repress, and he has repressed them. Then the right hon. Gentleman goes on to say— It was right and wise to say that he would not encourage the separation of Candia from the Ottoman Empire; and it was also right and wise to point out to the Ottoman Porte, as he has done, especially in his despatch of the 17th of January of this present year, that the true policy of the Ottoman Empire, its only policy—the only possible course which it could take in relation to the Powers of Europe, with peace and satisfaction to others as well as to itself—was to do full justice to the principles of the Hatti-Humayoun, and to allow the Christians under their rule to feel that, though nominally under the sway of a Mussulman Power, they enjoyed all the advantages of a Christian Government." —[3 Hansard, clxxxv. 444.] Has not the same recommendation been made at the present moment by Her Majesty's Government? Then he goes on to the other points, and here I must say that when with so much haste and precipitation the right hon. Gentleman accuses me of garbling the quotations which I selected, he might have been a little more careful in his own quotations and selections. Then the right hon. Gentleman says— Within a few lines of your quotation, while commending the policy of Lord Stanley, I go on to supply the answer in the following words: —'I cannot but hope that within the last year we have seen a step in advance in that policy, adopted not at the first moment, but after a brief delay—which it is not for us to complain of—in the case of the Danubian Principalities. The literal application of it may be impossible, but I hope that the principle acted upon in that instance may be adopted throughout the European Provinces of the Ottoman Porte.' These are the words of the right hon. Gentleman, but in what follows that passage of his original speech he more than strengthens the position of the Government, for he says— My hon. Friend the Member for Southwark has pointed out, and the noble Lord points out, the difficulty in the case of Candia, which arises from the presence of a Mahomedan population, which, though numerically small as compared with the Christian population, is in possession of domination and ascendency from ancient times, and is in a more powerful position in consequence of the property and rank which belong to its members. I do not, therefore, pretend to say that the same arrangements as those which have been adopted elsewhere are applicable to Crete; but we are entitled to require from Turkey the execution of her literal engagements, and we are entitled to recommend to her such a policy as the noble Lord has put before her in his despatches.—[Ibid.] But the case of Crete then was strictly analogous to the case which we have to deal with at present. You cannot adopt in these Provinces the arrangements which have been found applicable elsewhere, for the very same reason that the Mahomedan populations in them are so powerful in consequence of their property and rank. ["Order!"] I do not wish to conclude with a Motion; but I must be allowed to establish my position, that this policy of Her Majesty's Government in 1877 is the same as the policy of 1867, which the right hon. Gentleman approved. The policy with regard to Crete was exactly the same as the policy now pursued by Her Majesty's Government. The right hon. Gentleman made these statements in 1867, when out of office; but I would like the House to allow me to show what he did on this subject when he came into office; and I think I will be able to make it clear to hon. Members how analogous his conduct then was to what the conduct of the Government is now. There are two points urged. by hon. Gentlemen opposite.

MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Member up to this moment has availed himself very fully of the right of personal explanation; but it appears to me that he is now going into new matter, and I must submit to him that he ought to confine himself solely to matters strictly necessary for personal explanation.

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

I am afraid, therefore, I shall have to conclude with a Motion. I shall, however, try to confine myself, strictly speaking, to the letter of the right hon. Gentleman, because he says— Your object, as far as I understood it, was to show that at that period, when you quite erroneously suppose me to have contemplated an early return to office, I professed opinions on the Eastern Question which I now combat and condemn. I am trying to elucidate that portion of his letter, because I say that Her Majesty's Government are at this moment pursuing a policy which the right hon. Gentleman in 1867 approved. I will say that it is generally alleged against the Government that they rendered impossible any results from the Conference, because they announced previously that we were not going to use coercion. ["Order!"] I think it is right to call attention to what has been said on high authority upon this subject upon the other side of the House. Towards the end of 1868 a Conference was called together to settle the affairs of Crete, and the differences between Turkey and Greece; and what did Lord Clarendon, who was responsible to the right hon. Gentleman, write to Lord Lyons on that subject? The noble Lord wrote on December 29th, 1868— Now it appears to Her Majesty's Government that the Powers should at the outset carefully guard themselves against taking any active part beyond the mere suggestion of bases of reconciliation in the settlement of the dispute between Turkey and Greece. Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that it should be clearly understood among the members of the Conference that their recommendations are in no case to be supported by any intervention, whether requested by or imposed on either or both parties, on the part of their naval forces. I need scarcely say that Her Majesty's Government cannot contemplate the employment of coercive measures to enforce against either party the recommendations of the Conference. Now, there are three positions which I have endeavoured to support. One is that the right hon. Gentleman should have chosen this House as the place to have called upon me for any explanations which I had to give, and to make any statements with reference to me which he thought proper, in order that the answer which I might make might appear simultaneously with his charges, and that both parties might appear before the tribunal to which alone we are amenable. My second position is, that I did not garble his words. I never maintained that the right hon. Gentleman stated that humanity was to be set aside whenever it came into conflict with neutrality. I merely quoted certain words to show that the right hon. Gentleman considered the conduct of Lord Stanley in 1867 as perfectly justifiable, in having preferred the maintenance of neutrality to the mere cause of humanity. And my last position is, that I did not misinterpret the right hon. Gentleman's policy in 1867, as I have shown that it was entirely analogous to the policy which is now pursued by Her Majesty's Government. If the House wish, I will conclude with a Motion; but that would perhaps be a somewhat inconvenient course. [Cries of "Move!"] I think it would be more convenient, Mr. Speaker, to put to you the Question of which I have given Notice—Whether the proper course for the right hon. Gentleman to have followed in calling me to account for my words, was not that which I have indicated—namely, to have taken an opportunity in this House of making any accusations against me which he had to make, and of asking for any explanations which he thought proper?

MR. TREVELYAN

Mr. Speaker, after the statement to which—[cries of "Gladstone"]. I shall conclude with a Motion [renewed cries of "Gladstone"]. The right hon. Member for Greenwich will get up in due time no doubt. The hon. Member for Christchurch has not, I think, so much asked a Question as commenced a debate; and I think it is quite as well, before the eminent Gentleman to whom he refers rises finally, that two or three observations, for I shall not make more, should be made from this part of the House. I think the general sense of the House is that the hon. Member has a certain grievance, and that he has a certain right to be annoyed; but I venture to say, likewise, that it is the feeling of a large portion of the House that he would have done better if he had done what all of us have to do more or less—pocket the affront—if affront it can be called—and not have exposed himself to the condolence of the House. But what I rise on this occasion to say is that other attacks marked by much less of good humour, and much less ingenious, than the attack of the hon. Member for Christchurch—

MR. BROMLEY DAVENPORT

I must really rise to Order. There is no Question before the House.

MR. TREVELYAN

I am going to move the Adjournment of the House.

MR. SPEAKER

I presume that the hon. Member, is about to conclude with a Motion, and is therefore in Order.

MR. TREVELYAN

I say that other attacks which are much less ingenious and good humoured than that of the hon. Gentleman opposite, meet with no echo whatever from the benches on which I sit. I desire to say that we have no sympathy whatever with those attacks which have been made both inside and outside of the House upon the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) who, relying not upon official position or official rank, but upon nothing except his high genius and lofty character, has changed the direction of the foreign policy of this country. It concerns us very little if in so changing the foreign policy of this country he has at the same time become inconsistent with some of his own previous opinions. [Cheers.] Hon. Gentlemen will do well to let me finish my sentence before they begin to cheer. It matters little to us, as long as we have his powerful voice on the side of justice and humanity, that some extracts can be taken from his speeches of 10 or 20 years ago which appear to contain certain discrepancies. For myself I must say that, after reading twice over with care the speech of the 15th of February, 1867, to which reference has been made, I am utterly unable to conceive how anyone does not recognise in almost every line of it these same bold and philanthropic views which, in the discussion of this Eastern Question, have done the right hon. Gentleman so much credit. The truth is—and I think everyone will acknowledge it—that the right hon. Gentleman has done great service to his country in his time. He has passed certain fiscal and financial measures, which have been imitated by right hon. Gentlemen opposite; he has carried other measures, which have provoked more controversy, but which those who have had the honour of being his followers will always regard with pride and admiration; but he has laid the country under still greater obligations to him by what lie has been enabled to do during the last six or nine months on the question of the condition of the Christians in Turkey. He has taught us that English interests are not bound up with what is called the status quo in Bulgaria; that English honour must not be left any longer to Turkish keeping; that a man may he an English patriot without being a Turkish partisan; and that we may find a much better use for our diplomacy and our arms than in maintaining the Christians of the East in their present state of servitude and misery. I am quite sure that, whatever may be the result of the proceedings of the next few weeks—whether it be peace or whether it be war—not one drop of English blood will be shed, and not one penny of English money will be expended in order, directly or indirectly, to keep the Turkish Government from the punishment which it deserves. I beg to move the Adjournment of the House.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Trevelyan.)

MR. GLADSTONE

Mr. Speaker, in the few remarks I shall find it necessary to offer in following the hon. Baronet, I would rather stand upon the usual appeal to the indulgence of the House, in the matter of a personal explanation, than treat this as a Motion upon which we are to go into the question at large. The hon. Baronet appeared to me to connect, rather unfortunately, this minor operation with the very large question of the previous policy of this country; but I think the whole of that portion of the subject may for the moment be put aside. I notice that there is here involved, first of all, a question whether wrong has been done to the hon. Baronet; and, secondly, a question as to the Parliamentary rule which he has laid down and which in the present instance he says has been departed from. I take first the personal wrong done to the hon. Baronet. I rather thought I was the plaintiff in the case, but I find myself suddenly turned into the defendant, and the hon. Baronet, who I thought had unwittingly done me some wrong, appears as the injured party. However, I will relieve the hon. Baronet. He has kindly noticed the reason why the letter that I addressed to him was not in his hands before it appeared in the newspapers. I therefore need not dwell upon that. But I demur entirely to his doctrine, that it is the necessary duty of one Member who addresses a letter to another and intends to publish it to delay doing so until he has received an acknowledgment of the letter. How in the present case could that acknowledgment have been received? The letter was addressed to the place where the hon. Baronet was supposed to reside, but it did not reach him there. Well, but the hon. Baronet says he suffered a great wrong because the principle, as I understand it, of the Parliamentary law he has laid down, and which I have not been able to derive from any other source, is that the question put to him—which would not have been a question at all, by-the-bye — should have been then and there accompanied by the answer which he would give. But that was not possible if I had made an explanation in this House. He would not have had the means of knowing the materials of that explanation, and would not by the Rules of the House have had the power of offering a reply. As it is now the hon. Baronet has seen the whole matter in which I thought I had reason to complain of such proceedings, and he has had the fullest opportunity of offering his reply. So far as regards the hon. Baronet he does not seem to me to be placed by these proceedings at any disadvantage; but he finds fault with me on principle, and says it is the absolute duty of a Member of this House only to challenge what has been said within the walls of this House, and that I had ample opportunity of challenging him on Friday night. ["Hear, hear."] "Hear, hear," says the noble Lord, but has he looked into the facts? How does he know what knowledge it was necessary for me to have for the purpose of reply?

VISCOUNT BARRINGTON

I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon; I never opened my lips.

MR. GLADSTONE

The noble Lord motioned with his head, by which I believed he appropriated the cheer. However, I beg pardon of the noble Lord. It was not possible for me to reply on that night, but when a friend kindly brought me the volume of Hansard—for I had no knowledge whatever of what the hon. Baronet was going to say, and he did not even supply the reference until I asked him for it—I saw plainly that the hon. Baronet had, in my opinion, misrepresented the purport of my speech, and I was not able to state, or perceive, or recollect at that moment the whole of the circumstances under which that speech was made—the date of the beginning of the Cretan insurrection, and the date of the Papers to which generally reference was made. It was only by the help of the splendid Library of this House that I was enabled last Saturday to put myself in possession of the facts and could understand the nature and the effect of the quotations which the hon. Baronet made. Therefore, it was not in my power to reply, and I must add I could only have done it at all by the indulgence of the House, an indulgence which the House might have withheld, for Gentlemen round the hon. Baronet are not always so fond of extending this indulgence. And undoubtedly they would have a perfect right to object if I had attempted to reply to the hon. Baronet in explanation of my speech. Having referred to the personal part of the question, I come to these two points, which I think are these which have been raised by the hon. Baronet—first, as to the nature of the charge I made against the hon. Member; and, second, as to the channel through which I made that charge. Now, Sir, he thinks it extremely inconvenient that such a charge should be made through a newspaper; but it appears to me—I do not wish to state the matter otherwise than equitably—it appears to me that the choice of means was given to me. I think there is great inconvenience in the course adopted by the hon. Gentleman to-day. This House is exceedingly pressed by an enormous mass of business. Something like an hour of our time will have been spent upon this explanation between the hon. Member and myself; and I own it does appear to me—I may be right, or I may be wrong—that, considering the nature of the subject in question, it would have been more conveniently disposed of without occupying the time of the House. That is the judgment I have formed; I do not claim for it infallibility or authority; but the little that has taken place to-day has certainly tended rather to confirm than to shake me in that judgment. The real question is, whether I was justified in stating that the citations of the hon. Baronet from my speeches were garbled citations? There is no question of the hon. Gentleman's motive. I know very well that he and all Members of the House are incapable of purposely mis-stating anything. I did not speak of the hon. Baronet; but I spoke of the citation made as a garbled citation—one which gives an untrue representation of the document which it quotes. That, I think is a strictly accurate account of the citation given by the hon. Baronet. I spoke of it as I beard it. I certainly understood him to give words which convoyed to my mind that impression, and I turned in great surprise to my right hon. Friend near me (Mr. Lowe), and he in not less surprise turned to me, to find it was possible I could have used words such as these cited by the hon. Gentleman; if, indeed, they were a true representation of my opinion. My opinion was not that I thought the whole policy in regard to the Cretan War right—we had nothing to do with that policy, it had not matured itself at that time—but at the commencing stage of that discussion, as far as I could judge from the first portion of the Papers then in our hands, I said that Lord Derby had done right in not yielding to those impulses of humanity which might have led him to set aside the laws of neutrality. The hon. Baronet states that that is all he desired to convey. If that is so, I am perfectly satisfied with that; but it only confirms me in the belief that if there was anything defective in the quotation, it was not the intention of the hon. Gentleman to misrepresent me. It had nothing whatever to do with the general question of whether I preferred humanity to neutrality; but it had to do with the question of the position of the Government on the 15th February, 1867. In my opinion, I can give a very fair and short account of that speech. It may be described in two words. First of all, it approved of the action of the Government up to that date; and, secondly, it expressed my desire that, in principle, autonomy and self-government might be applied to the whole provinces of European Turkey. What the Government had a right to require from Turkey was the fulfilment of the Hatti-Humayoun of 1856. I did not state that we had a right to require the establishment of self-government in all the European provinces; but I expressed the desire—the establishment of the principle — without entering into particulars of the form, and declared that the establishment of that principle was the object of my desire. Now, Sir, to that the hon. Gentleman made no reference whatever. I suppose he still thinks that his account of my speech—[Sir H. DRUMMOND WOLFF: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. I read all that.] Just now! I am not speaking of his having misrepresented my speech now. I am perfectly content to abide by that account of my speech which he has read to-day. The hon. Gentleman, when he quoted my approval of the Government, quoted me as setting aside in that particular case the laws of humanity for the laws of neutrality. He said nothing about my reference to the great principle of self-government in the provinces, nor the expression of my strong desire that that might be adopted as the basis of the policy throughout European Turkey. I said more, much more, as to the range of that principle than I have said or written on any occasion since. Well, Sir, that is the state of the case. In my opinion, the citations of the hon. Gentleman gave an untrue representation of the fact. [Sir H. DRUMMOND WOLFF: No.] An untrue representation of the effect and tendency of my speech—perhaps, inaccurate would be a better word—but that that inaccurate representation was in no sense due to the intentions of the hon. Gentleman. I have stated that in my letter, and I state it again. Now, I must take the liberty of saying why it was I thought this matter necessary to be referred to. I hope I may say that no one is less in the habit of going back to old debates either in this House or elsewhere than I am—I do not know when I have done such a thing. The hon. Gentleman pointed and sharpened his reference by an allusion to motive. "This speech," he said, "was a speech you made when you were in the early expectation of coming back to office," as much as to say—"You are a man who are capable of making one kind of speech when you expect office and another when you do not." I do not know whether the whole of the sentiment was present to the mind of the hon. Gentleman; but whether it was or not it was in his words. We often use words—I dare say I often use them myself—of which, perhaps, we do not at the moment see the full effect. To me this was a matter of consequence for this reason—it has been my fate during the last six months to make many statements and many arguments upon this subject, and nearly all the replies which I have seen to these statements and these arguments have in almost every case turned upon imputation of motive. It has been either "my desire for office," or my "virulent Party spirit," but it has had nothing at all to do with conviction, policy, prudence, or the dictates of experience. When I saw these references to motives and to the early expectation of returning to office, it induced me, I own, to give more importance to that entirely inaccurate and misleading citation than, perhaps, I otherwise should have done. I hope I have done that which is necessary. I entirely acquit the hon. Gentleman of anything, except undue haste, in making his citations. On the other hand, I hope that he may think, whether I judge rightly or wrongly as to the channel I adopted in approaching him, that I did it in good faith, and with a sincere desire to spare that to which I attach the utmost value, first of all to the time of this House; and, secondly, to the dignity of its proceedings, which I think is very rarely promoted by discussions of this character.

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

Sir, one word in explanation. I must disclaim all intention of having imputed a motive. What I said was this—and I think it is a very different thing from that of which the right hon. Gentleman complains—that when he made that statement he did so with the sense of responsibility of an early return to office; while at the present time there is no probability of his early return to office.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.