GREECE. (Hansard, 18 May 1830)

The Marquis of Londonderry

said, that, with the leave of the House, he was anxious, seeing a noble friend of his (Lord Aberdeen) in his place, to say a few-words with respect to a motion of his which stood for Tuesday next. His object in giving notice of that motion was, to induce the noble Earl (Aberdeen) to bring forward to the House some explanation of the foreign policy of this country. Two years had now elapsed since the accession of that noble Lord to his present office, and their Lordships had not been able as yet to discover the principles upon which the foreign policy of this country was carried on. He alluded more particularly to the circumstances connected with the settlement of Greece. They had been told that that settlement was now nearly brought to a conclusion; and if that were the case, the papers respecting it should be laid before them. He wished to know whether these papers, the production of which the noble Lord had promised more than two months ago, were on the point of being laid before the House. If they were about being laid before the House, as he did not wish at all to embarrass any negotiation that might be going on, or to give any embarrassment to his Majesty's Government, he should most probably not persevere in his motion. When the papers were in the hands of their Lordships, it would be for them to see whether that settlement had been adjusted upon principles honourable and satisfactory to the country, and it would be open to any noble Lord who chose to do so, to take up the question, and to bring that, or any other part of our foreign policy, under their Lordships' notice. He should be determined by the answer of the noble Lord on this occasion as to whether he should bring forward the motion of which he he had given 816 notice. He was of opinion that it was high time for the noble Lord to give some explanation on this subject, which had been already discussed in all the different gazettes of Europe, the British Parliament being apparently the last place to receive any information with respect to this great arrangement. It was said to have been effected under what he must be allowed to call the lamentable Treaty of 1827, but that arrangement was but one portion of the present complicated and intricate system of foreign diplomacy which was carried on by his Majesty's Government. The case at present stood thus:—The High Contracting Parties signed an arrangement in London, by which they changed what it was supposed would have been an independent kingdom into a sovereignty, they dictating by their votes whom the people of that country were to have for their king. The person whom they had thus chosen to govern Greece, it was well known, was intimately connected with this country—drawing a large sum of money from the pockets of the people; and if he questioned much the policy of the measure generally, he questioned still move that the people of England would like to see a subject of this country, placed there to spend their money amongst a race—such as the present Greeks, who, he must say, were quite undeserving of any boon which the High Contracting Parties might be disposed to give them. He had heard, that since the completion of the arrangement, the illustrious individual in question had himself expressed doubts of the policy and of the propriety of the arrangement. If that were the case, that illustrious person, he conceived, had acted very wisely. The Sultan had been badly treated with respect to this settlement of Greece. When called upon to consent to it, he said, that it was not what he had understood had been agreed upon in the first instance—namely, the erection of an independent sovereignty; but that he was now called upon to agree to the nomination of a person with whom he had nothing to say. But, placed as the Turk was, how could he resist? Russia, who was so much interested in the arrangement, at once proposed to release the Turk from the payment of a million of ducats, on the latter giving his assent to the arrangement, and the unfortunate Turk was placed in such a situation as to be quite unable to refuse the offer. He must be allowed to say, that our policy, from the 817 commencement to the conclusion of this business, as far as regarded Turkey, had been most disgraceful to the British nation. In the commencement we offered our amicable interposition, and in the end we converted our interposition into hostile aggression. This vacillating, complicated, and disgraceful policy was very different from the foreign policy which had been pursued by the noble individual whose name he unworthily bore. He would recommend the noble Duke (Wellington) to follow that policy instead of one which was so vague and so incomprehensible, that from east to west there was no understanding it. France was despatching an armament, with much pomp and flourish, to the coast of Africa, and she was probably about to act precisely in the same manner on that side of the Mediterranean as Russia already had done on the other. The truth was, that we had been hood-winked both by France and Russia, and it had come to this—that Great Britain, instead of, as she had been wont to do, directing the councils of the nations of Europe, and chalking out the line which they should follow, was obliged to follow in the line which they chose to chalk out to her. He wished the noble Lord would produce those papers, in order to give some explanation of the course of policy that had been adopted in this instance. If the noble Lord promised to do so, he should not persevere in his motion, as he was anxious to avoid the discussion of that or any other question under existing circumstances, while such deep and painful anxiety pervaded the public mind in reference to a subject, compared with which every thing else was but of secondary and minor interest.