HL Deb 03 May 1855 vol 138 cc18-27
THE EARL OF CLARENDON

My Lords, before the House adjourns, I wish to take this opportunity of apologising to the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) for having quitted the House on a previous evening. My absence gave rise to some remarks upon his part with which I certainly have no fault to find, because it is my business to be here to answer any questions and attend to any matters which may arise in connection with the department over which I have the honour to preside. I left the House on the evening referred to because there was a great deal of business at the Foreign Office waiting my return, and also because I thought that the noble Marquess near me (the Marquess of Lansdowne) had stated that Her Majesty's Government would lose no time in giving that information to the House which your Lordships have required on the subject of the late negotiations at Vienna, and that no statement would consequently be expected from me on that night. I trust, however, that your Lordships will not be under the very erroneous impression that Her Majesty's Government had any intention to withhold the fullest information on this important subject which they could give to the House; and for myself, I trust that I have always shown a readiness to answer any question that might be put to me, so far as I was able to do so without detriment to the public service. I consider it a duty imperative and incumbent upon me, in a time of so much intense and natural anxiety to be correctly informed with respect to those important matters, to afford to your Lordships all the information in my power; but I have too often experienced your Lordships' indulgence in these matters to believe that even now you would wish me to divulge anything which I believed at the present moment would be prejudicial to the interests of the country. As a proof, my Lords, of the spirit in which the negotiations at Vienna were carried on, and the desire of the Governments of France and England to do nothing that should offend either the honour or dignity of Russia, I may state—as indeed I mentioned the other evening in answer to a question put to me by my noble Friend—that the plenipotentiaries of Russia were invited themselves to take the initiative, and to propose the measures which they thought would best carry out the principle of the third basis of the negotiations, to which they had already given their assent. The Russian plenipotentiaries acknowledged, as they could not fail to do, the spirit which had induced this course; but, somewhat to the surprise of their colleagues, they announced that they were without instructions upon that important subject, and that it was necessary for them to refer to St. Petersburg. The time necessary was given them; but in the meantime the Allied Powers declined to alter the order in which the Four Points were originally placed, and refused to discuss the fourth point, upon which it was possible some concessions might be made, until the third point was disposed of. When the Conference was again called together to receive the answer which had arrived from St. Petersburg, the Russian plenipotentiaries announced that they had no proposal whatever to make; and the allied plenipotentiaries then submitted to them a scheme which, I should think, Russia, without any hurt to her dignity, but with very much addition to her honour as a first-class European Power, might have accepted, if she had been inclined to prove to the world that her policy was as pacific as she had always affirmed it to be, or to remove the uneasiness of Europe by giving guarantees against future acts of aggression which she declared she did not contemplate. The Russian plenipotentiaries asked forty-eight hours to consider these plans, and at the end of that time absolutely rejected them, as well as of another plan put forward by the French plenipotentiary, and agreed to by us, for excluding all vessels of war from the Black Sea, and rendering it a sea for commercial purposes alone. The Conferences were then suspended—they were not actually broken off—and no time for another meeting was then appointed. My noble Friend (Lord John Russell) left Vienna on the 23rd of last month; M. Drouyn de Lhuys stayed two or three days longer. Lord Westmoreland and M. Drouyn de Lhuys were invited by Count Buol, on the part of the Russian plenipotentiaries, to attend another Conference, in order to receive propositions from them. M. Drouyn de Lhuys and Lord Westmoreland agreed to attend this Conference; and Her Majesty's Government have the form of the proposal then made by the Russian plenipotentiaries, but have not yet received the protocols which contain the discussions which have taken place. But we have seen quite enough to enable us to concur in the opinions of the allied plenipotentiaries, that the proposals of the Russian Government were not of a character to promote or accomplish the objects contemplated by the third basis of the negotiations. This, my Lords, is the present state of affairs; and although we shall certainly not object to these Conferences meeting again, provided there is anything of a real and substantial character in the proposals put forward, yet we think that, after they have been suspended, their meeting again without any real or specific object might give the erroneous notion that the negotiations were being carried on, while, in fact, that was not the case. The protocols shall be laid upon the table of the House without delay, and your Lordships will see in those protocols not simply a record of the conclusions which have been come to, but the report of the discussions which took place, and of the opinions expressed by the plenipotentiaries of each Power present during the Conference. I think your Lordships will not consider the statement which I have had the honour to make either satisfactory or conclusive, unless I am able to inform the House of the course which the Government of Austria intends to take in these matters. It is upon this particular point that I am at present anxious to observe that prudent reserve for which upon previous occasions I have received your indulgence whenever I have thought that the circumstances of the case really demanded it. My reasons for this are, that when the sittings of the Conference were suspended, Count Buol expressly stated that he considered that the means for arriving at a basis of negotiations were not exhausted, and that it would be the special duty of Austria to endeavour to discover some mode of attaining that end consistently with the engagement which she had entered into with other Powers. My Lords, whether any proposal that may be thus framed will be likely to be satisfactory to Her Majesty's Government I am sure I cannot venture to say; but on a question of such magnitude, as whether it may be possible to conclude a safe and honourable peace, I am persuaded that your Lordships will feel that any proposition that may be made to us should receive a patient and unprejudiced consideration from Her Majesty's Government—and the more so, as that consideration is at the same time quite compatible with the vigorous prosecution of military operations—and also that the consideration of those subjects, or the prospects of peace which may be possible, should not be in any way endangered by premature discussions or announcements.

THE EARL OF DERBY

My Lords, I should regret, as much as any of your Lordships, that the noble Earl should disclose anything which it would be prejudicial to the public interests to disclose prematurely:—nevertheless, I must be permitted to say that the statement which he has just made to your Lordships appears to me to be of a very unsatisfactory nature. Undoubtedly, before discussions can take place in this House upon the present state of public affairs, it will be necessary that we should have before us the papers which have been promised, and which I am glad to find are not alone to I contain the mere decisions and opinions of the various Powers that were present at the Conferences, but also the arguments and grounds upon which those Powers based their respective conclusions. Undoubtedly, from such a collection of documents we may gain considerable light, not only as to what is past, but also on what is of still more importance—our prospects for the future. But I must say that, although I concur with the noble Earl that no prospect, however slight, of obtaining a safe and honourable peace should be sacrificed by this country, yet I have heard from him, almost with feelings of regret, that after an extent of forbearance has been shown on the part of the allied Powers in limiting their demands upon Russia to an extent the good policy of which may be open to serious question, the propositions of the Allies having been totally rejected, and no counter propositions—at least, none of a reasonable character—having been offered by the enemy—I must repeat, that I learn with regret that fresh propositions and fresh negotiations are still in prospect, because I fear that they can have no other object but that of wasting time and prejudicing the cause of the Western Powers. I must say, that I think the propositions which have been made by the Allied Powers to Russia are even now below those which the requirements of the case demand; and that the concessions which were made to her, even if they had been accepted, would have rendered useless—if not worse than useless—the great expenditure of blood and treasure to which England and France have been put since the commencement of the war. I sincerely hope that the Government of Austria is in earnest in its endeavour to bring about a safe and honourable peace—I hope it is in earnest in its desire to fulfil its engagements to support by active assistance the endeavours of the Allies to obtain a satisfactory peace, and that, in the event of peace being obtained, it intends faithfully to perform obligations the hope of inducing Austria to contract which has cost England and France so much of precious time and valuable advantage in their military operations. My Lords, we are now in the second year of this war, and throughout the whole of its progress we have been told over and over again that, although it was quite true that Her Majesty's late Government and the members of the present Ministry had clung to the hope of peace longer, perhaps, than they were reasonably justified in doing, yet, that they had, at all events, gained one great and important advantage from their singular forbearance, patience, and long-suffering—namely, that they had secured, both as to active measures and as to negotiations, the co-operation of Austria, and probably of Prussia also. Well, two years have elapsed, and, according to the statement of the noble Earl to-night, what does that co-operation amount to in the pursuit of which your vigour and enterprise were altogether checked, and for the sake of which you adopted a dilatory course of policy, which must greatly aggravate the misfortunes and calamities of war? At this moment, my Lords, Prussia is excluded altogether, and even stands in an attitude of scarcely doubtful hostility to the Allies; while, on the other hand, Austria, for whose support you have sacrificed so much, is now effectively an ally of Russia, and opposed to the policy of the Western Powers, for she still affects to entertain a hope that every means of negotiation is not yet exhausted, and she proposes by further attempts at negotiation, to continue—and no doubt with the same results—the same system of perpetual procrastination and delay which she has pursued for the last two years. My Lords, we are now in the midst of the second campaign, and it is a matter of the utmost importance—it is, in fact, the essential groundwork and basis of all our future operations—that we should precisely know in what position we stand, not only towards Prussia—for that is already pretty clear, I think—but towards Austria likewise. This knowledge must have the greatest influence, not only upon the course we should take in negotiation, but upon the military operations of our army. It must have the greatest effect upon our conduct and plans to know whether or not we are to reckon on the hostility, the neutrality, or the active and cordial co-operation of the power and resources of Austria; and every day and hour that passes without our coming to a full and distinct understanding with Austria, and without our really knowing where we are and how we stand, seriously aggravates our difficulties, enormously increases our expenditure and our risks, and gives a proportionate advantage to our common enemy, Russia. Therefore, my Lords, although I do not wish to press the noble Earl to make any statement which he may consider would be detrimental to the public service, yet I could not hear the explanation which he has offered us to-night, leaving, as it does, all the most important questions involved in these negotiations in just the same state of uncertainty, hesitation, and vacillation as they have presented for so long a period, without expressing my regret at listening to such an unsatisfactory statement from a British Minister. This prolonged uncertainty is almost an equal evil to the avowed hostility of Austria; and therefore, however important it may he for us to lose no substantial prospect of obtaining a satisfactory peace, I trust that Her Majesty's Government will take care, that in depriving us of the advantage of knowing what are the definitive views and policy of Austria, we shall not be kept in doubt as to their vigorous exertions for the prosecution of the war, and that they will not suffer themselves to be diverted by these protracted, and almost hopeless and illusory negotiations.

THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE

My Lords, it is not possible for Her Majesty's Government to afford the noble Earl opposite the information which he not unnaturally wishes to gain, with a due regard to the public interests. I trust, however, that they will be enabled to furnish it soon; but after what has fallen from the noble Earl I cannot refrain from saying, on the part of the Government, that, although they have had a desire—a desire which, indeed, it was their bounden duty to entertain—to secure the co-operation of Austria, nevertheless they have not been induced, from any vain hope of securing that important advantage, to delay the immediate making of those military and naval preparations which are essential to the proper conduct of the war. Undoubtedly, no expedient has been left untried in the endeavour to obtain that degree of co-operation from other Powers which we had a right to expect from them; but during the whole course of the negotiations, up to the Conferences which lately took place at Vienna, certainly not a day has been lost in the advancement of those military preparations and efforts which might bring the war to a conclusion; and while I maintain that it is our duty to avail ourselves of every fair chance of effecting so desirable a result as a great European peace, I equally hold that up to the last moment we ought to relax none of our exertions for prosecuting the war with energy and spirit. With the protocols about to be laid upon the table, your Lordships will receive an account of the arguments, the discussions, and all the collateral transactions by which the agreement, based upon those protocols, was accompanied. Undoubtedly, when they are laid upon the table, a good opportunity will be afforded for the consideration of the negotiations which have taken place, with reference both to the past conduct of the Government and to the future policy of this country, having in view the continuance of the war, if it should be necessary, in order to prevent the recurrence of those unfortunate misconceptions which have thrown Europe into the state in which it is now placed.

THE EARL OF MALMESBURY

My Lords, as I ventured the other evening to express my humble opinion with regard to the propositions made to Russia in the hope of bringing about a peace, and to state my regret at the probability of a peace having been diminished by the nature of those propositions, I will not now make any observations upon that subject, But I think there is some discrepancy between the statement which my noble Friend has made to-night and that which he made in answer to me about a week ago. I then understood, both from what was stated by my noble Friend and from what passed in another place, that Her Majesty's Government and the French Government, supported by Austria, and of course by Turkey, had proposed to Russia two alternativss—one, the limitation of her fleet in the Black Sea, and the other the neutrality of that Sea. To-night my noble Friend confined himself to a statement that Russia had not accepted the propositions which had been made to her.

THE EARL OF CLARENDON

I said that the plenipotentiaries of Russia had refused to accept a proposition which we thought that country might have accepted with honour to herself, as well as another proposition by which the Black Sea would have been made a neutral sea.

THE EARL OF MALMESBURY

My noble Friend is correct in saying that ho described the plan suggested to Russia as one quite in unison with her dignity and honour; but he did not state what the first alternative was. I want to know whether it was that the Russian fleet should be limited.

THE EARL OF CLARENDON

Yes.

THE EARL OF MALMESBURY

Then it is as I understood; Russia had the choice of two alternatives, and refused them both. With respect to the papers which my noble Friend proposes to lay on the table, I hope he will not confine himself entirely to the protocols drawn up at different times by the various parties, and I am encouraged in that hope by an expression used by the noble Marquess. For nearly a year we have had no official knowledge of any papers relating to this important subject, although at different times we have received information from the public prints, in which I believe many very elaborate diplomatic documents have been correctly copied. Among them are some very able ones emanating from my noble Friend, which cannot, of course, have been obtained from the Foreign Office, but were probably taken from foreign newspapers. In one of those papers my noble Friend has given his interpretation of the four points, or rather of the third point, which, as your Lordships are aware, is one that may be argued upon and explained in various ways, according to the opinions and interests of different parties. I believe I am correct in saying that a very clear statement has been published of what my noble Friend intended by the third point, and that there afterwards appeared an interpretation, if not exactly the same, yet similar in most respects, by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs. It would be very satisfactory to the public, considering that no papers have been communicated to us since the beginning of last year with respect to this question, if my noble Friend would add to the different protocols as many as possible of the diplomatic documents that have passed between him and the Court of Russia, and those documents would also greatly assist your Lordships and the other House of Parliament in understanding and taking a correct view of the protocols.

THE EARL OF CLARENDON

I hope, after the description my noble Friend has given of the despatch which he has attributed to me, that it was my despatch; but I have no knowledge of such a despatch ever having been published, I never saw it or heard of it, and certainly I never communicated it to any one. To the best of my belief, the intention expressed by the plenipotentiaries that sat at the Conference upon the first day of their meeting, that their proceedings should be kept secret and nothing that passed should be published, has been very strictly acted upon. I cannot at this moment undertake to say what papers will be laid upon the table besides the protocols, but any papers necessary for the clear understanding of them will be produced, and I think my noble Friend will learn a great deal more from those protocols than he imagines.

House adjourned till To-morrow.