HL Deb 29 February 1884 vol 285 cc188-206
EARL DE LA WARR

, in rising to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether any Papers or Correspondence can be laid upon the Table of the House, showing what understanding exists between this country and the Porte with regard to the action taken by Her Majesty's Government in Egypt proper and the Soudan; and to move— That a copy of the Convention of 1877, relative to the traffic in slaves in Central Africa, be reprinted. said, he had listened with great attention to the recent debate upon the policy of Her Majesty's Government with reference to Egypt; but, with the exception of what fell from the noble Marquess below him (the Marquess of Salisbury), he did not remember that any allusion was made to the subject which he desired now to bring under notice—he did not think it was even mentioned by the noble Earl opposite (Earl Granville)—he meant, whether any understanding existed between this country and the Porte with regard to the action of Her Majesty's Government in Egypt and the Soudan? There was a time, and not very long ago, when the foreign policy of this country was conducted upon very different principles from those which regulated it now. It would then have been impossible that events which were at this moment pressing upon the country could have taken place. Turkey at that time was, and had always been, one of the truest and most faithful Allies of this country, and would still be so; but, unhappily, there was no response of sympathy on the part of Her Majesty's Government. If they could not gather much from official documents which had been placed in their hands, they learnt, at least, that the Government had been virtually responsible for the government of Egypt from the time of the bombardment of Alexandria. The country was shortly afterwards occupied by British troops. That was followed by the battle of Tel-el-Kebir. The Egyptian Army which was left was disbanded, and the Government was entirely disabled. And what happened afterwards? When Lord Dufferin was sent to Cairo, was anything done without his advice? Had it not been the same since the arrival of Sir Evelyn Baring? As the climax, showing where the ruling power really was, the Government of the Khedive was dismissed by a telegram from Downing Street. Then followed the fatal expedition of Hicks Pasha. True, Lord Dufferin said he did not advise it; but would not a word from Downing Street have stopped it? And so, also, in the case of the disastrous attempt of Baker Pasha. And now the danger of the Soudan had suddenly broken upon them—the greater part of that extensive country was in open rebellion, and the decision of Her Majesty's Government was that it must be abandoned. The conquests of Mehemet Ali, the greatest of recent Rulers of Egypt, must be given up. What he did, and what the Khedive Ismail did, to suppress the traffic in slaves must now give way to slave-hunters and slave-dealers. But there were found still in Egypt conscientious and independent men. The Prime Minister, Cherif Pasha, and his Government refused to do that, and they were dismissed by a telegram from Downing Street; and all that was done, so far as they were informed, without the knowledge and consent of the Sultan. He could not conceive any state of affairs which could give rise to more serious apprehensions than the present condition of Egypt and the dependencies of the Soudan. He wished to know whether the Ottoman Government had been consulted at all in the matter? It might well be asked, What had become of Treaties? What had become of International Law? Were they to follow in Egypt the example of France in Tunis? Were they to take possession of, and then give away to those in open rebellion, the territory of a friendly Power, without any sanction or consent on the part of that Power? And were they to continue to impose conditions as to where the troops of the Sovereign of the country, in the event of their being sent, were to be disembarked—to dictate where they might go and where they might not go? Her Majesty's Government did not seem to have realized the fact that they had been the Government of Egypt, rightly or wrongly, for the last 18 months, and they still had not become awakened to the fact that the Government of Egypt, whoever they might be, had not the power of ceding the smallest portion of Egyptian territory. The result was that a country equal in size to more than the half of Europe had been ceded to those who were in open rebellion against their Sovereign, and by a Proclamation of General Gordon their leader had been made Ruler of Kordofan, while large sums of money had been sent by this country which might possibly be employed to encourage the revolt. He thought they had reason to ask for some explanation of the course which had been adopted by Her Majesty's Government. Moved, "That a copy of the Convention of 1877, relative to the traffic in slaves in Central Africa, be reprinted."—(The Earl De La Warr.)

EARL GRANVILLE

My Lords, although I do not quite admit the accuracy of the historical narrative the noble Earl has given of our conduct during the last 18 months, yet I think your Lordships will see that I cannot be called upon night after night, in answer to separate Questions, to go over the arguments in defence of our conduct which were used on the first night of the Session and afterwards, when the Vote of Censure was moved by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury). A debate followed, which I think, on one side and on the other, was not unworthy of the character of this House, and it was closed, to my great regret, by a majority condemning the conduct of the Government. With regard to the Question which the noble Earl has put, I have only to state this—that it is unnecessary to remind your Lordships that when the Government first asked the Porte to interfere in Egypt the natural course, no doubt, would have been that the Sultan should have intervened and assisted the Khedive in putting down the rebellion. But, under circumstances which I need not advert to, that course was not taken, and the task was left to England alone. That task having been undertaken, the fact of our subsequent armed occupation of the country, although for a time only, no doubt threw very great responsibility upon Her Majesty's Government. In discharge of that responsibility we have endeavoured to do nothing which would infringe the Sultan's powers, limited as they were. But your Lordships must be aware that under the very pressing circumstances arising from time to time, and bearing in mind that hitherto the reproach to the Government had been that they had acted too slowly instead of too fast, it is perfectly impossible that we could have consulted the Sultan upon those steps. With regard to the Correspondence that has taken place, some little time ago I received a very courteous despatch from the Porte, stating that the Sultan had a great desire to come to a complete understanding with England on the subject of Egypt. I answered it, I hope, in the same tone and with the same feeling, saying that we on our side would be very glad to come to such an understanding, and that I wished to know on what basis the Sultan proposed that the understanding should be arrived at. These letters will, I hope, be in your Lordships' hands next week. In answer to my communication I received a long despatch from the Porte, in which a basis for an understanding was laid down, which, however, Her Majesty's Government did not consider a practicable basis, and though I cannot go into details, I may say I do not think it is a basis which any of your Lordships would have thought a practicable one in the present case. The general purport of the despatch was to ask for the views of Her Majesty's Government. Our views have now been sent to the Porte, and in due time they will certainly be made known to your Lordships. With regard to the demand of the noble Earl for copies of the Convention of 1877, I have to state that copies of it were presented to this House at the time. I hardly think that it would be worth while to reprint the Convention now; but we have some copies of it still unused at the Foreign Office, and I shall be happy to make arrangements for the supply of a certain number to your Lordships.

THE EARL OF CARNARVON

said, he did not wish to trouble the noble Earl with any renewal of the arguments which had been used in the past; but the point upon which he was concerned was one which he thought had not been discussed in either House. The noble Earl had referred to the Convention of 1877 relative to the slave traffic, and he understood the noble Earl to say that there were copies of that Convention in existence which would be distributed. The point of importance in regard to the Convention arose from the extraordinary Proclamation of General Gordon which had found its way into the public Press. There were several versions of it, but he supposed that printed in the Parliamentary Papers might be accepted as the authentic one. That Convention of 1877 was a very grave and important document. It laid down the direct prohibition of the slave traffic, and provided that anyone who was either directly or indirectly engaged in that traffic should be punished. General Gordon's Proclamation, if its meaning was properly understood, was certainly a very startling commentary on that Convention. It was not his wish to utter a word which might be construed into a detraction of the high character of General Gordon, whom he regarded with the greatest respect and admiration; nor did he for one moment wish that anything should be said in their Lordships' House which could have the effect of hampering General Gordon in the military operations in which he was engaged. But, whatever might be one's regard and admiration for a person placed in these actual circumstances, he thought that, if their Lordships were to remain absolutely silent about the Proclamation, they would not be fulfilling their duty. General Gordon, it was to be remembered, did not speak as a private individual. He had been intrusted, in a great emergency, with an important foreign Mission. He had been sent out to Egypt by the Government, and it must be assumed that he had gone out in full possession of their views. It was a matter of grave importance that a man who spoke as the mouthpiece of England should have held the language which General Gordon used in this Proclamation with regard to the Slave Trade. In a reported explanation of the matter, which might or might not be authentic, General Gordon was represented as drawing a distinction between slave traffic and slave holding. Now there was, of course, a distinction between the two, but in practice it would be found extremely difficult to draw the line. He would challenge anyone to read the Proclamation through and to say that, taken as a whole, it did not include traffic in slaves as well as slave-holding. What, he should like to know, was to be the policy of the Government on this subject? If there was any one point on which the judgment of England had been clear and emphatic, it was in its utter abhorrence of anything approaching to the Slave Trade. Now, either the Government must approve or disapprove of General Gordon's Proclamation; and, whatever might be said of it, this was certain—that if they approved of it, they ought to have no objection to stating their reasons for that approval. But if they disapproved his conduct, it was clear that they must have allowed him to go to the Soudan without clear instructions about a question which was certain to come to the front. Some years ago, a Circular in regard to slavery was issued by the late Mr. Ward Hunt. Although that Circular might have contained some incautious expressions, no one in his senses imagined that Mr. Ward Hunt intended to do anything that would have the effect of encouraging slavery; but the Circular was subjected to very severe and bitter criticisms on the part of the noble Lords opposite and their Friends in "another place." Now, by a strange revolution in the wheel of accident, Nemesis had come upon the Government who, at the time to which he referred, were in Opposition, for they found themselves placed in circumstances similar to those in which their opponents were. He did not intend to criticize the Government bitterly; but, if Mr. Ward Hunt was severely censured for an incautious expression in a Slave Circular, what might not be said about the formal and open recognition by the Representative of the present Government of that which had hitherto been denounced in England as something approaching nearly to piracy and murder? There was only one other matter to which he wished to refer. In the explanation which General Gordon was supposed to have given, he was represented as stating that— The Government, with the consent of the Khedive, has decided to separate the Soudan from Egypt, and the two Governments have sent me to carry out the evacuation and to restore the Native Government. He was also supposed to have made the extraordinary statement that the separation of the Soudan abrogated all Treaties made with reference to it between the authorities at Cairo and Foreign Governments. The state of things to which he had called attention required explanation, and if it were passed over in silence their Lordships might be considered guilty of neglect. He would only add that he was sure it would be welcome to their Lordships to hear from the Government that the interpretation which he had reluctantly put on the documents submitted to the House was not a correct one.

THE EARL OF DERBY

My Lords, my noble Friend has asked whether Her Majesty's Government approve or disapprove the Proclamation recently issued by General Gordon? The only answer I can give at the present time is a very short and simple one. Your Lordships know, for they have been published in the Blue Book, the instructions which General Gordon received—they were of the briefest possible character—and apart from those instructions Her Majesty's Government have left him a discretion practically of an unlimited kind. This Proclamation was not issued in obedience to any instructions sent from here, and, in point of fact, the first intimation which the Government received on the subject was derived from sources with which your Lordships are familiar. We have no doubt that the newspapers contain the accurate text of the Proclamation itself. We have had some brief telegraphic statements regarding it; but we have not got that full information of the circumstances which led to it, of the condition of the people to whom it was addressed, and of the general state of the case with which General Gordon had to deal, which, as your Lordships will, I think, agree with me, is absolutely necessary before we can form a judgment on the action of General Gordon. In saying this, I express no doubt whatever as to the action of General Gordon. Everybody is aware, not only of his devotion to the cause of freedom, but of the detestation which his whole life has expressed of the Slave Trade. Looking to what he has done in China and elsewhere, and to the mar- Vellous influence which he has exercised over the minds of Natives in various parts of the world, I think we cannot entertain any doubt of his great capacity for dealing with persons of this kind, and, in the absence of more information than we now possess, he is entitled to the confidence which is reposed in him by the Government and the country. If I were to put forward a theory of the circumstances of the case, I should suppose what occurred to be something of this kind—that General Gordon found a very strong opposition to the present Egyptian Government, as being under European influence and to the English Advisers of the Egyptian Government. Most likely one of the favourite topics of those who endeavoured to create hostility to England was the well-known opposition of England and the English Government to slavery and the Slave Trade, and I think it extremely probable that the emissaries of the Mahdi were telling these people that the English had taken possession of Egypt, and that their property in slaves would be at once taken from them. It is quite obvious that any report of that kind would operate disadvantageously to the cause General Gordon was endeavouring to promote, and it would be only natural that he would take the most public means of contradicting it. It has been said that the Proclamation legalizes slave-hunting. That to my mind is simply impossible. The circumstances do not require us to resort to any explanation of that kind. Your Lordships will acknowledge that there is a very wide distinction between the institution of domestic slavery and the Slave Trade carried on by force in the adjoining countries. What I suppose his Proclamation refers to is simply the right of owning slaves, which by the law of the country they now possess. If anyone had been trying to put into the minds of the people of Khartoum and the Soudan that their property in slaves was to be confiscated without notice and without compensation, a proclamation would be necessary to give them the assurance that they would not be disturbed in the exercise of their present customs, but that which was legal now would continue to be legal. With regard to the other charge, that the abandonment of the Soudan is fatal to all the efforts made of late years to put down the Slave Trade, I do not at all admit that that is its necessary or probable effect. I have read General Gordon's book, Sir Samuel Baker's book, and almost everything written of late years on the subject, and nothing, I think, can be more clear than that all the efforts made to keep down the Slave Trade in the Soudan in recent years have ended, if not in complete failure, at least in very partial and doubtful success. Wherever the Governor General was present the trade was checked; but whenever he left one part of the country to go to another the evil sprang up again in his absence. I do not believe you will be able to put an end to the Slave Trade in the Soudan by direct measures. What you can do is to stop the traffic of slaves across the Red Sea; you can stop the introduction of slaves into Egypt and into Arabia; that is the only method by which you can make effectual progress. There is nothing unreasonable in thinking that the Proclamation of General Gordon is in no way contrary to that object. As to the question whether the Egyptian Government, without the consent of the Sultan, had a right to give up these Provinces of the Soudan, I think the answer is quite conclusive. Whatever may be the nominal relations between the Porte and the Government of Egypt, you can not force Egypt to retain a part of its territory which it is absolutely unable to hold. I do not admit that our relations with Egypt have had anything to do in reality with the evacuation of the Soudan. I believe that the insurrection of the Mahdi would have made the evacuation of the Soudan fully necessary whether we had been there or not; and it is not fair to charge upon our temporary occupation in Egypt the abandonment of a Province which Egypt would have been very much stronger in not attempting to conquer or to hold.

VISCOUNT BURY

said, he did not wish to say anything on the subject of General Gordon's Mission, because anyone who should do so at present would subject himself to a great responsibility. Anyone, he thought, who read the Proclamation must own that General Gordon had reserved to himself the light to exclude slave-hunting, and that it was only to the domestic institution of slavery his Proclamation referred. But it was a very different thing for an English Governor General to say nothing about slavery, which was not under his control, and which he could not prevent, and in the name of England to say that slavery should be legal. The reason why he rose just now was to push a little further the question raised by the noble Earl (Earl De La Warr), who asked what was the position of the Porte with regard to England in the Soudan at this moment? Another question of equal importance was, what was the position of England in the Soudan and the Bed Sea littoral? We were sending out a military expedition of considerable extent and importance, and we had a right to ask what was the object of that expedition, and what were we going to do? At the time of the battle of Teb, when General Baker was defeated, we certainly were at war in the Soudan; but the circumstances had changed, and Her Majesty's Government, acting through the Governor General, had proclaimed the Mahdi Sultan of a great portion of the Soudan. They did not know the geographical limits of that district. If a line had been drawn between the Soudan Proper and that part of the Soudan which Her Majesty's Government was supposed to hold, he should like to know whether Osman Digna had been informed of the limits of the district which had been conceded to the Mahdi, whether he had been informed that there was a line which he must not cross, and that the fact of his having crossed it was a declaration of war against England? It seemed to him that as the Mahdi had been formally recognized by the English Government, and as slavery had been allowed to exist in a modified form, the whole difficulty between this country and the Mahdi had been solved. The difficulty had been solved in a most practical way by the almost unconditional surrender of the English Government, and by the Proclamation of the powers spiritual and temporal of the Mahdi. There was only one thing which had been reserved by the English Governor General, and that was the right of getting himself and the garrison out of Khartoum without fighting if he could, or, in the last resort, by force of arms. It was quite possible that the Mahdi, flushed with his victory, and elated by the recognition which had been given him, resented this reservation, and in that case he might order Osman Digna to continue his military operations. Under those circumstances it was to be regretted that this country had not an Army on the spot large enough to enforce the Mahdi to accept terms. But it might be that Osman Digna was making war on his own behalf. In such a case as that, why did not the Government make peace with him in the same way as they had done with the Mahdi? He did not recommend the Government to adopt that course; but he wished to know what the difference was between the case of the Mahdi and the case of Osman Digna? It was quite true that the Mahdi had about 30,000 men, and that Osman Digna had only 4,000 or 6,000 men. The man who had the 30,000 men the Government made a Sultan, but the man who had the 4,000 or 5,000 men they endeavoured to cut to pieces. So far as he could see, the circumstances of the two cases were the same, and he should like to know why a line had been drawn? What was that line? If it was a geographical line, the House should be told where it was. If it was a numerical line, they ought to know what number of men had been fixed upon. If it was a moral line, the Government should tell them where the difference was to be found between the two cases. Why was Osman Digna to be destroyed while the greater culprit was left alone? At the present time this country was fighting with Osman Digna. But the Government had not stated why the military operations were being carried on and to what extent they would be conducted. British blood and treasure were being poured out. Why? He supposed it was to relieve the garrison of Trinkitat; but it appeared to him that if the Government were now right in taking that course they were wrong when Sinkat fell. Why was not Sinkat defended? Why did they allow Hicks Pasha to go forth into the desert to be cut to pieces? Why did they allow Moncrieff to be murdered? Why was Baker Pasha sent into the desert with an insufficient force? It had been stated that there was no inconsistency in the policy of the Government; but how did they reconcile the two points he had raised? Why did they hold their hands and watch those brave men fall? Why did they at one time look on unmoved when horrors, worse than Bulgarian horrors, were being perpetrated, and now advance into the Soudan? He hoped the Government would inform the House what the expedition now being sent out was intended to do.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, the capacity of Her Majesty's Government for answering Questions appears to be exhausted. I shall, therefore, merely venture on one or two comments on this interesting conversation. One of the subjects we have been engaged on is the curious Slave Trade Proclamation of General Gordon, and the question that is occupying our minds is an interpretation of the very strange words it contains. I admit that, if you are to judge it merely by the antecedents and character of General Gordon, it is improbable, and may, indeed, be treated as impossible, that he should designedly give encouragement to the Slave Trade. On the other hand, the words, as they stand, are perfectly unmeaning unless they do give that encouragement. What does General Gordon say— Knowing that you regret the severe measures taken by the Government for the suppression of the slave traffic by decrees and conventions, I confer upon you this right, that henceforth none shall interfere with your property. If the words "none shall interfere with your property" stood alone, it would be open to you to contend that it was merely the property in slaves which was in question; but the preamble is wholly unmeaning, and entirely out of place, if there is no reference to the slave traffic in the Proclamation. What strikes me as remarkable is that we should be discussing the meaning of General Gordon as if he were an ancient author, or far removed from us in time or place, or as if there was no possibility of ascertaining his meaning except by puzzling over the words he has used. The noble Earl advanced what he calls a theory upon this point which is very ingenious, but which is inconsistent with the words of General Gordon. Does it not seem to strike everybody that, as we are within six hours' communication with General Gordon by telegraph, and that as this Proclamation has been known for a fortnight, there would have been no difficulty in ascertaining what General Gordon's reasons were, and what he meant? A word to a clerk at the Foreign Office would have obtained the information, and I can only conclude that Her Majesty's Government think it much better to be without that information in order that they may indulge in interpretations of General Gordon's meaning, and shelter themselves behind his well-known character. I do not in the least dispute, I render all homage to his high character; but I think I may, without irreverence, suggest that it is possible that General Gordon may make a mistake, especially when he is acting under the instructions of Her Majesty's Government. Therefore, I cannot accept an interpretation which is simply based on a reference to his character; and I must regret that Her Majesty's Government did not take the very obvious means of ascertaining the truth of this matter by conferring with General Gordon himself. The other part of the conversation refers to the position of this country towards the rights of the Sultan, or, as I shall put it more strongly, towards the rights of Europe as guaranteed by the Treaty of Paris. General Gordon's Proclamations, about which we know so little, and about whose meaning we have various interpretations, are very far-reaching. It not only re-establishes the Slave Trade, but it tears up the Treaty of Paris. Her Majesty's Government announced in those Proclamations that the Soudanese were to be handed back to Native Rulers, thus detaching the Soudan from the Ottoman Empire, and, therefore, violating the guarantee which Her Majesty, in concert with the other Powers of Europe, gave, under the Treaty of Paris, and which was again sanctioned by the Treaty of Berlin. I shall be curious to know what negotiations have taken place with the Powers, what negotiations have taken place with the Sultan, and to what extent these announcements are authorized by Her Majesty's Government. According to a telegram in The Observer, General Gordon has issued a Proclamation informing the inhabitants of Khartoum that the Commander of the Faithful intends to send a great army to conquer the country. To conquer the country! Why, it is a part of the country which belongs to the Sultan. This is equivalent to a Gorman officer going to Ireland and telling the people that the English are going to conquer that country. The English Government is more powerful in the Soudan than the Turkish Government; but the question of International right remains exactly the same. There is a further consideration that I would impress on the noble Earl. In 1870 Russia thought fit to do what General Gordon tries to do now, to tear up the Treaty of Paris; she claimed for herself the right which the Treaty withheld of putting ships on the Black Sea. England protested, and England was finally satisfied with forcing Russia to acknowledge and join in a general declaration that no one Power was able, without the consent of the other Powers, to withdraw from an arrangement into which all had commonly entered. Her Majesty's Government made a good deal of this diplomatic victory, and said it was a great moral triumph, that though they had not been able to induce Russia to go back from a course upon which she had entered, they had, at least extorted from her this homage to the public law of Europe. But now you have done exactly what Russia did in 1870; you have done it, not only by tearing up the Treaty of Paris, but also by tearing up the moral declaration you took so much credit to yourselves for having extorted from Russia at the time. I quite understand that in his practical executive action, General Gordon should be allowed a free hand, and should not be interfered with; but in this Proclamation he speaks in the name of the Queen of England. That which he sanctions now is not simply a measure for the pacification of the Soudan; this Proclamation will bind us in the future; it will be quoted against us in the future as involving the honour and good faith of the course which England may afterwards follow. You may depend upon it that, if for the sake of a temporary advantage, however important, you have tampered with the Slave Trade, your moral authority will be much diminished when you appeal to other Powers on the question. You may depend upon it that if, for the sake of solving a momentary difficulty, you have violently torn up one of the Treaties which are the bases of the public law of Europe, you will find that in other parts of the Turkish Dominions other Powers will not be slow to follow your example.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I cannot help expressing some regret that the noble Lord should have thought that any public interest could be served by endeavouring, during the course of the arduous Mission of General Gordon, to call attention to every report and rumour, more or less authentic or otherwise, which comes to this country by letter or private telegram of General Gordon's sayings and doings, and to criticize them as if the Mission were over, and as if we had arrived at definite results. Your Lordships are not in a position at present to pass judgment upon them, and if such things are to go on, I am afraid that the opinions of not a few of us as to the advantages conferred upon the world by the invention of the electric telegraph may be a little altered. There never was a case in which a political mission of a more arduous and difficult character, more demanding reasonable confidence and forbearance, was confided to any man; but from the beginning of the Session the noble Marquess has, unfortunately, thought it his duty to say a good many things which, in our opinion, are calculated to throw difficulties in General Gordon's way. Yet the noble Marquess expresses great confidence in the high character, the upright purpose, and the great abilities of General Gordon, and entertains a hope that in the end all these things may turn out right. Her Majesty's Government must decline to be cross-examined upon everything General Gordon says or does. We continue to place confidence in him, the same confidence which we placed in him when we originally sent him out. We believe that General Gordon knows the people he has to deal with, their manners, their language, and their habits of mind, and that the Proclamations which he addresses to them are much more likely to be well understood there than they are here, and to be adapted to meet the necessities of the case he has to deal with; and I do think the criticisms which have been passed upon this particular Proclamation are as devoid of reason as they are of political wisdom. I confess I was very much struck by the difference between the views of the noble Marquess and those of the noble Viscount who preceded him as to the meaning to be attached by reasonable men to the words of that Proclamation dealing with slavery; both desired to be reasonable and to do justice, and yet no two views could possibly be more different. Applying his great powers of criticism to the document, the noble Marquess more than suggests that the natural meaning of it goes beyond the subject of domestic slavery and enters upon the larger field of the slave traffic. To the noble Viscount, on the other hand, nothing was more clear—there was no question about it—than that General Gordon referred to domestic slavery only, and did not intend to give any sanction to the slave traffic. I agree with the noble Viscount. The words which the noble Marquess adverted to in the preamble of the Proclamation give emphasis to the difference of the language in what I may call the operative part. What General Gordon says, in effect, is this—that he has the sincerest desire to adopt a course of action which shall lead to public tranquillity, and he knows the uneasiness of the people at the severe measures taken by our Government for the suppression of the slave traffic, and the seizure and punishment of all concerned according to certain Conventions and Decrees; and then, in order to allay the consequences of that alarm, he says—"I confer upon you these rights"—not to carry on the slave traffic, not to do the things against which the Convention and Decrees were directed—but That henceforth none shall interfere with your property; whoever has slaves shall have full right to their services and full control over them. To my mind, it is perfectly clear that that refers to the right to existing property in slaves which the Egyptian Government had not abrogated, which the proceedings taken by our Government had not abrogated, and which it would have been most dangerous to the objects of his Mission to have interfered with. I venture to say, distinctly, that these, and these only, are the rights which General Gordon declares it is his intention not to interfere with. Is not that distinction one which we ourselves have always recognized? Everyone all over the world has recognized the distinction between the actual holding of slaves in a country where unfortunately the institution of domestic slavery does exist, and the prosecution of the traffic of which the object is to reduce free men to slavery. When we acquired a Protectorate over certain territories in the Malay Peninsula, domestic slavery existed there, and we did not imagine that it was wise or possible summarily to abolish it; accordingly, it was continued for several years, partly under the late and partly under the present Administration. The noble Marquess says—" Have you no communication from General Gordon as to the meaning of the Proclamation?" Why, the noble Lord who introduced the subject referred to communications which had been published in the newspapers, and in these it appeared that General Gordon himself drew the same distinction, and said it was the domestic institution already existing, and not the Slave Trade, or slave-hunting, to which the Proclamation referred.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I did not ask whether the newspapers had received such despatches. I asked whether the Government had not received any.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

Yes; we have received, in an authentic form, the same information. As to the suggested abrogation of existing Treaties, when we are called upon we will discuss the precise meaning of any words supposed to have that effect; but to my mind it is obvious that General Gordon could have meant, and did mean, nothing but this—that when Egypt withdraws, as we have advised and urged her to do, from the attempt to govern the great territory of the Soudan, Egypt can no longer by any possibility be required to enforce those Treaties in the territory from which she has withdrawn; and, therefore, as between us and Egypt, no Treaty is abrogated, but the execution of these Treaties by Egypt in the Soudan will simply have become impossible when she has withdrawn from that territory. As to the supposed interference with the Sovereignty of the Porte, nothing has been done by this Government or by General Gordon to prevent the assertion as to the Soudan of any rights the Porte may have had. They were nominal rights; as far as they had any reality, they existed only by delegation to the Government of Egypt. It cannot maintain them; and by the agreement of all, including the noble Marquess, it ought not to have been advised to maintain them. If I rightly understood the criticism upon Her Majesty's Government in a former debate, it was tills, that we ought, much sooner than we did, to have advised the Government of Egypt to withdraw from the attempt to assert authority over the Soudan. Perhaps of all criticisms, after the light which we have obtained by the course of events, that may have been the most plausible; but now, at all events, Egypt can no longer exercise a delegated authority in the Soudan. The Ottoman Porte has not, that I am aware of, expressed any desire that Turkey should, at its own expense, and with its own troops, and without charge upon Egypt, reconquer the Soudan. I cannot think myself that any friend of the Ottoman Empire would advise such a course. At all events, no such thing has been attempted, or hitherto proposed. We have to deal with the actual position in the Soudan as it is, and we must look to the local circumstances and the necessity of the case to redeem the Egyptian garrisons from their position there, if that is possible, and to give a chance of settled order. In the interests of humanity, in the interests of the peace of Egypt, and in the interests of the Ottoman Empire itself, we must endeavour to use such local resources and local means as we can find for the purpose of doing the best that can be done in this difficult situation. We have confidence, and we believe the country will have confidence, in General Gordon. The noble Viscount (Viscount Bury) would, as it seems to me, have produced most of his questions with better effect in the debate upon which the House lately divided than now. He says that is what he actually did; and, if that is so, why did the noble Viscount reproduce them now? Seeing that military operations may now be going on in the Soudan, when we are asked why we have done this or that, or why we do not do one thing or another, and when General Gordon is called in some of these questions an English Governor General in the Soudan, and a number of other assumptions are made, the accuracy of which we cannot admit, and which are contrary to our declared intentions and policy, we decline to enter into those questions at all. Everyone knows that our present task on the Red Sea Coast is to defend Suakin, which is threatened with attack. We desire also, if possible, to relieve the beleagured garrisons. It is, and has been throughout, the policy of Egypt and of this country to retain Suakin and the Red Sea forts, and it is in furtherance of that policy, and of that policy only, that we are now carrying on military operations in that portion of the country.

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

said, that all the difficulties which the Government had encountered in the Eastern Soudan were difficulties of their own creation; but though the Government were open to attack in many directions, and had many joints in their harness, he did not think that any attack should be made upon them in consequence of the Proclamation of General Gordon. It ought to be remembered that it was not a normal state of things which existed in the Soudan, and that General Gordon had gone out on a forlorn hope, and that he had succeeded in his Mission beyond all expectation. General Gordon was a single-minded man, whose whole life had shown him to be of all men the most vehement enemy of slavery.

Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.

VISCOUNT BURY

gave Notice that on Monday next, the 3rd of March, he would ask the Government, Whether this country is engaged in war on the littoral of the Red Sea, and, if so, with whom; and if it is not engaged in war, what is the character of the operations in which English forces are now employed?