ADDRESS FOR PAPERS. (Hansard, 7 May 1885)

LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL
My Lords, I rise to move an humble Address to the Crown for the Protocols or Treaties which regulate the authority of the Sublime Porte to admit foreign ships of war into the Dardanelles. It is hardly necessary to refer to the circumstances which suggest a Motion of this character. In every society, young or old, grave or gay, political or private, they have recently been mentioned. It is true that on Monday last a new fact entered the discussion. I 1819 deferred, in consequence, the Motion on that day, and would have willingly postponed it altogether, unless reflection had convinced me that the official statement, although calculated to diminish, ought not to remove the public apprehension as to differences with Russia. Before sitting down, I may offer something in defence of that opinion. But it is first desirable to touch on the Conventions which explain the power of the Sultan in the matter now before us. My Lords, the Press at home and on the Continent is full of ambiguity regarding them, which can only be corrected by the documents I ask for united in a single view, and not dispersed in many volumes. We are always meeting statements that Germany or Austria, or some other Power, in the event of serious contingencies, will prohibit the Sublime Porte from admitting foreign ships of war into the Dardanelles. These statements are made with little reference to past occurrences, or past enactments on the subject. Journalists, in agitated times, are too much hurried to investigate. I will submit what seems to me a faithful outline of the question. In the beginning of the century there were, no doubt, Conventions to restrain foreign ships of war from going into the waters of the Sultan when he was at peace. So far hack as 1809, it is certain, on the authority of Calvo, the great master of public law, that they existed. In a Treaty of 1841 they are referred to, in those of 1856 they are repeated. But in 1871 they underwent a grave modification. At that time, as a counterpoise to the arrangements by which Russia regained the power of cruising in the Black Sea, taken away after the Crimean War, the Sultan was permitted, even without hostilities beginning, to invite into the Bosphorus the armed ships of friendly Powers when he deemed it for his own security to do so. The new authority was brought about by what was termed the Black Sea Conference in London. It has never been exerted; it has been absolutely latent during the burning questions of the Eastern Question, which have followed it. But such a fact, whether the result of chance, irresolution, or impolicy, leaves the power equally unquestioned. The Treaty of Berlin does nothing to correct the rules as left in 1871. It, on 1820 the contrary, embodies and repeats them. As regards that point, the Treaty has been recently and carefully examined under my direction. The whole matter, if I am not deceived, admits a summary expression. According to the Law of Nations, it is open to any State to give a passage over land or water it possesses to the military or naval force of a belligerent. But as regards the Straits within the Ottoman Empire, the Law of Nations has been disturbed and superseded by Conventions. Those Conventions have again, in 1871, been modified and widened. The upshot is, that prohibition falls not upon the Sultan, but on other Powers. No Power can despatch its Fleets without his sanction to the Dardanelles. But that sanction turns entirely on his judgment. His right over the waters on his territory is similar to that of Prance upon the Seine, of Russia, on the Neva, of Portugal, upon the Tagus. If this interpretation is erroneous, the Papers I demand will bring the true one into notice.
Whenever the collision, so frequently anticipated happens, the facility of operating in the Black Sea is most important to this country. It is the only area in which Russia has ever been successfully encountered by Powers wishing to restrain her. Since she became a formidable member of the European system, there are but a few instances in which campaigns have been designed or organized against her. They may be all enumerated in a moment, and the lesson is most apposite. The earliest was that of the Swedish Monarch Charles XII., which was directed from the North to the South East, and ended fatally, at least disastrously, for him and for his Kingdom, at the well-known battle of Pultova. The next in order is that of the First Napoleon in 1812, of which the detail lives in the immortal pages of the Count de Segur. Advancing from the South to the North East, it culminated in the fire of Moscow, and the destruction of the Army which retreated from it. The third was our own attempt to threaten Cronstadt, in the Baltic, under Sir Charles Napier. Your Lordships know—as those times come back with force upon us— that while it succeeded as a defensive measure, or blockade, it failed no less completely as an effort of invasion. The 1821 Expedition to the shores of the Crimea was almost a simultaneous one. It is the only Expedition against-Russia which has had a brilliant, although, in some degree, ephemeral result. The Black Sea was its necessary channel. If the Black Sea is closed for her advantage, Russia is entitled, by the history of the past, to deem herself invincible. It is of practical importance to explore with accuracy all the diplomatic grounds on which the Sultan may be asked to grant her an immunity from the only danger which experience has taught her to consider as a grave one. My Lords, there is but one mode of thinking to which the Address would be obnoxious, and which it is therefore indispensable to guard against. It is the mode of thinking which rejects the possibility of war with Russia and counts upon a satisfactory adjustment. The announcement of the Government has, of course, done something to encourage that impression. The financial world has seized it with a natural, but yet, as it appears to me, unreasoning avidity. Let it be granted that the Government may smooth over the immediate questions on the Afghan Frontier. Let it be granted that arbitration may patch up the controversy between Sir Peter Lumsden and General Komaroff. But the movement on Herat which tends undoubtedly to war, on that point the voice of Professor Vambery is known to us, can scarcely be arrested so long as Russia has rare, immense, and previously unknown encouragements to prosecute it. It is worth while to glance at those encouragements before the Motion is rejected as an useless one. Those encouragements reside not in the intrinsic force or unity or resolution of that Empire, great as they may be, but in the peculiar circumstances both of Europe and Great Britain. The Holy Alliance is in avowed, in flagrant lately-renovated vigour. Had it been working for two or three years we might derive a slender hope from its exhaustion and satiety. Like individuals nations may grow tired of one another. As things now stand, it is well known at St. Petersburg that Germany and Austria can offer no assistance to this country. There is no drag-chain upon Russia from that quarter. In the Crimean War it was not easy to obtain it. It is impossible at present. It is seen that France is bitterly opposed to us, or she would hardly have resented 1822 the suppression of a malignant journal by the Khedive. The Sublime Porte is irrecoverable until our Ministerial position has been altered. It would be devoid of memory, of dignity, of prudence, unless it were so irrecoverable—without some kind of reparation and security— after the series of transactions by which it has been diligently alienated. Those who know Constantinople — amongst whom I cannot reckon many Members of the Government — are aware that when the Embassies of Russia, Germany, and Austria are united, the British Embassy is pulled down to utter insignificance. It may be that acting on this theory the Government have virtually closed it. The Earl of Dufferin has not been replaced. There is no Ambassador at present to attempt communication with the Sultan. If he excludes Great Britain from the Black Sea, Russia may attempt Herat with absolute impunity. If he admits Great Britain to the Black Sea, she is wholly unsupported in it. Do we forget how many nations were required in the Crimea? It was only by the solemn union of this country, of France, Sardinia, and the Porte, with Austria in the rear as a benevolent spectator, that after countless toils and tragical vicissitudes Sebastopol was taken. But there is something else to urge on Russia to adventurous persistence. My Lords, it is that our foreign policy is still directed by the very agency, which led in 1870 to the concessions she obtained, which took away Sir Henry Layard from Constantinople, which did her work in Montenegro, which organized, or tried to organize, an European Concert in her favour. In our day, the problem of diplomacy, to put it in its essence, is a contention between London and St. Petersburg for influence at Berlin. Who does not see to which the palm belongs, to which it has inevitably fallen? But it is not only incapacity or isolation seen in Great Britain which urges Russia to activity and enterprize. It is well known to her rulers that our Government are unavoidably affected by the consciousness of military failure. The same body which retired from South Africa because unable to redeem its pledges or hold its ground against barbarians, the same body which has failed egregiously to rescue General Gordon, the same body which is now disposed to give up Khar- 1823 toum, would have to undertake a task too great for the abilities of the First Napoleon, with recent laurels to inspire, with tributary Sovereigns to back, with conquered nations to fight under him. If nothing, according to the proverb, is so successful as past triumph, nothing is so calamitous as recent and profound humiliation. But there is something else to paralyze the Government and lead on Russia to the conflict. The movement on Herat can only be suspended or retarded, but never actually renounced, so long as Russia sees in Downing Street a First Minister—however subtle and ingenious —who encouraged the aggressive war of 1877, who opposed the Vote of Credit in 1878, who did not wish the Treaty of San Stefano to be attenuated to the Treaty of Berlin, who only the last autumn on the 1st of September, in his own name before his own electors, held up the keenest advocate of Russian despotism and of Russian conquest as the person to whom the British public ought to look for guidance and direction. So long as he remains, the temptation to advance we offer at St. Petersburg is wholly irresistible. It is imagined, feebly and erroneously, that a recent speech involves a metamorphosis which would no doubt be critically useful. In point of fact that speech blots out no passage of his conduct, since he invented the new faith in Russia as a civilizing Power to be followed. But if he underwent a moral revolution, a political convulsion—and he has traversed many— the old impression could not be immediately dispersed and superseded. The speech upon the Vote of Credit is a new encouragement to Russia, if only followed by concessions as it has been. It proves to Russia that his language may be safely disregarded, whatever colour it assumes. My Lords, in spite of any language he may hold, and even more of any views he may arrive at, the Russian leaders know that so long as he is our First Minister he shelters them from all the perils which might otherwise arrest them. So long as he remains it is impossible that the mass of European Powers should be arrayed against them. So long as he remains the Holy Alliance cannot be divided; the German Empire cannot be successfully appealed to; the Sublime Porte cannot be won back to common action 1824 with Great Britain. It must be also recollected by the statesmen at St. Petersburg that in the event of war Constantinople will be as much an object as Herat. When are they to reach Constantinople, so nearly grasped, so painfully relinquished, if not when the Western Powers are embroiled, and when the First Minister of Great Britain is unable to defend it without the sacrifice of something more than his professions and his policy? My Lords, that war with Russia is the consequence of retaining a First Minister who has, or only seems to have, an inclination to that Power does not stand on reason, probability, or theory, although they would effectually uphold it. A sad and not remote example has betrayed it. It is seen by all who accurately measure that transaction that the imputed partiality of the late Earl of Aberdeen for Russia produced the war which led us on to the Crimea, and that had Viscount Palmerston replaced him in 1853 the Danubian Principalities would not have been invaded. There is not wanting evidence to show that the Czar Nicholas was lured on to aggression by his dependence on the leniency and confidence with which the head of our Government apparently regarded him. The observation has been made a hundred times, but ought not to escape us when its conclusion is so vital. We do not come here to display originality at such a moment as the present. The situation is a clear one. An arrangement demonstrably calculated to bring on war with Russia in spite of pledges the most solemn was made in 1880. In 1885 for weeks that war has been impending. So long as the First Minister continues in his Office, so long as Russia keeps her eyes upon Herat, the cloud remains, although the storm. has been retarded. But while the cloud remains the storm is always ready to descend upon us. We are bound, therefore to look forward to hostilities. It is in the Black Sea alone we can pursue them with advantage. Until these Protocols or Treaties are collected, it will be doubtful how far that zone of operations is accessible. The research is insignificant, as I could easily convince the Government. As to the expense, it will not be considerable, and ought not to weigh with men who have prepared a gulf which only millions can bridge over.

§ EARL GRANVILLE
Although I am not aware I gave any exaggerated expression with regard to any hope of peace, I am bound to say I do not share in the very gloomy views which the noble Lord has just expressed. He really reminds me of those who have enteredin to a certain place and are said to have left all hope behind them. I do not believe that war with Russia is perfectly unavoidable. I do not agree that if that war came we should wage it with every possible disadvantage against us, and with every advantage in favour of Russia. I deny that Her Majesty's Government are conscious of constant military failures. I deny that it is certain Russia will go to Herat. I also deny—at least I disagree with—the sketch the noble Lord has given of Mr. Gladstone, which is one he gives from time to time from the seat he occupies in this House. On the other hand, I am confident my noble Friend was perfectly accurate, so far as I followed him, in what he said of the Treaties to which he alluded. I believe he is quite right— and I shall be corrected by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) if I am wrong—that the Berlin Treaty confirms the Treaties of 1856 and 1871. And I may mention as important that during the Conference at Berlin the noble Marquess declared, as is recorded in the Protocols with regard to the obligations concerning the closing of the Straits, that Her Majesty's Government's obligations were limited to the engagement to respect the independent judgment of the Sultan according to the Treaties in existence. Count Schouva-loff made a declaration on the following day to the effect that, in the opinion of the Russian Government's Plenipotentiaries, the principle of closing the Straits is a European principle, and that the Treaties concluded in that respect in 1841, 1856, and 1871, and confirmed by the Treaty of Berlin, were binding on the part of all the Powers, in accordance with the spirit and letter of the existing Treaties. If I am not mistaken, I think the noble Marquess, in his despatch, explains one of his main reasons for making the statement he did; it was 1826 made in consequence of the delaration which had just taken place that Batoum should be a free port or a commercial depot. With regard to the production of the Treaties, I really think my noble Friend need not press for them. They have been often presented; and in 1877 and 1878 they were presented and printed for Parliament.

LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL
The remarks of the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs demand one observation upon my part. The language of despair which he imputes to me is not despair as to the resources of the country, when the peculiar burden of the Ministerial position is withdrawn from it, but as to its power of opposing Russia when artificially and wantonly deprived of all support in Europe. For the rest, the personal allusions of the noble Earl are thoroughly innocuous. They are the necessity of his position since he resolved to be the organ of the Premier. He holds his Office on the tenure of attacking those who have disputed the authority of the right hon. Gentleman. I repeat what I have urged before, after full inquiry, that these Protocols and Treaties exist in no collected form, and that until they do the prevalent obscurity as to the rights of entrance to the Dardanelles is likely to continue. I shall not be able, therefore, to withdraw the Motion.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
I would make one observation with respect to the declaration to which the noble Earl referred. The object of the declaration which I had to make on behalf of Her Majesty's Government I understood to be to establish the principle that our engagements in respect of the Dardanelles were not engagements of a general, European, or International character, but were engagements towards the Sultan only; the practical bearing of that reservation being that if, in any circumstances, the Sultan should not be acting independently, but under pressure from some other Power, there would be no International obligation on our part to abstain from passing through the Dardanelles. Of course, that is a purely theoretical matter. I wish to point out that it was not merely with respect to Batoum, but with respect to any other matters which may arise calling for our presence in the 1827 Black Sea, that the reservation then made was made.

§ EARL GRANVILLE
said, that if he found he was wrong with regard to the Protocols he should have no objection to present them.