Sitting of 11 February 1896

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.
Message to attend the Lords Commissioners by Black Rod;
The House went, and returned.

NEW MEMBERS SWORN.
Robert Bannatyne Finlay, esquire, Q.C., for Inverness District of Burghs.
William Kenny, esquire, Q.C., for Borough of Dublin (St. Stephen's Green Division).
William Ambrose, esquire, Q.C., for Middlesex County (Harrow Division).
Henry Algernon George Percy, commonly called Lord Warkworth, for Borough of Kensington (South Division).
William Edward Hartpole Lecky, esquire, for Borough of Trinity College, Dublin.
Thomas Joseph Farrell, esquire, for Kerry County (South Kerry Division).
James John Shee, esquire, for Waterford County (West Waterford Division).
Lieutenant Herbert Herbert Merton Jessel, for Borough of St. Pancras (South Division).
Evelyn Hubbard, commonly called the Honourable Evelyn Hubbard, for Borough of Lambeth (Brixton Division).

NEW WRITS.
For the Montrose District of Burghs, v. John Shiress Will, esquire, Q.C., Manor of Northstead.—(Mr. Thomas Ellis.)
MR. SPEAKERacquainted the House that he had issued during the Recess Warrants for New Writs for,—
Borough of Kensington (South Division), v. Sir Algernon Borthwick, baronet, called up to the House of Peers.
City of Liverpool (East Toxteth Division), v. The Right Honourable Baron Henry de Worms, called up to the House of Peers.

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University of Dublin, v. The Right Honourable David Robert Plunket, called up to the House of Peers.
County of Middlesex (Harrow Division), v. William Ambrose, esquire, Q.C., Attorney General of the Duchy of Lancaster.
Borough of Belfast (North Belfast Division), v. Sir Edward James Harland, baronet, deceased.
Borough of St. Pancras (South Division), v. The Right Honourable Sir Julian Goldsmid, baronet, deceased.
Borough of Lambeth (Brixton Division), v. George Godolphin Osborne, commonly called the Marquess of Carmarthen, now Duke of Leeds.

ELECTIONS (EAST KERRY AND SOUTH MAYO) (DOUBLE RETURN).
MR. SPEAKERacquainted the House that he had received the following letter:—
"Feb. 11, 1896.
"The Right Hon. The Speaker,
"Sir,
"Having been returned at the General Election for the divisions of East Kerry and South Mayo, I wish to intimated that I intend to represent the latter constituency in the present Parliament.
"I remain,
"Your obedient servant,
"MICHAEL DAVITT."

CONTROVERTED ELECTIONS.
MR. SPEAKERinformed the House that he had received the following communications from the Judges appointed to try the several Election Petitions:—

DURHAM ELECTION PETITION.
In the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division.
The Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868, the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Acts, 1883 and 1895.
To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons.
Election for the Borough of Durham, holden on the 15th day of July, 1895.
In the matter of an Election Petition from the said Borough presented to the High Court of Justice on the 8th day of August 1895.
Arthur Ralph Douglas Elliot, Petitioner.
Matthew Fowler, M.P., Respondent.
We, the Honourable Mr. Justice Wright and the Honourable Mr. Justice Bruce, two of the Judges of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, selected to be placed on the Rota of Judges and additional Judges for
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the Trial of Parliamentary Election Petitions in England and Wales for the year ending the 24th day of October, 1896.
Do hereby report, that an application for liberty to withdraw this Petition was heard before us on the 15th day of November, 1895. After we had heard Counsel on both sides, and read the affidavits made by the respective parties to this Petition and others, pursuant to the statute, we ordered that the Petitioner should have liberty to withdraw his Petition.
We further report, that in our opinion the withdrawal of such Petition was not the result of any agreement, terms, or undertaking, or in consideration of any payment, or in consideration that the seat should at any time be vacated, or in consideration of the withdrawal of any other election petition, or for any other consideration.
Dated this 21st day of November, 1895.
R. S. WRIGHT.
GAINSFORD BRUCE.
[SOUTHAMPTON ELECTION (1).]
In the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division.
The Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868.
The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Acts, 1883 and 1895.
To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons.
Election for the Borough of Southampton, holden on the 16th day of July, 1895.
In the matter of an Election Petition from the said Borough, presented to the High Court of Justice on the 7th day of July, 1895.
Sir Francis Henry Evans, knight, Petitioner.
Tankerville Chamberlayne, M.P. and
Sir John Stephen Barrington Simeon, baronet, M.P., Respondents.
We, the Honourable Mr. Justice Wright and the Honourable Mr. Justice Bruce, two of the Judges of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice selected to be placed on the Rota of Judges and additional Judges for the Trial of Parliamentary Election Petitions in England and Wales for the year ending the 24th day of October, 1896.
Do hereby report that an application for liberty to withdraw this Petition was heard before us on the 19th day of November, 1895, After we, had heard Counsel on both sides, and read the affidavits made by the respective parties to this Petition and others, pursuant to the Statute, we ordered that the Petitioner should have liberty to withdraw his Petition.
We further report that in our opinion the withdrawal of such Petition was not the result of any agreement, terms, or undertaking, or in consideration of any payment, or in consideration that the seats or either of them should at any time be vacated, or in consideration of the withdrawal of any other Election Petition, or for any other consideration.
Dated this 21st day of November, 1895.
R. S. WRIGHT.
GAINSFORD BRUCE.

SOUTHAMPTON ELECTION (2).
The Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868, and
The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Acts, 1888 and 1895.
To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons.
We, the Honourable Mr. Justice Wright, and the Honourable Mr. Justice Bruce, Judges of Her Majesty's High Court of Justice, and two of the Judges on the rota, for the time being for the Trial of Election Petitions in England, do hereby, in pursuance of the said Acts, certify that, upon the 29th day of November, 1895, we duly held a Court at the Hartley Institution, in the Borough of the County of the Town of Southampton, for the trial of, and did on the said day and following days try, the election petition for the said borough, between Walter Crees Austen and John Rowland, petitioners, and Tankerville Chamberlayne, esquire, and Sir John Stephen Barrington Simeon, Baronet. And in further pursuance of the said Acts we report—
1. That, at the conclusion of the said trial, we determined that the said Sir John Stephen Barrington Simeon, being one of the Members whose election and return were complained of, was duly elected and returned, and that the said Tankerville Chamberlayne, the other Member whose election and return were complained of, was not duly elected and returned, and that his election was void, on the ground that the said Tankerville Chamberlayne was, by his Agent, Albert James Blackman, guilty of an illegal practice at the said Election, namely, a payment knowingly made by the said Albert James Blackman during the said Election for the purpose of promoting and procuring the election of the said Tankerville Chamberlayne and Sir John Stephen Barrington Simeon on account of the conveyance of a voter to and from the poll of the said Election.
And whereas charges were made of corrupt and illegal practices having been committed at the said Election, we in further pursuance of the said Acts report as follows:—
2. That no Corrupt or Illegal Practice was proved to have been committed by or with the knowledge and consent of any Candidate at such Election.
3. That Albert James Blackman was proved at the trial to have been guilty of the illegal practice aforesaid.
4. That there is not reason to believe that corrupt or illegal practices have extensively prevailed at such Election.
5. That both the aforesaid Candidates were guilty by the said Albert James Blackman, who was an Agent in their behalf, of the illegal practice aforesaid; but save as aforesaid they have not, nor has either of them, nor has any Candidate at the said Election been guilty by any Agent or Agents of any illegal practice at the said Election.
6. That the said Albert James Blackman has been furnished with a certificate of indemnity in respect of the illegal practice aforesaid.
7. That the said Candidate, Sir John Stephen Barrington Simeon, has proved to the Court that no corrupt or illegal practice was committed
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at the said Election by him, the said Candidate, or his Election Agent, and the offence mentioned in this report was committed contrary to the orders, and without the sanction or connivance of him, the said Candidate, or his Election Agent, and that he, the said Candidate, and his Election Agent took all reasonable means for preventing at the commission of corrupt and illegal practices at the said Election, and that the said offence mentioned in the said report was of a trivial, unimportant, and limited character, and that in all other respects the Election was free from any corrupt or illegal practice on the part of such Candidate and of his Agents.
8. That the said Tankerville Chamberlayne failed to prove to the Court that he took all reasonable means for preventing the commission of corrupt and illegal practices at the said Election.
Dated the 30th day of December 1895.
R. S. WRIGHT.
GAINSFORD BRUCE.

EDINBURGH (SOUTH) ELECTION.
Court of Session, First Division,
Edinburgh, 31st October 1895.
We, the Honble. Lord Adam and the Honble. Lord Stormonth Darling, being two of the Judges upon the Rota for the trial of Election Petitions, certify to the Right. Honorable the Speaker of the House of Commons that, at an Election Court held by us at Edinburgh upon the twenty-sixth day of October, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, we, on the motion of Robert Burn, 62, Blacket Place, Edinburgh, and Joseph Train Gray, publisher, 48, Minto Street, Edinburgh, petitioners in a petition against the Election of Robert Cox as Member of Parliament for the City of Edinburgh (South Division), granted leave to the said petitioners to withdraw their petition; and, no persons having appeared to adopt the petition, after due notice, we held the same withdrawn in terms of the statute; and we have further to report that, in our opinion, the withdrawal of the said petition was not the result of any corrupt arrangement, or in consideration of the withdrawal of any other petition.
Given under our band at Edinburgh this thirty-first day of October, eighteen hundred and ninety-five years,
JAMES ADAM.
MOIR E. STORMONTH DARLINE.
The Right Honourable William Court Gully, The Speaker of the House of Commons.

LICHFIELD ELECTION.
The Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868.
The Parliamentary Elections and Corrupt Practices Act, 1879, and
The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Acts, 1883 and 1895.
To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons.
We, the Honourable Baron Pollock and the Honourable Mr. Justice Bruce, Judges of Her Majesty's High Court of Justice, and two of the Judges on the rota for the time being for the

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trial of Election Petitions in England, do hereby, in pursuance of the said Acts, certify that upon the 7th day of December 1895, we duly held a Court at the Guildhall in the City of Lichfield, for the trial of and did on the said day and following days try the Election Petition for the Lichfield Division of the County of Stafford, between Sir Charles Wolseley, Baronet, Theophilus John Levett, John Alkin, and John Shaw, Petitioners, and Henry Charles Fulford, Esquire, Respondent.
And, in further pursuance of the said Acts we report:—
That, at the conclusion of the said trial we determined that the said Henry Charles Fulford, the Member whoso Election and return were complained of, was not duly returned or elected, and that his Election was void on the ground that the said Henry Charles Fulford, by Arthur William Barnes, his Election Agent, was guilty of an illegal practice at the said Election, in this hat his said Election Agent failed, without such authorised excuse as is mentioned in The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act, 1893, to transmit to the Returning Officer a true return respecting Election expenses as required by the provisions of the last mentioned Act, and made a return respecting Election expenses in which he omitted to mention certain payments made on behalf of the said Henry Charles Fulford, the candidate, in respect of the conduct and management of the said Election, and omitted to mention payments made by the said Election Agent in respect of the conduct and management of the said Election for the holding of meetings to promote the Election of the said candidate.
And whereas charges were made of Corrupt and Illegal Practices having been committed at the said Election we, in further pursuance of the said Acts, report as follows:—
1. That no Corrupt or Illegal Practice was proved to have been committed by or with the knowledge and consent of any candidate at such Election.
2. That Arthur William Barnes, the Election Agent of the said Henry Charles Fulford, was proved at the trial to have been guilty of the illegal practice aforesaid.
3. That there is not reason to believe that Corrupt or Illegal Practices have extensively prevailed at the said Election.
4. That the said Henry Charles Fulford has been guilty by his said Election Agent of the illegal practice aforesaid, but save as aforesaid the said Henry Charles Fulford has not been guilty by any agent or agents of any illegal practice sit the said Election.
5. That we have furnished the said Arthur William Barnes with a certificate of indemnity.
Dated this 24th day of January 1896.
C. E, POLLOCK.
GAINSFORDBRUCE.

ELECTIONS.
Ordered, That all Members who are returned for two or more places in any part of the United Kingdom do make their election for which of the places
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they will serve, within one week after it shall appear that there is no question upon the Return for that place; and if any tiling shall come in question touching the return or Election of any Member, he is to withdraw during the time the matter is in debate; and that all Members returned upon double Returns, do withdraw till their Returns are determined.
Resolved, That no Peer of the Realm, except such Peers of Ireland as shall for the time being be actually elected, and shall not have declined to serve, for any county, city, or borough of Great Britain, hath any right to give his vote in the Election of any Member to serve in Parliament.
Resolved, That it is a high infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of the United Kingdom for any Lord of Parliament, or other Peer or Prelate, not being a Peer of Ireland at the time elected, and not having declined to serve for any county, city, or borough of Great Britain, to concern himself in the election of Members to serve for the Commons in Parliament, except only any Peer of Ireland, at such elections in Great Britain respectively where such Peer shall appear as a candidate, or by himself, or any others, be proposed to be elected; or for any Lord Lieutenant or Governor of any county to avail himself of any authority derived from his commission, to influence the election of any Member to serve for the Commons in Parliament.
Resolved, That if it shall appear that any person hath been elected or returned a Member of this House, or endeavour so to be, by bribery, or any other corrupt practices, this House will proceed with the utmost severity against all such persons as shall have been wilfully concerned in such bribery or other corrupt practices.

WITNESSES.
Resolved, That if it shall appear that any person hath been tampering with any Witness, in respect of his evidence to be given to this House, or any Committee; thereof, or directly or indirectly hath

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endeavoured to deter or hinder any person from appearing or giving evidence, the same is declared to be a high crime and misdemeanour; and this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offender.
Resolved, That if it shall appear that any person hath given false evidence in any case before this House, or any Committee thereof, this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offender.

METROPOLITAN POLICE.
Ordered, That the Commissioners of the Police of the Metropolis do take care that, during the Session of Parliament, the passages through the streets leading to this House be kept free and open, and that no obstruction be permitted to hinder the passage of Members to and from this House, and that no disorder be allowed in Westminster Hall, or in the passages leading to this House, during the sitting of Parliament, and that there be no annoyance therein or thereabouts; and that the Serjeant-at-Arms attending this House do communicate this Order to the Commissioners aforesaid.
VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS.
Ordered, That the Votes and Proceedings of this House be printed, being first perused by Mr. Speaker; and that he do appoint the printing thereof; and that no person but such as he shall appoint do presume to print the same.
Ordered, that a Committee of Privileges be appointed.
OUTLAWRIES' BILL.
For the more effectual preventing Clandestine Outlawries. Read the first time; to be read a second time.

JOURNAL
Ordered, That the Journal of this House, from the end of last Session to the end of the present Session, with an Index thereto, be printed.
Ordered, That 750 copies of the said Journal and Index be printed by the appointment and under the direction of Sir Reginald Francis Douce Palgrave, K.C.B., the Clerk of this House.
Ordered, That the said Journal and Index be printed by such person as shall be licensed by Mr. Speaker, and that no other person do presume to print the same.

ALIEN IMMIGRATION.
Copy ordered—
"Of Return of the Number of Aliens arrived from the Continent at ports in the United Kingdom in each month of the year 1896."—(Mr. Ritchie.)
Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 1.]

TRADE AND NAVIGATION.
Copy ordered—
"Of Accounts relating to trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom for each month during the year 1896."—(Mr. Ritchie.)
Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 2.]

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (IRELAND).
Copy ordered—
"Of Account of the Receipts and Payments of the Accountant General of the Supreme Court of Judicature in Ireland, in respect of the Funds of Suitors in the said Court, in the year to the 30th day of September 1895; together with a Statement of Liabilities and Assets and particulars of Securities in Court, on the 30th day of September 1895."—(Mr. Hanbury.)
Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 3.]

SUPERANNUATION.
Copy ordered—
"Of Treasury Minute, dated the 18th of November 1895, granting a gratuity to Mr. William John Titterton, Writer in the Office of Woods and Forests, on his retirement from the Service."—(Mr. Hanbury.)
Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 4.]

POST OFFICE TELEGRAPHS.
Copy ordered—
"Of Account showing the gross amount received and the gross amount expended in respect of the Telegraph Service, from the date of the Transfer of the Telegraphs to the State to the 31st day of March 1895 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 92, of Session 1895)."—(Mr. Hanbury.)
Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 5.]

CIVIL CONTINGENCIES FUND, 1894–5.
Copy ordered—
"Of Accounts showing,—

1. The Receipts and payments in connection with the Fund in the year ended the 31st day of March 1895;

2. The Distribution of the Capital of the Fund at the commencement and close of the year;

together with the Correspondence with the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon."—(Mr. Hanbury.)
Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.—[No. 6.]

BALLOT FOR BILLS AND NOTICES OF MOTION.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I beg to give notice of the following Motion:—
"That no Bills, other than Government Bills, be introduced in anticipation of the ballot, and that all Members who desire to ballot, whether for Bills, or Motions for the first four Tuesdays of the Session, do hand in their names at the Table during the sitting of the House on the first or second day of the Session, and that a copy of such Notices be handed in at the latest during the sitting of the House on the third day of the Session:
"That the ballot for the precedence of the said Bills and Motions be taken on the third day of the Session at a convenient time and place to be appointed by Mr. Speaker."

MINISTERIAL NOTICES OF MOTION.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. G. J. GOSCHEN,): I beg to give notice that I shall ask leave on Thursday to
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introduce a Bill to make provision for the construction of works in the United Kingdom and elsewhere for the purposes of the Royal Navy. [Loud cheers.]
THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. HENRY CHAPLIN,): On Thursday to introduce; a Bill to amend the law with respect to the rating of occupiers of agricultural land in England, and other purposes. [Cheers.]
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRTCULTURE (Mr. WALTER LONG,): To give notice that on Thursday he will bring in a Bill to amend the law relating to agricultural holdings and to make further provision with respect to loans for agricultural purposes; also that on Thursday he will bring in a Bill to amend the Diseases of Animals Act, 1894.
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): On Thursday to introduce a Bill further to amend the law relating to the ownership of land in Ireland, and other purpose relating thereto.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. C. T. RITCHIE,): On Thursday to introduce a Bill dealing with light railways and a Bill dealing with trade disputes.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW RIDLEY,): On Thursday to introduce a Bill amending the law with respect to compensation to workmen in regard to injuries.
THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir JOHN GORST,): On Thursday to introduce a Bill to make further provision for education in England and Wales. ["Hear, hear!"]
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,): On Thursday to introduce a Bill to facilitate the execution of military manœuvres. [Laughter.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  ADDRESS IN ANSWER TO HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.
  [FIRST NIGHT.]
  MR. SPEAKERreported Her Majesty's speech, made that day by her Chancellor, and read it to the House.
  MR. G. J. GOSCHEN, JUN., who wore the uniform of the Volunteer Battalion of the East Kent Regiment said. In rising to move the Address in answer to the gracious Speech from the Throne, I crave the indulgence which has always been granted to those who occupy such a position as I now do, and I do so with the utmost sincerity, because I fully realise that while this is the first occasion on which I have addressed this House, the duty which has been entrusted to me is one of great responsibility. I believe there are some persons who are willing to dispense with the moving of the Address, but I cannot believe that that is the feeling of the majority of hon. Members. I imagine that the House generally are anxious to preserve this link in the constitutional chain which binds the Sovereign to her Lords and faithful Commons, who are thus able to assure her of their unanimous desire to promote the prosperity of her people. There may be a difference of opinion as to how this may best be accomplished, but the determination conscientiously to fulfil the duties which have been entrusted to them is surely common to all, and I believe that this joint action from all sides of the House is an ancient custom well calculated to preserve the best traditions of this assembly. I am sure I shall meet with a sympathetic response from all Members when I endeavour to voice the expression of their condolence with Her Majesty in the sad affliction which has fallen upon her. The affection of her people, sprung from the admiration of her noble life, has been nutured by the ever recurring proofs of the share that she has in their joys and sorrows. No great calamity ever afflicts any portion of her subjects than she endeavours with
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  her queenly courtesy and womanly tenderness to lessen the suffering. Therefore it is that in her hour of sorrow an answering chord is struck in the hearts of the people which vibrates from the length and breadth of the land. Upon the grief of her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice we can hardly venture now to intrude, but I can only hope that when time has softened its great bitterness the knowledge that her fellow-countrymen have mourned with her in her loss of one who nobly gave his life in his desire to serve the country of his adoption may bring some solace to her saddened home. The deaths of Prince Henry of Battenberg and the other victims of the climate of West Africa have cast a gloom upon the Ashanti expedition of which we have otherwise every reason to congratulate ourselves. The objects of the expedition have been successfully achieved, and that without bloodshed. Though our troops have not been called upon to encounter the foe in the open field, yet the obstacles and dangers which they have had to meet have been such as to reflect the greatest credit upon those who have enabled them to surmount them, and into whose hands has been entrusted the safe conduct of the force. The expedition has been a triumph of organisation, and the greatest praise is due to those branches of the service who have had to combat with the great difficulties of transport, and with the ravages of the climate. Nor ought we to omit a tribute to Mr. Maxwell for the way in which he has conducted the negotiations for peace. I trust that they will meet with the reward they deserve, the future prosperity of the country, and the extension of civilisation and of commerce. The campaigns of Ashanti and Chitral have one strong point of resemblance, for, although the latter was not of the same peaceful character as the former, yet its success was largely due to the perfection of organisation, of which the Government of India are so proud. It is our pride and boast that ours is an island home, but it is not only its shores that we have to protect. We have to protect other frontiers, and it is the watching and guarding of those frontiers which occasionally involves us in disputes. It is with much satisfaction we learn that the controversies with regard

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  to the delimitation of our frontiers in the East had a successful issue. This issue has not been due to a diplomatic triumph of one country over another, but it is rather the outcome of a friendly agreement between the Powers, and therefore I venture to think the more likely to prove firm and lasting. There is one question with regard to our boundary which has not yet been settled, but I believe every man in the country echoes the desire which is expressed in the Speech from the Throne, that with regard to the Venezuelan question we shall come to an equitable; arrangement, and that further negotiations with the United States will lead to a satisfactory settlement. I humbly venture to think that it is not only a peaceful and satisfactory settlement that we are looking for. We hope for a perfect reconciliation with our kin beyond the seas, which will wipe out those ruffled feelings which have arisen lately in this portion of our family, and I think we are not without signs that our hopes may be fulfilled, for I believe that it is as true of the imperial life of a country as of that of the domestic life of its citizens, that when trouble and anxiety intrude into the family circle they only serve to more closely bind together those who are related by the ties of kinship. I think that from the moment when trouble overshadowed us in the Transvaal we may trace the more friendly tone that has been adopted by the United States towards us. I hope that time will only serve to strengthen this view. May we not venture to hope that this has been but a faint echo of that loud shout of loyalty which has gone forth from our colonies during the last few weeks? Our colonies have, in the words of the Canadian statesman, Mr. MacNeill, shown that they are not merely fair-weather friends, but are prepared to stand by us cost what it may. I am glad that we have not found ourselves under the necessity of availing ourselves of this offer. The statesmanship of the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Chamberlain), and his firm determination to uphold the honour and prestige of the country, have averted a grave crisis. We trust that, the negotiations which the right hon. gentleman is now entering upon with President Kruger will lead to a redress of the grievances of the
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  Uitlanders and to a more settled state of affairs in South Africa, and that this may be so we may take as a good omen the moderation which has been shown by President Kruger since the unfortunate raid into the Transvaal. I wish next to refer briefly to the Armenian question, which has agitated the minds of the people of this country no less than the affairs relating to the Transvaal. There may be some difference of opinion as to the course of action adopted with regard to Armenia in some particulars, but there can be no difference of opinion as to the weight and extent of the indignation felt in the United Kingdom at the horrors which have been perpetrated in that country. [Cheers.] Our humanitarian sentiments and motives in the matter have been misconstrued, Just as in the days of the abolition of the slave trade, our motives were then misconstrued and regarded with suspicion; but Her Majesty's present Government have done all in their power to press forward the application of the reforms in Armenia which have been sanctioned by the Sultan, of Turkey, and in this respect have pursued the policy which has been adopted by successive Governments during the past fifteen years. There may be some persons who do not concur in that opinion, and of those I would ask whether they would be prepared to pay the price of a European conflagration in order to see accomplished what they desired, or to hand over Turkey to another Power for the purpose. In passing from this question, I will only add that I believe the course which has been taken by the Government in the matter has been approved by the country. I also believe the action which has recently been taken by the Admiralty in respect to our naval defences has been generally approved, and that the public enthusiasm aroused by that action is a proof that the taxpayers of the country are ready to meet the necessary expenditure. [Cheers.] The Admiralty have shown to the nation not only the efficiency of our fleets at sea, but also the thoroughness of our system of naval organisation and the strength of our reserves in ships, men and material. [Cheers.] With regard lo agriculture, that interest really lies at the root of our national life, and, in my opinion, the question is one that ought to be regarded as outside the sphere of

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  party politics. ["Hear, hear!"] Yet that great interest has now reached its lowest ebb, and its downfall has dragged down large numbers of all classes of the community. I speak on this matter not in behalf of one section of the community merely, but in behalf of all sections, and especially of those who depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Our interests in agriculture are identical, for what affects the wellbeing of one section of agriculture affects the interests of all. Hence, as representing an agricultural constituency, I welcome the assurances of assistance to agriculture contained in the gracious Speech from the Throne, and I sincerely hope they will prove to be satisfactory. If not it may be that the Government will have to undertake a more drastic policy. ["Hear, hear!"] The promised measures of assistance, however, if they are to be of real service, must be hurried forward as soon as possible. ["Hear, hear!"] The need is urgent, and the land must not be allowed at any cost to go quite out of cultivation. There can be no doubt that land is very unfairly overburdened by taxation both local and Imperial, a fact proved by the evidence recently given on the question by Sir Alfred Milner.["Hear, hear!"] There are other matters of great importance to which I might refer if time permitted. There is the question, for instance, of voluntary schools, but I will merely direct the attention of the House to the fact that this subject bears to a not unimportant extent on that of agriculture, and care must be taken that, while seeking, on the one hand, to relieve agriculture by certain measures, we do not, on the other, increase the burdens of those dependent on the land by crushing out the voluntary schools. ["Hear, hear!"] What the voluntary schools seek is simple justice, in order that they may be able fairly to compete with the Board schools. ["Hear, hear!"] There is also the great and interesting question of the condition of Ireland to which I might refer, but I will content myself with the expression of satisfaction at the absence of crime in that country at present, and the material improvement of the Irish people. [Cheers.] I thank hon. Members for (he courteous way in which they have listened to me, and, if I might be allowed to speak on this occasion as the spokesman of the new
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  Members, I would venture to say that, although they could not of course lay claim to the eloquence and ability which has distinguished, and still distinguishes, the masters of debate in this House, yet that we are anxiously, zealously and conscientiously desirous of taking part in the future legislative work of Parliament. We recognise that we are not mere delegates of the constituencies, but that we come here to take our part in the deliberative assembly of a great nation and a mighty empire, and we earnestly join in the prayer for divine guidance in discharging the responsibility thus imposed upon us. [Cheers.] The hon. Member concluded by moving an humble Address to her Majesty.
  SIR J. STIRLING-MAXWELL, who wore the uniform of the Scottish Archers, seconded the Address. He said: I wish, first, to add a word or two to what has already been said of the calamity on account of which the House desires to offer an expression of its respectful sympathy to her Majesty. I recognise that it is too soon yet to speak of consolation, but the day will come when the Queen and Princess Beatrice will find consolation in the fact that Prince Henry died as noble a death as any man could wish to die. ["Hear, hear!"] The very nature of the expedition, to Ashanti forbids the idea that his Royal Highness in joining it could have been compelled by any ordinary motive of ambition or desire for distinction; it shows rather that his motive was to be of service to his adopted country, and that he was ready to risk his life in that service. ["Hear, hear!"] I cannot conceal the admiration I feel for the paragraph which deals with the attitude of the United States in regard to the question of Venezuela. It seems to me that that paragraph must rank for ever in literature as a masterpiece of euphemism And I think that all in this House will agree with me in rejoicing at the happy discovery of a gentle word in which to couch and, I hope, to bury the disagreeable episode. It seems to me that Her Majesty's Ministers realise the central fact in this matter. That fact, I take it, to be this, that the discussion, if discussion there has been, or the quarrel, if quarrel there is, between Governments and amongst statesmen and lawyers, not between nations,

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  and that in the public opinion of both countries, as well as most truly in the private thoughts of every citizen, there has sprung up an unquenchable disgust at the mere whispered idea of war between those who are really, after all, one people. In regard to the paragraph which deals with the atrocities in Armenia and the negotiations with Turkey, I am glad that they are expressed in a way which can be favourably received by the House. They are at least clear and straightforward, and may be, no one is surprised that they are found to be disappointing. No member of this House, and no now member of this House, could look forward unconcerned, or look back with pleasure, to the first occasion on which he heard a speech from the right hon. Gentleman who leads the Opposition. And I remember well how in debate on the Address last Session the right hon. Gentleman insisted upon that essential feature of our relations with Turkey—that our expostulations on the subject of the Armenian difficulty should not be made alone, but only in conjunction with other Powers. I believe that the reforms which we recommended to Turkey have, for the most part been accepted, but they have not been carried into effect. I don't know how far it may be within the power of the rotten Government which sleeps at Constantinople to carry the reforms into effect, but at least it is known that hitherto such pressure has not been put upon the Sultan as might in the ordinary course of things be expected to be necessary to compel that potentate to interest himself in the cause of justice and mercy. On this subject I don't wish to suggest too much to the House. It will be felt, I am sure, that the feeling on this subject in this country is a sincere feeling. It has been shown by meetings of great masses of people; it has been shown by the raising of large sums of money. I don't inquire how far it may be due to the love of concerning oneself in large and distant affairs which many people have. I don't ask how much it may be due to the false perspective that comes from straining the eye into a far and unfamiliar atmosphere. At all events it is a feeling of generous sympathy—a feeling of which we, are proud, and of which I desire to speak with respect. But there must be some
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  limit to our duty in this matter. I don't seek for that limit in the phrases of the Treaty of Berlin, although it may be found there well defined, because such a search would be quite foreign to the spirit which breathes in the country on this question, and which demands that in a matter of duty should do her best. But if we are to find the limit of our duty towards the Armenians I think it may be discovered at the point where it meets and infringes upon our duty to our own country. I don't wish, and indeed I am far from being able, to lay down the delicate frontier where those two duties meet, but there is one opinion I would like to express to the House. It is this, that those who may feel impelled, either in this House or elsewhere in public, to deplore the result of the negotiations with Turkey, or who feel impelled to insist on the responsibility of Great Britain in this question, will not, I feel, be doing their duty in assisting the people of this country to come to a right conclusion upon a matter of conscience, unless they accompany their criticisms with a clear statement of what they propose should be done, and a clear limit of how far they think this country should go in its attempt to assist the Armenians. The subject of foreign politics brings us most naturally to that of the naval defence of the Empire. Men of science have lately discovered a method by which certain rays are directed on the human hand, and are made to pass through the muscles and flesh, and throw an accurate, picture of the structure of the bone which lies within. By some such process, during the past few months, the nature of our relations with foreign countries seems to have been made clear to people's eyes. Indeed, our navy is, and always will be, the backbone of diplomacy in this country, and it is perfectly clear to those who have been reading the newspapers for the last month, that all the muscles and nerves which are gathered together at the Foreign Office would have no compelling power if it were not that they had a point of support, a point of resistance, in the underlying solid skeleton of armed force. It must ever be a matter of congratulation to every citizen in this country, that all parties in this House are ready to consider the necessities of naval

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  defence; and it may boldly be said that, while this is the case, and only while this is the case, can we say with confidence of this Empire, that it will not go the wav of boneless clay, and pass into nothing. I have purposely left little lime in which to speak on the subjects of legislation which are to be submitted to the House, at any length. They divide themselves into two classes, and I am happy to think that one class is small and the other very large. The small class is controversial, and it consists of the measure which has to deal with Voluntary Schools. That measure must, of course, be entirely controversial. As a Scotch Member, I am incompetent to speak on the subject, and I know that, at this moment, to speak on the, subject would be of no use to the House. But the other subjects for legislation in connection with agriculture, with compensation to workmen for injuries, with Irish land laws, and with public health in Scotland—all these measures are, happily, of a kind the main principle of which is admitted on both sides of this House. As a new Member of this House I desire to say—and perhaps I may speak the opinion of other new Members—that there is nothing which gives us so much pleasure in this Queen's Speech as the knowledge that the measures which are to engage the attention of Parliament during this Session are of such a kind that the Government may look forward to the valuable assistance of Members on every side of the House. Allow me, in conclusion, to express the hope; that this Session may be one of real utility to this country. I cannot thank the House enough for their kindness in listening to me. I make the best return I can, and promise I shall trouble the House with my voice as seldom as possible.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid: The first and most agreeable part of the duty I am called upon to perform is to express, what I am sure is the feeling of all parties and of all Members in tins House, satisfaction at the manner in which the office of moving and seconding the Address has been performed to-night. [Cheers.] It has been a more than usually difficult task, and I, who have a, long par liamentary experience, can honestly say I have never seen it better, I had almost
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  said so well done. [Cheers.] To me it is a matter of great personal satisfaction to be able to offer the congratulations of tins House to gentlemen who are descended from men who have for many years been my personal friends. ["Hear, hear!"] With reference to the Mover of the Address, this I will say—that it is to me a great pleasure to witness the success of what I will call the, spes surgentis Iuli—[Cheers]—a gentleman who, in his first appearance in public life bids fair to continue the reputation of a name which has always been among the most distinguished of our Members [Cheers] and the son of one whatever may haves been our recent political differences in respect of whom I will take upon me to say that—those differences have never altered our mutual regard. [Cheers.] And with respect to my hon. Friend the Seconder of this Address, he recalls to me the memory of one of my oldest and most valued friends, less known, perhaps, to many present Members of this House, but amongst those who are my contemporaries remembered as one of the most distinguished Members of Parliament, a gentleman known to us then by the name of Stirling of Keir, a distinguished scholar, a noble gentleman, a man in the first class in literature ["hear, hear!"]—a charming companion and a faithful friend; a man who in his public life was distinguished by an independence of character and a liberality of sentiment—which I was charmed tonight to hear reproduced by his son. [Cheers.] The first topic to which I ought to allude is one which has been dealt with with such good taste and with such sincerity by the Mover and Seconder—I mean the expression which is contained in this Motion of the deep sympathy of the House of Commons with the sorrows which have befallen the Royal House. The feeling that every man here entertains towards the Queen, and the deep sympathy which they have in the irreparable loss which has fallen on Princess Henry of Battenberg is a sad subject on which it is not necessary that I should enlarge. The House of Commons has never been wanting in the sincere expression of its views. We all recognise, that the late Prince Henry of Battenberg lost his life in his desire to show his deep attachment and willingness to sacrifice himself to the country of his

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  adoption. ["Hear, hear!"] Now, I have to make some observations upon the Speech from the Throne—a Speech of remarkable importance and consider able length. I think I may truly say that never in my personal recollection or, I think, in that of any living Member of this House, has the House of Commons assembled under such critical circumstances as they do to-day. Those halcyon days which were promised to us by the Under Secretary to the Foreign Office [ironical Opposition cheers] as the natural and inevitable consequence of a change of Government have not arrived. [Laughter.] The herald angel of the Foreign Office has not brought to us that millennium he led us to expect. Youth is the period of hope [laughter], too often of illusion, and I think it likely that the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs with a riper acquaintance with affairs may think fit to alter his confident opinion that the troubles which arise abroad are always in consequence of the incompetence of the Government at home [laughter], and he will not be so certain as he was six months ago that the advent of one party in the State was certain at once to bring universal peace and good will among men. [Laughter.] I only wish he had shown himself less of a false prophet than he has proved to be. The first topic of importance in the Speech and by far the most serious, is that which deals with our relations with the United States. I will not comment—I do not venture to do so—upon that paragraph with the freedom that was employed by the Seconder of the Address. He called it a masterpiece of euphemism. I accept that compliment of the paragraph, because I rejoice to think it is a paragraph which holds out encouragement in our expectations and hopes that this question is on the road to an immediate settlement. Certainly no word of criticism adverse to such a conclusion, no word of embarrassment for the Government will fall from my lips. [Ministerial cheers.] I feel the deep responsibility which every man must bear in speaking on this subject, and will take care to say no word which shall stand in the way of a settlement of this question or create difficulties for the Government in seeking an early conclusion of this con-
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  troversy The Mover of the Address talked of ruffled feelings. We ought all to endeavour to remove any matter which tends to ruffle the feelings between England and the United States. I was very glad to see some few weeks ago that the First Lord of the Treasury, speaking at Manchester, said there had been great misunderstandings cm this subject on both sides. That is painfully apparent, and it is from these misunderstandings, in my opinion, that the ruffling of feelings has arisen. There arose in America—it has been one of the principal causes of irritation in that country—a notion that there was a disposition on the part of the Government of Great Britain to call in question what is called the Monroe doctrine—a doctrine to which the American people have a traditional and a passionate attachment. But that is disclaimed and dispelled, and, as I say, I have no desire to introduce any controversial topics, and, therefore, I will not inquire how the impression arose. But it is highly desirable that this misunderstanding should be removed in the minds of the people of both countries. What is the Monroe doctrine? People imagine there is something new, something mysterious, something extraordinary about it. There is nothing of the kind. It is a very old doctrine—in force long before President Monroe's time. The principle is a very old one. No one pretends, the United States have not pretended, that it is a doctrine of international law. It is nothing of the kind. It is a principle of national policy. The basis of the Monroe doctrine has been most accurately stated by Lord Salisbury in his despatch of November. He states what is the principle upon which one State is entitled to take cognisance of controversies that have arisen in other countries. I will read his words, because I entirely adopt them, believing them to be perfectly accurate. He says:
  "The United States have a right like any other nation to interpose in any controversy by which their own interests are affected, and they are the judges whether these interests are touched and in what measure they should be sustained."
  Now, that is a general doctrine. It is the, doctrine upon which all States have acted, and upon which they act now. Upon that was founded what in the last century was called the balance

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  of power. It was on that that the Wars of the Succession rested. It is upon that ground that we have interposed in Belgium, in Greece, in Turkey, and in many other places. The Monroe doctrine is not an extension of that principle. It is a limitation of that principle. What other States claim to exercise everywhere, the Monroe doctrine has limited to the American Continent. The United States, following the wise teachings of Washington, have declared their disinclination, their determination, not to interfere in the, controversies of European Powers. But they have declared that controversies on the American Continent have a special interest for themselves, and they judge what are the controversies in which they are interested and in winch they feel called upon to interpose. They have said by the Monroe doctrine that it is their fixed policy that any invasion of the territorial or political rights of American States in controversy with European Powers is a matter of special importance to the United States. That is the Monroe doctrine, and I do not understand why feeling should be ruffled upon that subject. That is the doctrine; it is not disputed. And it is not disputed in this paragraph of the Speech, I am rejoiced to say, because it is said here that the Government of the United States have expressed a wish to co-operate—that is, of course, to take their part in this controversy between England and Venezuela with respect to the boundary. What is the sentiment of the British Government upon that subject as declared in the Speech from the Throne? Why that they sympathise in that wish on the part of the United States to co-operate in the settlement of the question. I have seen in newspapers and elsewhere attempts to treat the intervention of the United States in this matter as a thing that ought, to be resented and repelled. Her Majesty's Government do not resent or repel it. On the contrary, they say that the wish is one which they welcome, and that they are anxious and willing to co-operate. Do let us get, that misunderstanding out of the way. It is the right of the. United States. It is one which they have chosen to exercise, and it is one which the Government, in the Speech from the, Throne, welcome. Now, the only practical question that remains is
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  whether there has been an invasion of the rights of an American State in the case of Venezuela and in respect of the boundary. The United States have made no pronouncement upon that question at all. They have appointed a Commission to inform their judgment on the subject. If arbitration had taken place, as they suggested, that Commission would not have been necessary, because the arbitrator would have decided the question. But now let us come to another misunderstanding which has ruffled feeling. I have seen it stated that the appointment of that Commission was an offence to the people and the Government of Great Britain. That is not the view of Her Majesty's Government, happily. I observe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on January 29th, speaking at Bristol, said:—
  "He did not think it a cause of complaint that the President of the United Status, supported by Congress, should have appointed an American Commission to ascertain the facts for the information of their Government."
  That is a complete acceptance of the appointment of the Commission by the United States, a most, reasonable and proper declaration, but it is a declaration which is calculated, hope, to remove many misunderstandings on that subject. I have seen article after article in the newspapers treating the appointment of the Commission as a thing we ought to resent and ought, not to recognise. This Commission is to inform the judgment of the United States, with whom our Government desires to co-operate. How can the Government of the United States co-operate with us unless they have the information at their disposal which will enable them to assist in settling the boundary? ["Hear, hear!"] But we have a great deal to learn on that subject yet. I confess the more I have read on this subject from lawyers, geographers, and diplomatists the more obscure it seems to mo to become. ["Hear, hear!"] I regret very much the delay that has taken place in the publication of the English case. I should have thought that before the Dispatch of Mr. Olney was answered all our materials would have been collected and ready to lay before the United States and before the world at large. ["Hear,

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  hear!"] But what is our situation in this matter and what is the situation of the United States of America? We have no desire whatever to assert any claim to territory to which we are not clearly entitled. The question is, What is that territory? That that is a doubtful question who can deny? The diplomacy of 50 years, the correspondence, the agreements, the conflicting claims, the multitudinous lines at various times drawn and withdrawn by both sides, the different maps—all that demonstrates that this is a most doubtful question, on which I observe that the people who are the most ignorant pronounce with the greatest confidence. [Cheers.] It is like the questions we remember in old days of the determination of the marches on the Scottish moorlands, and in very odd ways these marches were determined. Well, Sir, it is the business of diplomatists, or ought to be, to come to a reasonable settlement of all such comparatively trivial matters. Diplomacy has had this matter in hand for half a century, and a mighty bad hand it has made of it. ["Hear, hear!"] In my opinion it is not creditable that a question of this character should have been allowed to fester until it has broken out in an open and dangerous sore, to breed bad blood between two great nations. ["Hear, hear!"] It is the first duty of the Government—I say it in no party spirit, I speak of the Government of this great Empire, having the interests of the whole nation and not any section of it at heart—to take measures without delay to heal that sore. ["Hear, hear!"] What the country demands without distinction of party, and what it has a right to demand, is that this dispute should be brought at once and without delay to an honourable solution. [Cheers.] If it is proved that the rights of Venezuela have not been invaded by Great Britain, the United States of America have no cause of complaint, and they make no complaint. If it turns out that we have occupied territory to which we have no title, we make no pretence to maintain such occupation. How, then, are we to arrive at a conclusion in this matter? Again I desire to speak in the language of the Government and not in any language of my own. I think I can entirely adopt the view stated by the
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  First Lord of the Treasury a week or two ago. Speaking at Manchester he said:—
  "The Foreign Office is now engaged in compiling and bringing together every document of importance bearing on the ease. I understand from the ordinary sources of information that the Government of the United States have, appointed a Commission"
  You will see here that the First Lord of the Treasury adopts the American Commission in the same way as the Chancellor of the Exchequer:—
  "To investigate the same subject, and surely with all this mass of material before the public of both countries, it will be hard indeed if the common sense of the Anglo-Saxon race is not able to settle every point in dispute without the arbitrament of war."
  Then how is this matter to be settled? It is to be settled upon the evidence of the English case and on the evidence of the American case. That is the view of Her Majesty's Government, and a very reasonable and proper view. What is it that the common sense of the Anglo-Saxon race desires in the midst of this confused and conflicting material? It will certainly appear that there is a great deal to be said on both sides, that there is a great deal of obscurity in a question of this kind, which goes back for nearly a century. The question is, What was the Dutch title in 1814? and that is the matter you have to investigate. There are only two methods of settling the question. One is by an amicable convention, setting aside archaic research in the matter. If that could be reached it would be a very good thing; but if it cannot be reached, if it should appear on inquiry that the differences of opinion are not capable of solution in that way, why, then, what objection can there be to referring that difference to the arbitration of a third Power? [Cheers.] The United States of America and Great Britain are to their honour, and profess to be, great advocates of arbitration throughout the world. We have settled many great and dangerous disputes by arbitration with the United States—questions of claim, questions of boundary. It must be admitted that there are questions which are beyond the reach of arbitration; but is this one? If there are questions within the domain of arbitration, would you exclude a question of this kind? But it

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  is not necessary to argue that point. Her Majesty's Government do not reject arbitration. They accept the principle of arbitration as applicable to this case. So I read the Dispatch of Lord Salisbury in November last. It is the question of the limitation of arbitration, but in the matter of limitation of arbitration you ought not to be too stiff or too arbitrary. It is not for one party in a dispute to define what is the dispute. It is quite plain that both parties to the dispute will have different opinions upon the subject. You will be very confident in your view and the other party will be equally confident in theirs. But mark this, if you choose to lay down a definite line which is to exclude the extreme claims of one party, do you think it reasonable that on the other side of the line your extreme claims should be left open, so that you may gain what you can in the arbitration and they can gain nothing? ["Hear, hear!"] I have ventured to make these observations, I hope in no party spirit, with no intention and no effect of embarrassing, but rather of aiding the Government. I believe that the Government are most sincerely anxious, as they must be anxious, to settle this question. I believe that the Government of the United States are willing to co-operate with them in settling this question, and it ought to be the object of every man on both sides of the Atlantic to do what they can within their respective spheres to assist in the settlement of this matter. ["Hear, hear!"] There is one thing which I venture to say ought, not to stand in the way of a settlement, and that is false pride or diplomatic punctilio as to past transactions. It is not a question of this Government or of that Government. There have been a dozen Governments of different parties during the 50 years we have had this question in hand. They may have made mistakes in the positions taken up by them; but this is a matter far too grave for party recrimination or paltry criticisms. What we have to do if we want to settle this question is to obliterate the controversies of the past which have unhappily proved so unfruitful. We ought to apply our minds solely and singly to the question as it now stands before us, and we ought to make known to the world our sincere desire that justice should be done in this
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  case and to adopt the best method for seeing that justice is done. ["Hear, hear"] I speak with a deep sense of earnestness in this matter, and I confess I rejoice in the language of this paragraph of the Speech from the Throne, in which the Government declare first of all that they are in negotiation with the Government of the United States for the settlement of this question, and in the next place that they are encouraged in the hope of a satisfactory solution of it. And next I must make some observations on the paragraph of the Speech which refers to the Transvaal. There are obvious reasons why it is impossible to discuss that question in detail now. We all lament and condemn the outrageous and disastrous event of the invasion of the Transvaal by an amed force from British territory. [Cheers.] But there are two things which may be said, and which I think ought to be said, to-day. First, of all, I think we ought all to express our complete approval of the conduct of the Colonial Secretary [Cheers] and of the statesmanlike courage, promptitude, and decision with which he has disengaged all responsibility on the part of the British Government for this deplorable attack made upon a friendly State by men for whose actions we are prima facie responsible. ["Hear, hear!"] We may tender to him our thanks. ["Hear, hear!"] He knew the obligations under which we lay to the Government of the South African Republic. He was one of the principal authors of the Convention under which those obligations arose, and he has done what lay in his power as a man of honour and a British Statesman to fulfil those obligations, and to denounce and defeat a breach of faith which threatened discredit to the British name throughout the world. ["Hear, hear!"] There is another thing which ought, I think, to be said, and which is due from the House of Commons. President Kruger has received the thanks of the Queen. [Cheers.] His conduct is recognised in the Speech from the Throne, and we also applaud the magnanimity and the humanity which he has exhibited under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty. [Cheers.] I think the page of history offers few examples of such moderation under such conditions. ["Hear, hear!"] It is well that in the difficult

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  questions that lie before us we should have to deal with a Statesman of such moderation and of such wisdom. [Cheers.] That is all I should have desired or should have thought it necessary to say if in other quarters a prudent reserve had been exercised. [Cheers.] But in the speech made by the Prime Minister a few days ago upon this matter,—what I must call an astounding and deplorable utterance—which has made it impossible to pass over the matter in silence. [Cheers.] In his desire to attack Home Rule, Lord Salisbury thought it necessary to drag the African trouble into his denunciation of Home Rule in order to reinforce his arguments. I should have thought that with the study be has given to that, subject he might have picked up stones enough to fling at Home Rule without seizing upon this delicate and dangerous topic as a missile to throw at his opponents. ["Hear, hear!"] His favourite aversion we all know is Home Rule. [Cheers and laughter.] He regards it as anathema, and therefore he selects for attack the Government of the Transvaal, and says that it is the worst example of extreme Home Rule. [Cheers.] The Prime Minister asked how Home Rule, which was conferred upon the Transvaal by a patriotic Ministry some years ago, had answered to the mother country. As to the sneer about the patriotic Ministry, I leave that to be answered by the Secretary for the Colonies and the President of the Council, who were principal Members of it. [Cheers and laughter.] But what, was the object of using language of that character, and what impression is it likely to make upon President Kruger and upon the people, of the South African Republic as to our sincerity and goodwill towards their Government and our fidelity to their Constitution, to which we were parties? Why, they may well be led to believe that there is a more patriotic Government now in office who hold different views as to the extreme Home Rule which prevails at present in the South African Republic. For what purpose were the bitterest memories of Irish strife brought up, which could only serve to inflame the quarrel which now unhappily exists between races in South Africa whom it is our policy to
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  reconcile? ["Hear, hear!"] Was it to assist the path of the Irish Secretary, or was it to smooth the path of the Secretary for the Colonies? ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] For what object was a vision of Scotch moss-troopers invoked to come to the rescue of the Ulster of South Africa? ["Hear, hear!"] Does Lord Salisbury really believe; that this is the language and the tone in which the matter is regarded by the sober-minded people of England? I am not speaking of music-halls or of Poets Laureate. [Cheers and laughter.] Is that the spirit in which the people of England expect a question of this character to be dealt with by the Prime Minister of England? [Cheers.] Is it tolerable that the unhappy feuds of one country should be employed to inflame the animosities of another so as to aggravate a danger in both? ["Hear, hear!"] Language of this kind can have no other effect than to make the Government of the Transvaal distrust our good will and good faith, and lead them to believe that the sympathy of the people of England and of the British Government is not with their Constitution, but with those who have attempted by force to overthrow it. ["Hear, hear!" and cries> of "No!"] And yet the whole of our position for the future depends on our satisfying the Government of the Transvaal that we mean to act in good faith towards them and their Constitution. ["Hear, hear!"] If we expect them lo respect our claims under the Convention we must respect their rights under that Convention. [Cheers.] It is very fitting to employ our legitimate, influence with them to obtain justice for the Uitlanders. It is clearly not in the interests of President Kruger to destroy the industry of the territory over which he rules. I was very glad to see in the able Dispatch of the Secretary of the Colonies that he had addressed himself largely to this subject. He stated, and stated truly, that this outrageous attempt to overthrow the Government of the Transvaal by force did not proceed from and had not the sympathy of the majority of the Uitlanders of the Rand. ["Hear, hear!"] This is not the time to discuss the details of the proposals which have been made in regard to the Uitlanders. The right hon. Gentleman will not expect that we shall object to the principle upon which they are founded.

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  [Laughter.] They are Home Rule pure and simple. [Cheers and laughter.] I suppose that in this complex Government the right hon. Gentleman is the homœopath who is to cure the evils of the extreme Home Rule denounced by Lord Salisbury by an additional Home Rule, a Home Rule within a Home Rule. [Cheers and laughter.] Of course we do not complain of that, except in so far as people sometimes complain of plagiarism. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] We recognise our own thunder. [Cheers and laughter.] There is the separate taxation, there is the veto, there is the tribute, the famous Westminster question—there you have it all. [Cheers and laughter.] It is in the right hon. Gentleman's early and, if he will allow me to call it so, his best manner. [Cheers and laughter.] We always return to our early love, and I am very glad to think that the right hon. Gentleman threw back to the old strain. [Cheers and laughter.] He has stated that President Kruger is likely to come to this country. I am sure that if he does so he will receive in this country that welcome which he deserves—[cheers]—and I wish the right hon. Gentleman a fortunate issue of the new Round Table Conference. [Cheers and laughter] I was struck by the commentary in the right hon. Gentleman's Dispatch on the state of political parties in the Volksraad. He pointed out—and it has often happened in the history of States—that the evils that have arisen in Johannesburg have come from the delay in reforms, and he says that—
  "The difficulties of the reforming party in the Volksvaaad and in the Executive appear to have arisen from the strong prejudices of the more conservative burghers."
  [Cheers and laughter.] He says that—
  "There should be extensive changes in the law, the necessity of which may not be apparent to the more conservative section of the burghers, who may not have mastered the facts of the situation."
  [Laughter.] Conservative burghers seem to be very much the same all the world over [Opposition laughter], and the consequence of their not mastering the facts and resisting too long constitutional reforms is to bring about evils with which we are all acquainted.
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  I observe in another part of the Dispatch that the right hon. Gentleman states that there were good hopes to be entertained for the future, in consequence of the Progressives having obtained a majority at the last Election. [Laughter] Well, Sir, in that respect the South Africans are more fortunate than the English. I was not aware before that the word "Progressive" had attained the dignity of an official Dispatch. I only hope that when. President Kruger comes here the right hon. Gentleman will take care that he is not plied too much with Unionist literature. [Opposition laughter.] He might be led to suppose that there was a snake in the grass, and that these Home Rule proposals were of a dangerous, separatist character, and that they might endanger the integrity of the South African Republic. I would invite him also to keep clear of the Irish Nationalist Members, lest they might ask him why the same terms are not offered to Ireland. Sir, the first thing that we have to do is to make it clear to President Kruger and his people that we are resolved to respect the Government of the Transvaal, and not to encourage, comfort, and support those who have endeavoured, or are about to endeavour, to overthrow it. Whether that is what we sincerely intend will appear from the manner in which we deal with what has happened—namely, the invasion of their country by an armed force proceeding from our territory. The first and most important question is, not one of individual offenders, but of the relation of the Chartered Company to these transactions. ["Hear, hear!"] That will be inquired into, I gather from the Speech from the Throne. If it is convenient to the Government, we should like to know what is to be the character of that Inquiry. The position of chartered companies is a very anomalous one; it is one of limited liability for themselves, but unlimited liability for us. I was reading only this morning in a very able book by Mr. Lawrence, on "The principles of international law," some observations which seem to me to be very true. He says that—
  "There is doubtless much fascination in the idea of opening up new territories to the commercial and political influence of a country, and at the same time adding nothing to its financial burdens

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  or its international obligations, but experience shows that the glamour soon wars off, and the State which seeks to obtain power without responsibility obtains instead responsibility without power"
  [Opposition cheers.] That is precisely what has happened to us. We have had the responsibility, but we have not had the power in the past to prevent that which has happened. Sir, if we choose to delegate sovereign power we are answerable for the conduct of our delegates. One chartered company has recently gone into liquidation, and another chartered company has involved us in responsibilities which are very heavy for us to bear. The first question we have to ask is how our Government at the, Cape came to be ignorant of what was going on at Mafeking and its neighbourhood in the last days of December. ["Hear, hear!"] They had all the means at their disposal which ought to have informed them of what was occurring. It seems an absurd suggestion to reproach President Kruger because he did not inform us of what was going on in our own territory. What an extraordinary situation for a responsible Government to be in! I observe from his Dispatch that the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary was the first person to know of it. He received intelligence on December 29th that this attack was likely to be made, and it was left to him to inform Sir Hercules Robinson of what was going on in Bechuanaland. That is a most extraordinary state of things, and one which requires, I think, a great deal of explanation. What is to be done? This is a question which I think the Government will probably be able to answer—what is to be the situation of the Chartered Company at present and in the interval which will occur before the trial of Dr. Jameson (which will be postponed, I suppose), and what security are we to have that this sort of thing is not to recur? It is obvious, I think, that the charter of the Chartered Company must be revised, but it must be revised under the superintendence and the authority of Parliament. ["Hear, hear!"] Parliament must have a voice, Parliament must be informed of what has occurred, and Parliament must consider with Her Majesty's Government what kind of securities it is necessary to
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  take in the future. I venture to say that by the manner in which we deal with this question we shall be judged, not only as a Government, but as a nation. The Government have done their part in the matter, and done it well. [Cheers.] Yes, but the nation has to do its part in this matter, and it will be seen by our conduct whether we do in our hearts, ex animo, condemn what we profess to disavow; whether we really regret that this attempt has been made; or whether what we really deplore is that it should have failed. ["Hear, hear!"] On the answer to that question depends the possibility of your restoring peace to the distracted races in South Africa, and on that will depend the estimation which is formed of you in the world. If the world supposes that all these are hollow pretences, and that what the English people really approve is what has been done, then you cannot complain if a severe judgment is passed upon you by the civilised world. There is one other matter which I feel bound to deal with, and that is the question of Armenia. My hon. Friend, the seconder of the Address, called the paragraph relating to Armenia disappointing; that is a mild phrase in my opinion, it is a paragraph which is absolutely in adequate, totally unworthy, and which entirely fails to represent the feeling of the people of this country in regard to our relations with the Sultan at Constantinople. The conduct of the Government in respect to this paragraph of the Speech is to my mind entirely inexplicable. It speaks of—
  "the reforms for which, in conjunction with the Emperor of Russia, and the President of the French Republic, I have felt it my duty to press."
  But this is what took place under the late Government; is that all that has happened? Has there been no appeal to the other Powers? What has become of that concert of Europe of which we have heard so much? There is not so much as a reference to the Conference of the Powers in this paragraph. It is an extraordinary omission. Of the horrors which have taken place in Armenia it is difficult to speak, it is impossible to exaggerate. [A VOICE: "Oh," and "Hear, hear!"] The voice that will attempt to diminish those horrors is a single voice

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  in this House, and I believe it is a single voice in this country. We know only a part of them; the papers that have been presented deal with one massacre alone, but while we, and Russia and France, were remonstrating, massacre after massacre followed; and all that we know of these massacres officially is as yet nothing. All this has deeply moved the indignation, and has affected the heart and conscience of the nation. We have been traditionally the protectors of Turkey and of the Sultan; in 1878, when the Russian armies were withdrawn, mainly on our pressure, the Christian subjects of the Sultan received guarantees of which we were the principal authors—Lord Salisbury said that he had himself drafted those guarantees. What was the character of those guarantees? They were joint European guarantees given by the six powers at Berlin. Nothing more extraordinary, I think, has ever occurred than the attempt of the very author of those guarantees to minimise them and to treat them as practically unimportant. Lord Salisbury said the other day to the Nonconformists—
  All that there is is in article in the Treaty of Berlin in which six Powers agree not to act with any outside person, but with each other, that if the Sultan promulgated certain reforms they would watch for the execution of those reforms."
  Where is that word "if" to be found in the Treaty of Berlin? Why, Sir, the whole point of the Treats of Berlin was that there was a covenant on the part of the Sultan, who was to be released from the pressure of the Treaty of San Stefano, that he would do the work which the Russian Government were ready to do; and that the Powers of Europe, not relying on the promise of the Sultan alone, would see that those reforms were carried into effect. [Cheers.] Lord Salisbury calls for verifying references, but when you look at the text you will find he is absolutely incorrect. The article in the Treaty of Berlin is this:—
  "The Sublime Porte undertakes to carry out without further delay"—
  no "if" about that—
  "the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by Armenians, and to guarantee them security
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  against Circassians and Kurds, and it will periodically make known the steps to this effect to the Powers who will superintend their application."
  Is it possible that a document could be more directly in contradiction of the statement of the Prime Minister? Those were the European engagements, but under the Cyprus Convention we had a special and several covenant of our own. We were to defend Turkey in Asia Minor. We were to hold Cyprus; and Turkey in consideration of that undertaking covenanted to protect the Christian population in Armenia. That is the situation as it stands upon the policy of 1878. That is our responsibility in the matter. The support that we have given to Turkey was conditional on the covenants which the Sultan has foully broken and is daily violating. [Loud cheers.] It was from the sense of our primary responsibility in that matter that the late Government thought it right, in concert with Russia and France, to press for those reforms; but, unless I am mistaken, the present Government have gone further, and they have invited concerted action with the six Powers—I do not know how it is, but I imagine that is the case from the language of Lord Salisbury. What did Lord Salisbury say at the Guildhall dinner on this subject?
  "I believe the Powers will stand together—that they were never more disposed to stand together—by the European system which their joint wisdom has devised. I do not know the contingencies that may arise, but no man will say that it is impossible that they (the Powers) may weary of the cry of suffering which goes up in their ears, and may find some other arrangement which is a substitute for that which does not fulfil the hopes that were entertained 40 years ago. There is, therefore"—
  this was the declaration made to Europe and to the world—
  "in the concert of the Powers, which I put forward as a marked phenomenon at the present, time"?—
  that marked phenomenon to which there is not a word of reference in the Speech from the Throne—
  "there is nothing in that to console those who would perpetuate misgovernment or to silence the voice of those who would impress upon the rulers of the Ottoman Empire that the one burning necessity of the hour is that they should give the common blessing of good government to those under their rule."

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  That was language worthy of an English Minister. ["Hear, hear!"] That statement was received with universal satisfaction in this country, and throughout Europe and America too. It was a message of hope to the Armenians, and the disappointment of which has cruelly aggravated their position. Lord Salisbury, I think in Bradford, while we were still in Office, spoke emphatically of the mischief of threatening where you could not and did not intend to act. And yet he has addressed language to the Sultan, of Turkey such as I cannot recollect to have ever been, addressed by one Sovereign to another. This is what he said, and he spoke as the mouthpiece of the Concert, of Europe:—
  "The nature of things and the providence of God has determined that persistent and constant misgovernment must lead the Government that follows it to its doom. He"—
  that is, the Sultan—
  "is not exempt more than any other potentate from the law that injustice will bring to the highest ruin."
  That is what the law of nature and the providence of God has provided as a remedy for misgovernment. Who stands in the way of that redress, and who has stood for many years in the way of the remedies in the nature of things and the providence of God to put an end to this detestable misrule? Who has secured to the Sultan of Turkey impunity for that misgovernment which ought to bring every ruler to ruin? It is those who have not performed the task they had undertaken, but which they now declare they were unable to perform. These were our European engagements; but under the Cyprus Convention we have a separate covenant with the Sultan. We undertook to relieve Turkey from the pressure of Russia in Asia. We undertook to defend her by force against Russia in Asia Minor. She gave us a covenant in return that she would protect the Christians, and we occupied Cyprus to give effect to this agreement. What is our position under the Berlin Convention and the Cyprus Convention? What is now the statement made in the speech to the Nonconformists? Lord Salisbury tells us "the Sultan's Government is weak, wretched, and powerless;" and
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  then he proceeds:—"The opinion of the Powers"—mark, he does not say his own opinion—"is that there is only one power in that country left, feeble as it is, and that is the prestige of the Sultan's name." The prestige of the Sultan's name! I have heard that word "prestige" used and abused many a time, but never, I think, was it with such evil odour as when it is applied to the prestige of the Sultan's name. [Cheers.] "They believe in his good will"—does Lord Salisbury believe in his good will? "and they think that in that direction more than in any other relief from the sufferings which the Christians in Armenia endure is to be looked for." "It is not for me," says Lord Salisbury, "to pass judgment on their views. It may be right or it may be wrong. There is no doubt there is no other means of obtaining that end. No other means have boon suggested. At all events, there is no other way out." Was there such a declaration of diplomatic insolvency? [Cheers.] What a confession of national impotence!—such a confession as I believe has never before fallen to the lot of a British Minister to make. ["Hear, hear!"] Lord Salisbury says that he does not care for "isolation." I think that was not a prudent declaration, for he has got it to his heart's content. The First Lord of the Treasury the other day said:—"At all events it is not our fault." Whose fault is it? We have never been told what you have done or what you have attempted to do. You come before the Nonconformists to make a declaration of impotence. The question I ask is, Is this to be the be-all and the end-all of the great Anglo-Turkish policy of 1878? Is this the final and practical outcome of the triumphal return from Berlin? [Cheers.] Is this peace with honour? [Cheers] A great historian has said "they make a solitude and they call it peace." That is the peace which the Sultan gives to Armenia. As to "honour" under present circumstances, the less we say about it the better. The only honour the Government has secured is the thanks from the Sultan for their high appreciation of his prestige and his good will towards the Armenians. Sir, we have a right to point to the failure of the policy of 1878. On

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  these Benches we always protested against it. I recollect very well that memorable night. It was the first Debate upon the outrages of a similiar character, which had taken place in the European provinces of Turkey. It was the night upon which Mr. Disraeli made his last speech in the House of Commons. I have good reason to recollect it, for, standing in this very place, I ventured to express an opinion that we ought to have done with the Turk. [Cheers.] With that kindness which I always received from him, he rebuked me for expressing that opinion. You proceeded with that policy, and we all remember the glorious campaign under Mr. Gladstone [Opposition cheers] which we fought against that policy. You persisted, you got up a Russian scare in those days. ["Oh," and Opposition cheers.] Oh, yes, and then we are told now that we cannot induce Russia to undertake the task. We protested against that policy. It was popular, especially in the music-halls. [A laugh.] The fleets entered the Dardanelles. Two of the most considerable members of that Government left it upon that account. The late Lord Derby and the late Lord Carnarvon retired from the Administration, and I was reminded of that, circumstance the other day by an extract I saw from a speech that was made by Lord Carnarvon. That extract is so appropriate to the present moment that I will venture to read it to the House. He said:—
  By that policy at Berlin her Majesty's Government have put themselves very much in the position of a merchant who contracts an unlimited liability with an insolvent partner. Those who hold the views which I do on the subject may very well be content to wait for the verification which time will bring with it. I am satisfied that when the excitement of the present moment has gone by, and when the glamour which now bewitches men's minds has passed away, when men open their eyes to the sober realities of the question, they will find themselves confounded by that most terrible and painful dilemma—either the necessity of carrying through an almost hopelessly impracticable obligation, or retreating from it at the expense of national credit and honour." [Opposition cheers.]
  That was the prediction of your former colleague who left you in 1878, and it is now verified in its very letter to-day. You undertook at that time obligations
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  which you could not carry out, and the situation in which we find ourselves, and from which you tell us there is no way out, is the consequence of that policy. We were told then—I am not speaking of the present Secretary for the Colonies, who was one of the most ardent champions of the principle we then advocated—we were told that we had achieved the emancipation of Armenia and the civilisation of Asia Minor. I remember so well Lord Harrowby's speech. He was a member of the Government, and said:—
  "I have wandered amongst the Armenian hills, and one cry from all these people has always met my ears."
  And then he told us that we were going with railways, steam ploughs, manufactures, and all the arts of peace to Armenia. [Laughter.] Has the policy of 1878 brought these blessings of peace to Armenia? I would not advise Lord Harrowby to wander now amongst the Armenian hills. [Laughter.] We took Cyprus. What did we take Cyprus for? It was to be the basis of our operations. It was what Lord Beaconsfield called a place d'armes. A place d'armes for what purpose? In the speech to the Nonconformists Lord Salisbury ridiculed the notion, of a British force operating in the Taurus and Lake Van. That was exactly the thing for which you took Cyprus. That was for what you held the place d'armes. We denounced that at the time as a thing which was impossible and impracticable as Lord Salisbury declares it to be to-day. But what do you hold Cyprus for now? It is not, I suppose, to fight the Russians in support of the Government of the Sultan in Armenia. What is the result, of this policy? It is that you have secured impunity to the Sultan by all these arrangements; you have removed from him the pressure which in the nature of things, under the providence of God, would otherwise have compelled him to have given good government to these people. I feel I have trespassed at a great deal too much length, and I will now rapidly come to a conclusion. There is a new version of the economical paragraph. It says economy has been studied, but that much additional expenditure will be incurred.

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  And then there is a paragraph with reference to the Navy. On that head I will say—I can remember no instance in which the House of Commons has refused to the responsible Government of the time those additions to the defences of the country which, upon their responsibility, they say are required by the nation. I do not believe we are likely to do so now. There is a mention of agriculture. There, again, I am sure I am expressing the opinion of both sides of the House that there is a great desire to give any assistance or support consistent with the rights of other classes of the community ["Hear, hear!"] which may be possible to that distressed industry, whose sufferings we fully recognise and desire to alleviate. There is one; thing which I have been very glad to see in the observations which the Government have made upon this subject—viz., that they do not seek to give that relief by adding to the cost of the food of the people. ["Hear, hear!"] There has been an entire disclaimer of any intention to raise the price of corn, either by protection or by tampering with the currency. [A laugh.] I am also pleased to see that on the latter point that is the conclusion at which the German Government have arrived upon the same subject. Then, as regards education, I will say no more than this—that I very much regret that the Seconder of the Address spoke of that as a controversial subject. I suppose he has more means of knowing what the plans of the Government are than I have. I am very sorry that the Government should have thought this an appropriate occasion to raise a controversial subject of that character, and to open wounds that were healed 20 years ago. [Opposition cheers.] I think that is a deplorable matter, but still, at the same time, I recognise entirely the delarations emphatically made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Members of the Government that they have no intention, of departing from the principles of the settlement of 1870. If that is so, of course we shall be very willing to discuss their proposals. They may depend upon it that upon this side of the House, as we have not opened that controversy so we shall firmly stand by the principles of the settlement of 1870. [Opposition cheers.] An Irish Land Bill
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  has been announced, a thing which everyone naturally expected. There are many other subjects mentioned in the Speech. There is one which is conspicuous by its absence, largely promised, however, at the election, and that was temperance reform. ["Oh!" and laughter] Oh, you never promised temperance reform? Is that avowed? You repudiate it altogether, do you? Well, then, we know where we are [laughter]; you condemned our plan. [Ministerial cheers.] Oh yes, you said you were very anxious for temperance reform, and that you had a better plan of your own. Well, then, the Bishops have found the more excellent way, and have told us that all the temperance sections are following them in the matter. They go to the Prime Minister and they propound their plan to him, supported by all sections of the Temperance Party; and then the Bishops return to their followers and inform them of what has passed. The Bishop of London says that "Lord Salisbury received us courteously, but he did not answer our arguments." [A laugh.] Then he says that, finding that the Government would do nothing in the matter, they asked whether the Government would give a favourable support to the plan of the Bishops and all sections of the Temperance Party, and the Bishop says, "The Marquess replied with a courteous bow, and then left the room" [much laughter]; and so temperance and the Bishops were bowed out by the Prime Minister [renewed laughter], and I am sorry to say the Bishop—though Bishops ought not to use strong language—the Bishop is reported to have said he called the Prime Minister almost an idolater, and he concluded by saying they had met with a stone wall, and it would be the Bishops' business to dig down that stone wall. I shall watch with interest the progress of the Bishops in digging down that stone wall. [A laugh.] I will not read the concluding paragraph of the Speech. It is what is generally known as the omnibus paragraph, the omnibus to which Mr. Bright referred as blocking Temple-bar. We often received when we were in Office moral lectures from right hon. Gentlemen as to the folly of stuffing the Speech full of measures which they said we had not the smallest chance or intention of carrying.

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  All I can say is that I have never seen a Queen's Speech in which there has been such an accumulation of measures promised as in this—measures which the Government, must perfectly well know they have not the smallest chance of carrying. ["Oh, oh!"] Do you mean to say that, after dealing with measures with regard to the Navy, agriculture, education, and Irish land, you are going on to the long list of measures set out in the last paragraph of the Speech? Gentlemen who believe that would believe anything. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury has too much knowledge and experience to believe anything of the sort. I certainly cannot complain that the Government have not given us enough to do, and, in reply to the appeal made by the hon. Seconder, I would say that I do hope that both sides of the House will apply themselves in a businesslike spirit of good sense to do the best, it can to facilitate the business of the nation. [Cheers.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,), who was received with loud Ministerial cheers, said: Mr. Speaker, I will endeavour to perform the task of replying to the right hon. Gentleman at somewhat less length than he has found it necessary to occupy in dealing with the Speech from the Throne. I admit that the Speech itself is a long one, and contains a great deal of matter which might properly require the comment of the Leader of the Opposition in some detail. That, heavy task the right hon. Gentleman has quite unnecessarily rendered heavier by replying to no fewer than three recent speeches of the Prime Minister. [Laughter.] If we are here not merely to discuss the Queen's Speech, but to survey all the rhetoric of the recess, or a considerable fraction of it, necessarily a large amount of time will be required. Before passing to the controversial matters of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, I am sure the House will permit mo to associate myself with him in the most eloquent and touching tribute he paid to the speeches of my two hon. Friends behind me, and the Parliamentary and personal reminiscences which those speeches brought to his mind. I do not think that the difficult and delicate duty intrusted to
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  my two hon. Friends has ever been fulfilled better than by them. [" Hear, hear!"] And it is a great gratification to me to think that they are friends of my own, and that their fathers—one still with us and the other taken away have also been friends of mine. These hon. Members have brilliantly distinguished themselves on this the first, though I hope, not by many times the last, occasion on which they will be, called upon to address us. ["Hear, hear!] With reference to that paragraph of the Speech which deals with the lamentable, loss the Royal Family have sustained by the death of Prince Henry of Battenberg, it is only necessary for me, in addition to what has been already so well said, to say on my own behalf, and on that of my Friends near me, that we associate ourselves in what has fallen from the Leader of the Opposition in this relation. Everything which touches the life and interest of the Queen touches nearly the feelings and affections of her subjects, and that which would have been a lamentable loss under any circumstances, gains additional interest from the reflection that Prince Henry of Battenberg died in the service of his adopted country, carrying out a public duty, and sacrificing himself for the interests of the country of which he had become in all respects a citizen. [Cheers.] It is unnecessary for me to detain the House for even a moment on that part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, in which he briefly and rapidly surveyed the course of the proposed legislation of the Government. He quarrelled with my hon. Friend behind me because he expressed the hope that all the more important measures in the Speech, with the exception of one, might be considered non-controversial. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to suppose that even that one should not be excepted from that general observation. My hon. Friend who expressed these hopes is a new Member. He is comparatively inexperienced. Had he consulted me as to what my views were with regard to these measures, I should not have, held out to him a hope that they would pass without a very considerable amount of discussion; and with regard to the one which he seemed to think would especially cause controversy, his only ground for holding that view was that

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  both the right hon. Member for East Fife and Lord Rosebery have taken the pains to explain to the country that they, at all events, mean to offer very serious opposition to any measure of the Government by which large public aid should be given to Voluntary Schools. [Mr. ASQUITH dissented.] I would only, then, hope that the views of the Leader of the Opposition are more correct than those of my hon. Friend, that all these measures are non-controversial and may be passed without any very great amount of discussion. The House will readily recognise that the only part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech in which he took any interest himself [Laughter] was that dealing with foreign relations, with reference to Venezuela, South Africa, and the Armenian question, and on his observations I shall make concisely a few remarks of my own. The right hon. Gentleman, in dealing with Venezuela, spent a considerable amount of time in attacking opinions that have never been expressed by any hon. Gentleman on this Bench or any Member of the Government, and are not held, and have never been held, by any hon. Gentleman sitting behind us. [Cheers.] Neither I nor my Friends have ever suggested for one moment that it is an insult, to this country for the United States to make an inquiry into the facts connected with the Venezuelan boundary. The Monroe doctrine, as stated by President Monroe, is a doctrine of British origin, and we see no reason now, and never have seen any reason, why we should offer any criticism upon it. So far from our taking the appointment of the American Commission to be a national insult, I may tell the House that the American. Government have applied to us, through the ordinary channels of diplomatic intercourse, to aid them by supplying any information that we may have. To that invitation we have replied, and have promised them all the information at our disposal at the earliest possible moment. [Cheers.] But, Sir, when, the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that, in his opinion, the matters connected with the Venezuelan boundary were so involved in mystery and obscurity that no clear view could be, or ought to be taken upon them by anybody, let me remind him that, though undoubtedly there are subsidiary questions
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  of great difficulty, none of the English Governments which have considered this matter since 1844 have thought that there was any doubt at all that certain claims put forward by Venezuela were really beyond the region of controversy. As far as I understand the diplomatic relations between England and Venezuela, we have since 1844 been making a series of earnest and honest attempts to get this question finally settled. For one reason or another, not connected with English politics, not depending on English ambition or greed, each of these attempts has in turn failed. But it must not be supposed that, because in order to come to a settlement with Venezuela, different English Governments have suggested a different line at different times, that implies that the whole matter was involved in such doubt and obscurity that the idea of founding any claim on research or historical rights must be abandoned. These lines were made in the interests of peace. They undoubtedly represented something which the English Government of the day considered was less than England had a right to, and they ought not to be considered as qualifying in the least degree the general character of the views taken by various English Governments upon the question. ["Hear, hear!"] I have no reason to complain of most of what the right hon. Gentleman said on this subject. I am sure he was animated in all he said by a desire not to embarrass Her Majesty's Government, and I can assure him that, when he asks us not to be prevented by any mere diplomatic punctilio from trying to bring this question to a satisfactory issue, he need fear no such difficulties being raised on our side. Let the House not forget that there may be interests altogether apart from the future settlement of these boundaries, and apart from diplomatic difficulties or embarrassments. We do owe a duty to our children, to our colonies, and to those who depend on us, and this country could not retain—and I go further and say that it would not deserve to retain—that confidence which the colonies now hold in our will and power to defend them, if, in any case in which we were clearly in the right, we abandoned the interests of those who had settled in distant lands. [Cheers.] I do not believe that statement will be

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  disputed by the right hon. Gentleman or by any hon. Gentleman opposite, but I ask him to remember it as one of the elements which cannot be forgotten in dealing with this subject. ["Hear, hear!"] I will only add one other observation with regard to Venezuela. It is impossible, of course, to foresee with certainty what will be the general conclusions arrived at by the American Commission, or by those who are, called upon to investigate the British case in this country. But one conclusion I am certain will be arrived at by every man, whether he be an American citizen or a British citizen, who impartially looks into this subject. He will be convinced that, in the, disputes between successive English Governments and Venezuela there never has been, and there is not now, the slightest intention on the part of this country to violate what is the substance and the essence of the Monroe doctrine. ["Hear, hear!"] Cases have occurred in the history of the world, unfortunately, in which what were nominally frontier disputes have been, by the greed and ambition of nations or of Sovereigns, turned into a method of depriving the weaker country of some of the rights which belonged to it. The historical knowledge of the ri6ght hon. Gentleman opposite will, I am sure, supply him with many instances of that kind. But no man, whatever his prepossessions, who honestly examines this case will ever come to the conclusion that that has been the animating motive of any British Ministry or of the British people. [Cheers.] I feel assured therefore, that so far as the substance of the Monroe doctrine is concerned, whatever other conclusion the American Commission may arrive at, they will most assuredly arrive at this conclusion—that no illegitimate ambition, no unworthy greed of territory, no desire to push beyond their due limits the frontiers of this Empire, have ever been the animating cause which has moved British diplomacy in this long-drawn-out controversy. [Cheers.] If that conclusion is arrived at, as I am sure it will be, and if it be fairly and frankly stated by those in authority, by those; who have knowledge of the facts, to the citizens of the United States, one, at all events, of their gravest preoccupations must be put an end to, and they will feel that, at all
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  events so far as Venezuela is concerned, they have not to suspect on the part of this country anything in the nature of an invasion of a principle of policy which both they and we cherish. ["Hear, hear!"] I do not know that it is necessary for me to add another word on that subject except that I shall rejoice, and I think this House and the country will rejoice, and I believe the great mass of public opinion in America will rejoice, if out of all this evil there should spring the good fruit of some general system of arbitration [Loud cheers]—carefully guarded as any such system would have to be—for dealing with the subjects which may, which indeed must, from time to time arise between two great kindred nations. [Cheers.] If that was the issue of this controversy I should feel that all the misunderstandings of which the right hon. Gentleman has spoken, all the evil that has been dune, had been more than smoothed away and removed, and a permanent guarantee of good will between the English-speaking races on the two sides of the Atlantic had been attained for all time. [Cheers.] I pass from Venezuela to the next topic with which the right hon. Gentleman dealt—South Africa. It is quite unnecessary to observe that the first thing he did in regard to South Africa was to take a speech of Lord Salisbury's and to attack it.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: It was not the first thing.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: The first, point in regard to Africa on my notes. [Laughter.]
  SIR W. HARCOURT: My first point was to entirely approve of the conduct of the Colonial Secretary.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I naturally pass over matters upon which the right hon. Gentleman and I are in perfect accord [laughter], and go on to a subject on which I am afraid there must remain some little difference of opinion between us. The right hon. Gentleman was very indignant with the Prime Minister for using what he called inflammatory language—language calculated permanently to embitter the relations between the Boer population and our own, and to lead them to believe that we intended to upset the Treaty of 1884, by which their relations to us are,

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  determined. Supposing Lord Salisbury's speech had been of the inflammatory character which the right hon. Gentleman so strangely attributes to it. I am bound to say that any evil which it was calculated to produce would surely be increased tenfold by the sort of advertisement [Cries of "Oh!"] and the sort of gloss which the right hon. Gentleman has attempted to put upon it. No human being but the right hon. Gentleman, reading that speech could ever suppose that it was calculated to embitter President Kruger's feelings or those of any who are associated with him. But the right hon. Gentleman, having made the notable discovery that it is so calculated, immediately advertises to President Kruger and to the Boer population at large that England is, unhappily, governed at the present moment by a Prime Minister whose first object is to hold them up to the contempt of the civilised world, and whose second object is to destroy that Constitution which was granted to them in 1884. No such meaning, in truth, can be extracted from the Prime Minister's language. On the contrary, if there is a thing which both he and several gentlemen on this Bench have stated over and over again in most emphatic language, it is that we do not intend to permit the arrangement of 1884, under any circumstances, to be tampered with. [Cheers.] So that, if President Kruger comes to this country, as I hope he will, he will come with the full assurance that no such attempt, will be made by us. ["Hear, hear!"]; But the right hon. Gentleman went on to discuss the plan of my right hon. Friend near me, which, he said, after all indicated a conversion or a reversion to the policy of Home Rule as applied to the Transvaal; and he made out an elaborate parallel from which he sought to show that every condition which attached to the Home Rule scheme of the late Government attached to the scheme which my right hon. Friend suggested for doing away with the acknowledged grievances of the Uitlanders.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: A good many of them.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: The right hon. Gentleman carefully pointed out the matters in which the schemes agreed. I will point out some important respects in which
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  they differ. To begin with, the persons to whom Home Rule is to be given, if Home Rule it is to be called, are a majority and not a minority. [Irish cheers.] In the second place, those to whom this Home Rule is to be given have at present no political rights whatever. They have neither the right of representation in the central Assembly, nor have they the right of municipal government. It will hardly be denied that the Irish are without the latter right, and as regards the former right, oven the right hon. Gentleman in the highest flight of his rhetoric has never suggested that Ireland is under-represented in this House. [Laughter and Cheers.] There is one more point in which there is a difference. I understand that one of the grievances of the Uitlanders is that they have not sufficient police. I never heard of that in Ireland. [Laughter.]
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Export some of them. [Laughter.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: But in any case I hope the right hon. Gentleman will recognise as a fact lying on the face of South African history that, if these Uitlanders, I will not say had all the rights now given to Irish citizens, but if they had one-hundredth part of those rights, we should never have heard of their grievances at all. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman asked me what was to be done with regard to the present position of the Chartered Company. A detailed statement on this subject will no doubt be given by my right hon. Friend in the course of the Debate, but I may say at once that of course the armed forces of the company will be transferred to an Imperial Officer without delay ["Hear, hear!"] and therefore there can be no possibility, even if there was any prospect, of a repetition of the deplorable events which occurred at the end of last year. We propose that, as soon as the judicial proceedings which are pending in this country and South Africa are concluded—as soon as an Inquiry can take place without injustice and prejudice to individuals—we propose that an Inquiry should be entered into, unless, as is possible, all the facts about which public curiosity is aroused come clearly out in the course of the trials which must take place.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: What sort of an Enquiry, and will it be an Enquiry into the Charter?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: If, as I say, an Inquiry is thought to be desirable when the trials are over, no doubt that Inquiry will embrace, at least I should imagine so, any circumstances connected with the Charter. The whole history of the Charter of the Company I should imagine would be submitted to the tribunal, whatever it may be.
  MR. H. LABOUCHERE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it will be an Inquiry by this House or by Commission?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: As the hon. Gentleman will see, it is premature to answer that question, because we do not even yet know whether an Inquiry will be required. But as soon as we know whether such an Inquiry is necessary, the Government, will make up their mind as to the machinery by which it is to be carried out, and will take an early opportunity of informing the hon. Gentleman and the House of it. I may say, merely in passing, and to safeguard myself, that I do not associate myself with the general condemnation to which the right hon. Gentleman has given expression as to the method of Government by Chartered Companies. ["Hear, hear!"] That method of government has its inconveniences and dangers. Every form of government has its inconveniences and dangers, but I think that Chartered Companies have in the past done very great service to the Empire, and I should be very sorry to see it laid down as a rule of policy in this House that we should never entrust great powers and responsibilities to companies of this character. ["Hear, hear!"] I now come to what the right hon. Gentleman said with regard to Armenia. Here I think there were no compliments, and therefore the right hon. Gentleman did begin with an attack upon Lord Salisbury. What was the nature of that attack?
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I began by praising Lord Salisbury. [Laughter.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: My memory is extraordinarily bad for the right hon. Gentleman's laudations. [laughter.] That praise has entirely slipped my recollection.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: The speech at the Guildhall.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: That was also referred to, but I do not think the right hon. Gentleman began with that. That is a matter we shall not dispute one with the other. What, I am concerned with at the present moment, because it is really germane. In the present political situation, is the nature of the obligations imposed upon us by treaty with regard to the Armenians, and I say that the nature of those obligations was perfectly accurately described by Lord Salisbury in his speech to the Nonconformists. The real point at issue is this: Are we bound by anything that we have said to go to war with Turkey if Turkey is not, to carry out the reforms which we think desirable?
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I never said so.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: That, is the real question. [Cheers.] I do not ask whether we have a right or not to go to war with Turkey on that account. I ask whether we are bound to go to war; and if the right hon. Gentleman will refer to Lord Salisbury's speech he will notice that, that was the one contention to which Lord Salisbury was addressing himself. What Lord Salisbury said was this:—
  In the first place. I have seen it stated in every kind of language, from that of Denial rebuke to that of fierce denunciation, that Her Majesty's Government bound themselves in honour to succour the Armenians even to the extent of war with the Sultan in order to force himself to govern Armenia well."
  Then Lord Salisbury goes on to point out that neither in the Berlin Treaty nor in the Cyprus Convention is there any such obligation on this country. Does the right hon. Gentleman differ from that contention or not? If he agrees with that contention, what is the use of attacking Lord Salisbury? If he differs from it, is he prepared to get up and say that the Cyprus Convention or the Berlin Treaty throws upon the responsible governors of this country the duty, the moral obligation, of going to war with Turkey on behalf of the Armenians? That is really a very plain and simple issue. Unless the right hon. Gentleman and those who act with him are prepared to say that we are under

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  such a moral obligation there, is not the slightest use of talking at all, either about the Cyprus Convention or the Berlin Treaty. These treaties, no doubt, did throw upon Turkey certain obligations. No doubt, up to the present moment these obligations have not been fulfilled; but there is nothing in these treaties which requires either the Powers collectively or England singly to go to war in order to compel the Turks to carry out these reforms which under the Berlin Treaty and the Cyprus Convention she was obliged to carry out. When the right hon. Gentleman quotes the speech of Lord Carnarvon, in which Lord Carnarvon talked of the enormous responsibility which we had taken upon us as a nation, and pointed to the time when we should have to choose between dropping these obligations with national dishonour, or fulfilling them at the cost of great national sacrifice—when he quotes that, he cannot have looked at Lord Carnarvon's speech, for, unless my memory altogether deceives me, Lord Carnarvon, was then discussing, not our obligation to go to war against Turkey to compel Turkey to reform, but our obligation to go to war for Turkey if Turkey had reformed. [Cheers.] That was a great and weighty obligation. If Turkey had reformed that obligation would weigh upon, us with its full strength, but it is vain to quote Lord Carnarvon in this connection. Lord Carnarvon was quoting a condition of things which most unhappily has not arisen. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that in the paragraph in the Speech in which we admit that the horrors have gone on in Armenia, we have, to use his own phrase, confessed diplomatic insolvency and national impotence. If to admit that you have not succeeded in what you hoped to carry out is an admission of diplomatic insolvency and national impotence, we do admit it. And, let me point out to the right hon. Gentleman that it is an inevitable incidence of international working where the co-operation of many Powers is required, that your most earnest wishes may be frustrated. Does that imply either that we should not work with other Powers, or that when working with other Powers had failed we should enter into a crusade on our own account? If that be the
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  doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman, let him lay it down. Let him come forward and state that, as England has failed to take the Powers with her in putting pressure upon Turkey to carry out reforms, therefore England is bound to cut herself adrift from the other Powers, and against their expressed wishes, possibly against their active intervention, to enter single-handed into the impossible task of governing the central provinces of Turkey without the co-operation of the Turkish Empire. I say that the right hon. Gentleman will never commit himself or his Party to that policy. I say, however far he may go in criticising us, he will never go so far as to say what he would have done in our place. [Cheers.] The more he studies the papers which have been laid and which will be laid before Parliament, as soon as it is possible for Her Majesty's Government to get them into shape, the more I am convinced he will come to the conclusion that, short of bringing upon ourselves the responsibility of a possible European conflagration, we could have done no more in the direction of helping these unhappy people than we actually have done. Let the House and the country remember that we, and we alone, among the nations of Europe—I do not include America, I know the United States is with us in the matter—that we and we alone among the nations—I am not talking of the Governments—felt deep and earnestly upon this subject. We, and we alone, have present in our minds a large measure of the horror of those dark deeds that have been done in Armenia. But, what foreign diplomatists have ever present to their minds are the inevitable evils which must overtake Europe if the Eastern question is again opened from top to bottom. They think of all the rivalries, all the controversies, it may be all the wars that would follow upon such an event; and they are not prepared to lift a finger to assist in impressing upon the Sultan the duty of carrying out through the only Government which exists in these provinces, or which can exist in these provinces at present, reforms which might provide some security for the Christian population in Asia Minor. The right hon. Gentleman was not content with discussing the present situation. He must needs carry his mind

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  back to 1878, and the now faded controversies which raged in the years following 1878, in order to prove that the policy then pursued by Lord Beaconsfield has been a failure. I do not know why this House should be called upon to express what is now after all an historic judgment. Suppose this had been the case, what then? Lord Beaconsfield is dead. What is the object of attacking him? In 1878 I was a humble follower of the then Prime Minister and the then Foreign Secretary, and to say that I agreed or associated myself with their policy would be an absurd presumption on my part. But, on looking back on the years that have intervened, I cannot regret what was then done, nor do I believe that what was then done has injured in the slightest degree the position and the prospects of the Armenian people. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman appears to think that the whole interests of the Christian population could safely be intrusted to the action of the Russian Government. I have not a word to say against the Russian Government, but they themselves would disclaim being animated by the philanthropic motives which rightly I think are the mainsprings of action in this country. We know enough of the Russian view on these subjects to be able to say that Russia would not have intervened for these people, and that as a matter of fact there is not the slightest ground for supposing that the lot of any single Armenian man, woman, or child would have been better if the Treaty of San Stefano had never been torn up, if the Cyprus Convention and the Berlin Treaty had never become an international instrument. I admit, who can deny, that the hopes that we entertained in 1878 of the speedy reform of the Turkish Empire have been disappointed, and bitterly disappointed. But we at all events did our very best to give to Turkey a perennial motive which might rouse Turkish statesmanship into doing something towards introducing good government into the provinces of the Empire, for, as I have already reminded the House, we actually went the length of engaging on our part, on behalf of the British nation, that we would defend the Turkish Empire if only Turkey would reform. Has any other Power done half as much for the Armenians? Has any
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  other Government done half as much for the Armenians as was done by Lord Beaconsfield by the Convention of Cyprus? No, Sir. We did take upon ourselves heavy national obligations; we did run the risk of having to make great national sacrifice. And, although it is true that though the inducements that we then held out have proved to be vain—though unhappily no sign at present exists that Turkish Statesmen are going to see the error of their ways and that reforms are really going to be introduced into the provinces of that empire—still I shall never regret having been a follower of a Government which, at all events, did its best to induce Turkey to take the only course which, in the long run, can secure the permanence of the Ottoman Empire.
  MR. R. McKENNAsaid he would not, have ventured to intervene except in the hope of obtaining information from the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who in a previous Debate had described himself as having peculiar means of knowledge of affairs in Siam. This information might now assist him in understanding the apparent complete change in policy in regard to the Anglo-French relations to Siam. In 1893 the Under Secretary had laid it down that "the main British interest in Siam is the political stability of Siam itself." He was aware that the hon. Gentleman would allege that this stability was secured by the treaty. But on another occasion the hon. Gentleman had used language which condemned in advance such stability as the treaty secured. He said:—
  "Attention is called to the Provinces of Battambong and Angkor.…They are rich in rice and other produce, and include the upper part of the Great Lake with its important and lucrative fisheries.…The possession of the Provinces is essential to Siam; and, in fact, the independence and integrity of Siam will be irretrievably injured if those Provinces are allowed to pass into the hands of any foreign power."
  The treaty which was supposed to guarantee the integrity and independence of Siam did not include these very provinces within its scope, and in consequence the situation which the Under Secretary then described of irretrievable injury to Siamese independence was in

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  imminent danger of arising under the treaty itself. In the same speech the hon. Gentleman said:
  "These provinces have not been seized by the French, but let me explain the ingenious substitution for seizure which is contemplated."
  The pith of that "ingenious substitution for seizure" was the, occupation of Chantaboon, which the French still occupied at the present moment. He would not speak of the surrender of territory undeniably British on the upper reaches of the Mekong, but he would ask what compensation Great Britain received for the sacrifice of what the Under Secretary had described as the main British interest in Siam.
  MR. S. SMITH, said, he ventured to occupy the time of the House for a few moments in order to comment on some of the most important statements in the Speech from the Throne. The country had passed through a most anxious time since the, present Government came into office; indeed, he doubted if in this generation the country had been confronted with a greater number of dangers. He wished to refer to one or two of these, not in a party spirit, but as a friend to peace, and also as an upholder of the just rights of this country. He congratulated the Government on the most acute stage of the American controversy being passed. He was sure there was not a man in this House, or out of it, who would not regard a war with our kinsmen of the United States as a crime of the first magnitude. Unhappily it had been, made only too clear that there were many in the United States who did not share this feeling, but we rejoiced to think that all that was best in America was eager to settle our differences amicably. He did not wish to criticise the action of the Government in the Venezuelan question, but to suggest with the utmost earnestness he possessed, that the whole of our dispute with Venezuela should be left to friendly arbitration. He would make no exceptions or limitations; such a course would entirely allay the irritation in America, and would commend itself to the religious sentiment of both nations. There would not be any full and complete settlement of this deplorable misunderstanding with the
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  United States unless we adopted this course. And, he would go further, and say that it might be a wise policy to select as our Arbitrator a Member of the Supreme Court of Washington, a Court than which none stood higher in the world for absolute integrity, and he felt confident that our interests would not suffer in the hands of such an Arbitrator, and the effect would be magical on the warm impulsive nature of the American people. In his judgment the restoration of a cordial understanding with America was ten thousand times more important than the question of the Schomburgk line, or any other line, between Venezuela and British Guiana. Let our object be not the contemptible one of gaining a diplomatic victory, but the restoration of permanent friendship with the United States. We were all now fully alive to the perils of a rupture with America; surely the time was opportune to conclude a treaty of arbitration with our kinsmen across the Atlantic. Thanks to the efforts of the Press, and especially to that of the Daily Chronicle, we knew that all the leading Statesmen at Washington were in favour of such a treaty. A Resolution to this effect was passed in the House three years ago. He recognised the difficulties that lay in the way of framing such a treaty. There were questions that no Government could consent to leave to arbitration, but such questions were very unlikely to arise between Great Britain and the United States. The class of disputes that did arise were just those that were suited for arbitration, and it was not beyond the wit of statesmen to frame such a treaty as would be the first step to draw into a closer union the entire English-speaking races. The, British Government that accomplished this would earn a greater distinction than by waging the most successful war. With regard to the Transvaal, he would like to say that the action of the Secretary for the Colonies commanded his heartiest approval. In a case of great difficulty he acted with a promptitude and firm sense of justice which probably saved this country from a great war. He believed the policy of the Government in South Africa commanded the full approval of the country. We must respect the independence of the Boers,

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  and at the same time forbid the interference of foreign powers in South Africa. The whole nation was at one in this policy. At the same time a most searching Inquiry must be made into the action of the South African Company, and he for one would view with satisfaction the revocation of its Charter, and an end put to the dangerous policy of giving governmental powers to trading companies. The House at large would, he was sure, hail with satisfaction the approach to a better understanding with the French Republic. It was most important that this country should get into better relations with France. We had enemies enough all over the world without adding to their number the great French nation. There was but one subject that stood in the way of a complete accord with France, and that was Egypt. We gave our solemn pledge to leave that country, and we had not done so, and it seemed to the French uncommonly like a breach of faith. The honour of the country was compromised, and he would urge that in some way or other we should seek a solution of the question that would restore the old entente cordiale with our nearest neighbour. He regretted, however, that there was one branch of the policy of the Government which caused a deep sense of mortification, he might almost say of shame, to multitudes in this country: he referred to Armenia. The Government themselves acknowledged their failure to protect the Armenian Christians. The awful disclosures of the past two years showed that the Prime Minister was fully justified in saying that such horrors had not occurred since the time of Genkis Khan and Tamerlane. There was no difference of opinion on this point, except among some crazy Philo-Turks. The last two years had witnessed the most disgraceful episode of the nineteenth century. They had witnessed the destruction of an ancient Christian people at the hands of savages with barbarities to which those of Robespierre or Marat and even the massacre of Cawnpore, were a trifle, and they had witnessed the ineffable shame of the Great Powers of Europe standing idly by and not moving a finger to prevent it. These Powers could have crumpled up Turkey like an egg-shell, yet they
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  did nothing because they were so paralysed with mutual jealousies. He hoped those secret intrigues which allowed the Armenians to be massacred would be dragged into the light of day. He hoped the powers which had hindered any help being given to the perishing multitudes would be put in the pillory of history; and he hoped that this country would prove not to have been one of the culprits. He willingly recognised that the Government had to cope with extraordinary difficulties in the case of the Armenians. It was evident now that there never was a real accord of the Powers. It was evident that the main object of some of them was to frustrate British policy. The sentiment of sympathy with suffering humanity was almost undeveloped on the Continent of Europe, and the feelings that governed the British and American peoples in questions of this kind were looked upon as Quixotic. The sentiment of Europe seemed to him more selfish to-day than in the time of the Crusades, and we sorely needed some Peter-the-Hermit to rouse the slumbering conscience of the peoples. But the question we now had to ask was whether the Government of this country had done its utmost to stop these horrible butcheries, and, if it had, what other course remained for us to follow now. The last speech of the Prime Minister seemed like a counsel of despair. The Great Powers of Europe would not interfere, or allow anyone else to interfere, and apparently there was nothing to do but look on and hope that the Sultan, after allowing some 60,000 helpless Christians to be butchered in cold blood, might graciously put an end to further massacres. Surely this was an awful confession to make; surely it was a triumph for the powers of darkness. He did not think that the conscience of this country would acquiesce in it. The whole question must be examined from the very foundations; we could not forget that the very existence of the Turkish Power was largely owing to the policy of this country in past times, and it devolved upon us far more than upon any other Power to devise some way of protecting the Christian subjects of the Porte. It was Lord Beaconsfield that compelled Russia to tear up the treaty of San Stefano. In the words of Lord Sherbrooke, in 1878,

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  "he turned the keys of hell on the Armenian Christians," and the present Prime Minister was then his right hand. He could not doubt that if Russia had preserved the treaty right of interfering on behalf of the Armenian Christians as she would have done had the Treaty of San Stefano remained intact, that those massacres would not have occurred. The fatal mistake was in placing the rights of the Christians under the collective guarantee of Europe; that guarantee had amounted to nothing; the jealousies of the Powers had paralysed all action, and the so-called Concert of Europe had been a delusion and a snare. He asserted that this country, by destroying the effective guarantee of one strong Power, had been the main cause of the deplorable condition to which the Armenians had been reduced. It was not done with that intention; but it was all the same deadly in its effects. He could not doubt but that the pro-Turkish policy of Great Britain had been one of the greatest national sins this country had committed; it had entailed most evil consequences from which we were now vainly striving to get free. But he wanted to ask this question: was it possible for us to do anything to save the poor remnants of the Armenian people from extermination? It must be perfectly evident to anyone that nothing but a military occupation of the Armenian provinces would suffice, and it was equally clear that no Power but Russia was able to do that. The real question that must be answered was this: had the Government of Great Britain intimated to Russia that it would view with satisfaction such an intervention? We were told that Russia had no wish to interfere. This might be perfectly true if Russia thought that her interference meant a European war; but if Russia knew that she had the good will of this country, and an invitation from some of the other Powers as well to occupy these provinces, would she still hold back? The old jealousy of Russia was much abated, surely the time had now arrived for a cordial understanding with Russia. Let our Government publicly state that the maintenance of the Turkish Empire had ceased to be an object of British policy, that we regarded that Empire as hopelessly rotten, and that we would view with satisfaction the establishment of civilised
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  government over those fair regions of the earth so long blighted with Mahomedan misrule, and it was impossible to tell what pregnant results might follow. He believed the only true policy for British Statesmen was to look to the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire, which might be peaceably attained by arrangement of the Great Powers. If Lord Salisbury took in hand the doing for Turkey what he did for Africa, he would prove himself a Statesman of the first rank. No one could believe that the Turkish Empire could last much longer; those awful crimes must and would be avenged. There were but two ways in which that organised brigandage could disappear, either through a frightful European convulsion, or by a friendly arrangement among the Great Powers; surely it became our country to take the lead in the latter. Compensation might be found for France for our retention of Egypt. Our country did not wish for another foot of Turkish territory, and if Asiatic Turkey were divided between Russia and France, we should see the Christians protected, and two jealous rivals turned into our friends. This scheme might be Utopian, but Utopian schemes had sometimes a tendency to translate themselves into realities; but if it was impracticable, let a better scheme be produced. He asserted that we could not sit still without lasting disgrace and watch the extermination of an ancient Christian people. He was quite sure that the last word had not been spoken about Armenia; this question could not rest where it was, it contained the seed of fearful convulsions, unless settled in a righteous spirit. Ho believed it was one of the cases where a strong policy was better than a weak one; the worst of all policy was to do nothing. One suggestion he would make before sitting down. The sufferings of the widows and orphans of the massacred Armenians were indescribable; hundreds of thousands of them were dying of hunger and cold. Parliament, he was certain, would vote with, readiness, any reasonable sum to relieve their sufferings. Let Government put upon the Estimates a grant of £250,000 to be expended through our Consular Agents in Asia Minor, and that would be some evidence to show that we were not purely selfish in our foreign policy,

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  and it would save from an awful death vast numbers of these perishing Christians.
  SIR C. E. HOWARD VINCENTsaid, that the hon. Member for Flintshire was a man of the greatest kindness of heart, but if his hon. Friend was so anxious to employ £250,000 of public funds for the relief of distress he thought that he would find ample opportunity for the employment of the money in this country without going to Armenia or other foreign lands. He joined issue with his hon. Friend upon the observations he made with regard to the evacuation of Egypt and kindred matters. His view was, and he believed it was the view entertained by the Government, that what they had to do in these days was to look to the safety of the United Kingdom, to the integrity of the Empire, and to the defence of our trade and people all over the world. [Cheers.] The increased efficiency of the Navy was a matter of the greatest importance, and he expressed an earnest hope that the Government would not in their generosity towards the Navy forget also that we had an Army, and that sea forces without the land forces behind them were comparatively valueless. It was stated that a considerable sum was to be proposed for an increase in the naval defence of the country. He hoped also that some of that considerable surplus which would be at the disposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer might be devoted to the improvement of the Army and also of the Militia and Volunteers which constituted an essential portion of the land defences of the country. Every one rejoiced in the bloodless victory of our forces on the west coast of Africa, a victory which was largely due to the valuable organisation not only of Sir Francis Scott but also of Lord Wolseley and the authorities at the Horse Guards. Every one would feel how important it was to the Volunteer force that some of the public funds available should be directed to its improvement just as much as to the Navy. Turning to the condition of agriculture, he said that he and other hon. Members who represented urban constituencies comparatively far removed from agricultural depression thought that there was no subject for which the people had greater sympathy than the present condition of agriculture. At that very moment
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  a meeting was being held in Sheffield to call the attention of the people to the deplorable condition of agriculture, and he maintained that they ought to take timely steps to prevent more arable land from going out of cultivation, and before wheat land was all thrown into permanent pasture. By allowing this condition of affairs to supervene they rendered themselves dependent on the kindness and mercy of the foreigner. Therefore, with the approval of his constituents he would give his support to the Minister of Agriculture in any measures brought forward for the relief of the agricultural industry, to increase our rural population and the home-grown food supplies of the country. As to the measures in connection with the importation of destitute aliens he stated that this was a subject which had been for a long time before the country. In 1888 and in 1889 he was a member of the Select Committee to inquire into this subject. The majority of the Committee at that time did not think that the hour had arrived in order to take action on the question. Attention had been repeatedly drawn to the question, and the present Prime Minister had himself introduced a Bill in order to carry certain desirable reforms into effect. The late Government was not favourable to the measure, and it was compulsorily withdrawn. To show hon. Members how necessary it was for the Government to introduce the Bill now, and push it forward by all means, he called attention to the return showing the amount of alien immigration during the past twelve months. No fewer than 40,415 aliens arrived in this country, not stated to be en route for America, an increase of 2,000 over 1894. The aliens arriving in this country, and en route for America, were 44,372, an increase over 1894 of 9,000. Although persons arrived in this country, stating their intention only to go through the country, a considerable number of the poorer and the worst class were refused the necessary certificate by the American Consul at Liverpool to take ship to America, and therefore they remained in this country, while a proportion of those who were allowed to embark for the United States were refused admission by the authorities at New York and were returned to the unfortunate Great Britain. Therefore, the figure given was by no means the real figure; it was in excess of that.

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  There were 9,854 sailors in this number of aliens, but this was no satisfaction to the number of British sailors who were tillable to find a berth on British ships. They ought to do nothing to encourage the employment of foreign sailors when British sailors were idle and unable to obtain employment. He thought, that there was an omission in the Speech from the Throne. He trusted that the Government would not forget the speeches made while in Opposition as to the importation of prison-made goods. He was sorry that the President of the Board of Trade, and the Colonial Secretary were not present; but one need scarcely say that it was expected the Government would introduce a Bill dealing with this question at the very earliest opportunity. ["Hear, hear !"] The loyalty of the Colonies to the Throne and the mother country was so assured that the Government had doubtless thought it unnecessary to refer to it in the Speech, but he did not think the opportunity should be allowed to pass without some attention being called in the House by one Member, however humble, to the extraordinary sympathy recently shown by the great self-governing Colonies of the Empire towards the mother country in a time of considerable difficulty, and not a little danger. He should like to read to House a remarkable telegram which was sent by the Prime Minister of New South Wales, on behalf of his own Government and other Colonial Governments, on January 12th. It was as follows:—
  "The Governments of Australia and Tasmania view with satisfaction the prompt and fearless measures adopted by Her Majesty's Government in defence of the Empire. We desire to convey our united assurances of loyal support. The people of Australia are in full sympathy with the determination of the Mother Country to resent foreign interference in matters of British and Colonial concern. Signed by the Premier of New South Wales, on behalf and at the request of the Governments of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland Tasmania, and Western Australia."
  Nor were these feelings confined to the Australian Colonies alone. They had been as strongly expressed by Canada. Only last week a Resolution, in support of which all the leaders of all parties took part, was proposed by a friend of his—Mr. Alexander MacNeill—in
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  the Dominion House of Commons, as follows:—
  "This House desires to assure Her Majesty's Government and the people of the United Kingdom of its unalterable loyalty and devotion to the British Throne and Constitution, and of its conviction that, should occasion unhappily arise, in no other part of the Empire than in the Dominion of Canada would more substantial sacrifices attest the determination of Her Majesty's subjects to preserve unimpaired the integrity and inviolate the honour of Her Majesty's Empire." [Cheers.]
  Only one more extract. It was of considerable importance, because it came from a greatly esteemed Statesman who had filled for many years the office of High Commissioner of Canada in the old country, and who might become in a few days Premier of the Dominion—Sir Charles Tupper. What did he say at Halifax? "All Canadians, irrespective of Party, were loyal to the heart's core to the Empire." And Mr. Laurie, Leader of Opposition, said:—
  "When England should have to repel her foes, I am quite sure that British subjects all over the world—not only British subjects of her own blood, but British subjects who are not of her own blood, but who have received from her the inestimable blessing of freedom."
  It was the bounden duty of the Government to accept these assurances, and to do all they possibly could to develop and increase the bonds of union with the Colonies; and in no way could they be better strengthened than by drawing closer the commercial bonds binding them together all the world over. The feeling for preferential trade between all parts of the Empire was one that was growing very rapidly. He was sure that in the able hands of the Colonial Secretary nothing would be wanting, on behalf of the people of this country, to show his appreciation for Colonial feelings and to avail himself of every opportunity to increase the commercial accord between the United Kingdom and all Her Majesty's possessions. They wanted new markets. He spoke for a manufacturing and industrial community, and he declared that the great, remedy for distress and the want of employment was not far to seek. Should they not do something to increase the trade with the Colonies, and so increase their own and their prosperity, instead of looking to foreign nations for trade extension and trade

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  relations? He earnestly commended the matter to the early consideration of the Government.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE, said, he was inclined to agree with the greater portion of the Speech, but he thought the terms of it challenged them to express the strong feelings they had on one or two particular points. Generally speaking, there were large portions of the Speech perhaps better worded [Laughter] than Queen's Speeches generally were. There was a fair spirit displayed, expressed with courtesy and without party feeling. ["Hear, hear!"] His hon. Friend had just referred to one subject which related, in the catalogue of Bills, to the introduction of aliens. He knew there were some on both sides who held an opinion in favour of the policy which the Government proposed to follow. All they need do now was to enter a protest, for it would be ridiculous to discuss it. If any such scheme to exclude destitute aliens were brought forward it would meet with the fiercest opposition from those who had no party feeling in the matter. ["Hear, hear!"] Many of them thought that one of the greatest glories of the country was the way in which England had opened her gates to the oppressed of all nationalities. The statistics on this subject showed that there was no net increase of immigrants. He noticed that one peculiar phrase was used in this connection. They spoke of "the importation" of destitute aliens. [Laughter.] That was a curious word to use, but if it meant the bringing in of black-leg labour he confessed there might be something to be said for the word "importation." While on this subject he might mention that there was a Bill, to the principle of which the Home Office was pledged, and which would be of more general interest to labour than the measure affecting pauper immigration could be—he meant with regard to the extension of the Truck Acts. The language used with regard to the promised Education Bill, again,
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  was peculiar language. It was limited to voluntary schools, but, on the other hand, it applied not to voluntary schools over the whole country, but in particular districts—that was, no doubt, in poor districts. If it was the case that the Government were going to turn their attention to the, no doubt, hard case of voluntary schools in the poorer districts, there might be something to be said for it, but it appeared obvious that their legislation ought to operate in the poor Board School districts as well as the poor voluntary school districts. Turning to the more important subjects of foreign policy, he expressed general concurrence with the language of the Speech, although there was one point on which he was sharply opposed to it. While he had nothing but praise for the policy pursued by the Colonial Secretary in South Africa, the language used by the Leader of the Opposition and also by the Leader of the House with reference to chartered companies in general marked a most extraordinary change of front on the part of both the great parties in the State. The party which revived Government by chartered companies, in the case of the North Borneo Company, had apparently come round to the view that it was wrong, and the Conservative party, which formerly denounced it, had come round to the view that it was right. He unhesitatingly asserted that if they could have foreseen at the time of the North Borneo charter the consequences that were going to flow from the policy the decision of the House of Commons would have been different from what it was. No doubt in the case of North Borneo there were no dangerous frontiers with other Powers, as there were, for example, in the case of the Niger Protectorate. We had been running very great dangers in connection with the Niger Company, and those dangers had been increased by the fact that that company had been under the control of the Foreign Office, which was absolutely unfit by its position—and no man had a higher opinion than

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  himself of that Department—to manage those companies. He did not hesitate to say that if in the recent events the Chartered Company of South Africa had been under the control of the Foreign Office instead of the Colonial Office we should not have been so nearly through our troubles as we were. The Foreign Office had found these companies convenient in the way of avoiding responsibility, and not giving too much information to the House of Commons. It was well known that the charter of the Niger Company had been worked and used to prevent this House having any knowledge of matters of the greatest moment and delicacy on the West Coast of Africa. In his opinion the House of Commons ought to take every means in its power of limiting, if it could not put an end to, these chartered companies. As to Armenia, he held that both sides had a very heavy responsibility for the present position of the Armenian question, and anything like an attempt to make party capital out of it was absolutely indefensible. It was a humiliating topic for both parties. Lord Salisbury, in 1880, confessed in the strongest terms his own failure with regard to it; and Mr. Gladstone, on the part of his Government, had made a similar confession. The latter failure was under circumstances as revolting as those which existed at the present time. Some of the circumstances were so terrible that it was found impossible to lay before Parliament all the Papers relating to the atrocities which occurred in Armenia between 1880 and 1884. He hoped, therefore, the Armenian question would be kept out of Party recriminations in the future. Passing to Venezuela, he thought Leaders on both sides of the House had been, inclined to state too strongly the countenance which had been given by this country in the past to the Monroe doctrine. In the past we had disputed the Monroe doctrine on many points, but now people had tried to put themselves in the frame
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  of mind of the Americans, and what we had to do was, not to dispute the doctrine, but to try to prevent it infringing on our own rights. On the whole, the language of the Government had been consistent with the line both parties had taken on the question. We had undoubtedly shifted our line because the population had moved and we had been willing for the sake of peace to hand over empty districts, but we were not willing to hand over districts to which a British population had gone. He now came to a point on which he took the sharpest issue with the policy of the Government. He could not imagine a statement more untruthful, as it seemed to him, than that contained in what was virtually the first paragraph of the Speech. It was said,—
  "An agreement has been concluded between my Government and that of the French Republic, having for its principal object the more secure establishment of the independence of the Kingdom of Siam."
  What was the policy which the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs last year recommended to the House and which was supported by the whole authority of the Conservative Party? It was the integrity of the whole country of Siam, of all that was left, as he said, after the treaty which had been made between France and Siam. The hon. Gentleman specifically mentioned two provinces as being portions of the country the integrity of which ought to be preserved. He believed the Government were going to tell them that the integrity of Siam was preserved by the treaty they had made, but every man smiled at that statement. Everyone knew that at the time the treaty was negotiated between France and Siam, and when we intervened the Siamese objected to two articles the French pressed upon them. Those articles related to the condition of affairs in the 25-mile strip. Yet the French were acting as though these articles had been accepted, while they had in fact

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  been rejected by Siam at the moment of her deepest distress. Chantaboon was still occupied and had been fortified, although situated in that part of Siam which was not ceded by treaty, and in the Siam of which the Government pretended the integrity was secure. The hon. Gentleman told them that Chantaboon was a port, the possession of which by Siam should be maintained on account of the large British trade there. It was well known that what had been done was to guarantee the centre of Siam, and not to guarantee the remainder of the country, which seemed to him a direct invitation to other people to annex it. ["No."] What was the consideration this country had got for a surrender which, to judge from the language Lord Rosebery used, was a surrender of a very important branch of British trade? The consideration was said to be the exclusion of foreign Powers from the Malay Peninsula, and trade privileges which had been obtained by France in Southern China and were to be extended to us. But our influence had always been complete in the Malay Peninsula, and we should never have tolerated the coming in of foreign Powers; and the trade privileges, so far as they were not ours already by our most-favoured Nation Clause, might have been obtained by pressure at Pekin. Was it coming to a full and fair arrangement with France which might relieve us from those anxieties in the world which bad arrangements with France undoubtedly occasioned us? The Convention contained a clause about Tunis. We had certain trade rights with Tunis. Those rights gave us very low duties, and through them we did a very large trade. It was well known that the French Protectionists desired to hamper that trade for the supposed benefit of the trade of France. There was a clause in the Siamese Convention by which we seemed to go out of our way to promise to discuss with the French our relations with Tunis, from which the French understood we were prepared to give up our rights there.
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  He feared the whole history of Lord Salisbury's conventions with France and Germany went to show that, in regard to what the noble Lord considered smaller and secondary questions, he did not sufficiently study the interests of British trade. He complained that the concessions which were made in the name of British trade were useless concessions, because they did not deal with those larger questions which the French had in view, and did not produce that complete friendly relation throughout the world which we had a right to anticipate if we made the concessions at all. They fell short or they went too far—the former for the purposes of a complete settlement, and the latter for the interests of British Trade. The question which lay behind all these others was the question of the occupation of Egypt. ["Hear, hear!"] Everybody knew that some believed that this country had not kept her word with regard to Egypt, and others believed that the letter of that word had been rigidly kept; but all knew what the opinion in France was on the point. Some, and the number was increasing even on the Ministerial side of the House, believed with him that, from a military point of view, the occupation of Egypt was a weakness and not a strength. The question of the occupation must be settled to bring about really friendly relations with France, if it were not too late altogether to restore those relations. But that was no reason why, in the interest of British trade, protests should not be made against conventions which gave up important trade interests, and particularly against the hypocrisy of such language as that in the Queen's Speech stating that the object of the agreement had been to secure the greater independence of Siam. ["Hear, hear!"]
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: said, that he did not propose to enter upon the question of Siam, but he ventured to join in the general compliment which had been paid to the language of her Majesty's Speech.

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  He did not remember any previous occasion when he had read a Speech from the throne which was so clearly and effectively expressed. There was one important subject with which he might, have felt compelled to deal at some length, but for the very remarkable and almost in every respect satisfactory dispatch which the Secretary of State for the Colonies addressed to Sir Hercules Robinson last week. Up to that time he had looked with some apprehension on the policy of the Government in regard to British interests in South Africa. He had seen various interests overwhelmed and crushed, owing to the mistakes which had been made; and the defence and protection of our fellow countrymen in South Africa, and the support of the supreme and paramount position which we must hold in that quarter had not been dealt with until the dispatch of the Colonial Secretary. But that dispatch covered so effectually the ground, and so fully represented the views of those who had attempted to urge the claims of the British in the Transvaal, that there could be no reason for reopening the question of those claims at the moment. But there was one point on which he should like to ask the Secretary for the Colonies a question. It referred to the treatment of certain British residents, leaders of the so-called Uitlander movement, who were now in prison in Pretoria. Those gentlemen were arrested a month ago. Some 80 were arrested after they had laid down their arms, and contrary to the general understanding as to what would happen if they did so. The great number of them were kept in most unsuitable and unwholesome confinement in the gaol at Pretoria. Then most of them were released on bail; but at least five were still confined in the prison, which it was not too much to describe as a disgrace to humanity. For some time these five gentlemen were shut up together in a room twelve feet by eight, and filthy and infected in a way which could not be described. There was not
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  the least reason why these gentlemen, who were men of position and property, should not have been released on bail some time ago. It might have been right to demand very substantial bail; but it was exceedingly unfair that they should be still confined in prison, and especially after the statements made to the Uitlanders by Her Majesty's representative, Sir Jacobus de Wet—against whom he had not a word to say, because if that gentleman's advice had been followed, none of the present troubles would have ensued—and Sir S. Shippard used the strongest language to induce the Uitlanders to lay down their arms, and promised that the safety of Dr. Jameson's force would be secured by their doing so, and, further, that their own rights would be looked after. Yet, directly after these men had laid down their arms to save Dr. Jameson and his men, they were arrested in large numbers, confined in this abominable gaol, and at this moment some of them were still there and were refused bail. One of them, indeed—an American subject—had been released because of the remonstrances of the American Government. As to the attitude of the late Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for West Monmouth, he had never listened to such a speech. It was full of implied condemnation of the Chartered Company, full of praise of President Kruger and the Boer Government, and there was not one single word in defence, or support of the 70,000 Englishmen resident in the Transvaal, to whom was denied every single constitutional right. He was not surprised, after listening to that speech, to find that throughout the whole of South Africa, and every British colony, the name of every Government with which the right hon. Gentleman had been associated was regarded with positive scorn and hatred. If hon. Members thought he exaggerated, let them ask the opinion of any colonist. As to the Armenian portion of the debate, the right hon.

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  Member for West Monmouth indulged in what was in the main a violent party attack on the Leader of the present Government. The whole of the right hon. Gentleman's speech was devoted to the denunciation of Lord Salisbury, and to the complaint that Lord Salisbury had not done something or other which was not defined. The answer to the right hon. Gentleman was very simple. What had he and his colleagues been about in the ten years during which they held office since 1878? The right hon. Gentleman spoke in violent condemnation of the policy of Lord Beaconsfield. That was really the meaning of the present diatribes against Turkey. Those who uttered them thought they involved a sort of moral condemnation of Lord Beaconsfield. The right hon. Gentleman was a Member of the Government which came into power in 1880, two years after the Treaty of Berlin was signed. They had a majority of 140, and they did not hesitate to reverse Lord Beaconsfield's policy in every quarter of the globe. Yet they did nothing to reform Turkey or to better the position of the Armenians. Indeed, they made the position rather worse, because they removed from Asiatic Turkey those very able military Consuls whom Lord Beaconsfield's Government had appointed to keep the fanaticism of the Turks in check and to report upon the abuses of the Sultan's Government. The Government of Mr. Gladstone were as responsible as any Government within the last 17 years for such mistakes and misgovernment as had existed in Turkey. They were even more directly responsible for the present situation. Who were responsible for the present difficulties, and for the admitted impotence of the British Government to secure reforms in Turkey? The late Government—Lord Rosebery and his colleagues—must bear a large share of the responsibility. He was prepared to admit that the English Government had been misled from Constantinople; but
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  Lord Rosebery started a new policy with regard to Turkey in combination with Russia and France, a policy of coercion against Turkey. Demand after demand was made on the Sultan in accordance with this policy, and scheme after scheme of reform presented, but it absolutely failed in advancing by a single step the attainment of the object desired. It not only failed, however, in securing the object aimed at, but it had a disastrous effect on Europe generally, and it set up against this country a hostile feeling on the part of Germany, Austria, and Italy, because the subservience of the British policy in the East to Russia and France was not approved by those countries. The new policy did nothing but draw a remonstrance from the other countries which were signatories to the Treaty of Berlin, contending that the question of any alteration in the government of Turkey should be dealt with by the whole of those Powers acting together, and not by only two or three of them. With regard to the agitation which had been carried on in the country in relation to Turkey and Armenia during the last twelve months, it had been characterised by the most reckless and abusive denunciation of the Sultan and the people of Turkey. He knew there were many persons who imagined that the Eastern question might be settled by abuse of the Sultan, of his people, and of the Mahommedan religion, and by a general outcry against alleged atrocities. But those who knew anything of the East, of the past history of the many different races in the Ottoman Empire, knew there was much more behind the Eastern question than appeared to a great number of persons who assumed to deal with it. The Eastern question consisted of two great phases—one, the danger of arousing fanatical hatred of race and religion between the Mussel—mans and the Christians of Turkey and other countries—a danger which had been entirely overlooked by the atrocity mongers of this country. And the other

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  great phase of the question was the necessity of preserving the balance of power in Europe, a condition which was still of vital importance to this country and to Europe He appealed to hon. Members opposite to state what good, if any, had been done by the policy of coercion and abuse recently applied to Turkey. Had it benefitted any interest in any part of the world? Had it resulted in any good to the Armenians themselves? He contended that it had not, but had rather brought additional ruin to the cause it had sought to espouse. That result was bound to follow from it, because the course pursued had aroused fanatical Mussulman feeling in Turkey, and, to a large extent, thus led to the terrible events of November, December and January last, which all reasonable men deplored. With regard to the alleged atrocities themselves, they had been grossly exaggerated in this country, both as to their character and the numbers stated to have been slain. Let them take the alleged atrocities at Sasun for instance. They were told at first that the number slain was 30,000, then the number was reduced to 20,000, next to 10,000 and 5,000, and finally it was stated that the number was 3,000, who were massacred under circumstances of the most horrible cruelty. Well, the matter had since been investigated, and it was ascertained that a serious revolt had taken place, that there had been considerable fighting in a mountainous country, and the number of slain was put down at 262 only, while it was reported that most of the tales of horror circulated were grossly exaggerated, and that most of the evil was caused by foreign intrigues and money. ["Hear, hear!"] There was not an offensive expression in the language that had not been applied to the Sultan of Turkey and the Caliph of the Moslem people, and yet he (Sir E. Ashmead-Bartlett) was ridiculed when he said that this unjust treatment of the Sultan had aroused that fanatical spirit
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  which they were all anxious to keep asleep. It was said also that we should invite Russia to occupy Constantinople as that would settle the question. Let him remind the House what Constantinople meant. Constantinople was the greatest position in the world. It was a military and naval strategical position of unparalleled value. Owing to Constantinople alone the Eastern Roman Empire had survived a thousand years after the Western Empire had been destroyed. If a great power were put into possession of Constantinople, the position of that power would be unassailable. She could then construct a fleet that would be only limited by the financial resources at her command, and could, at the moment she chose, occupy the Mediterannean, destroy our naval power, our commerce, and release our hold over Egypt and the Suez Canal. Not only that, but if Russia were placed in possession of Constantinople she would have at her command the whole fighting strength of the Turkish Empire, constituting, under efficient officers, the most formidable army the world could produce; and, by controlling the head of the Moslem religion, would be able to ditect the policy of a man looked up to by 70 millions of the Queen's subjects. There were some of the reasons why it would be midsummer madness to allow such a power as Russia to occupy Constantinople. He doubted, too, whether Russia's conduct in the past justified us in placing such power in her hands as a reforming agent. He saw something of the conduct of the Russian army in the Balkan peninsula during the years 1877 and 1878, and he said, with the utmost confidence, that it could be proved that for every Amenian that had been massacred or pillaged during the past fifteen months—taking the most extreme view—one hundred Mussulmans suffered at the hands of those Christian invaders; and if they were disposed to judge harshly of the misguided and fanatical men who had had a hand in the recent

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  deeds in Armenia they should remember that some of them were refugees from the Balkan peninsula who saw their homes, their families, all they held dear, destroyed before their eyes by the invading forces of the Czar. He regretted that the old policy with regard to Turkey had been abandoned. That policy was to put pressure—even forcible pressure—upon Turkey through British agents and on behalf of Great Britain; but, however forcible, Turkey felt it was friendly pressure, and therefore never resented but often followed the advice. The policy of the alliance with Russia and France, initiated by the late Government, was bound to fail, and had failed. He hoped the old policy would be again revived. He believed that even now if British pressure—friendly pressure—were put on Turkey such pressure would not be resisted, but would be welcomed by the Sultan and his Government. As the Prime Minister had pointed out in his speech to the Nonconformists, those regions in Central Asia were so remote, so difficult of access, and inhabited by so wild a population, that it would be utterly impossible for this country to bring direct military pressure to bear upon them. We might try to force the Dardanelles, and might succeed in forcing them, but in doing so we would not only run the risk of the horrors of a terrible European conflagration, but before a man could be put into the district there would be such a fanatical Mussulman uprising as would cost the lives of millions of Christians.
  MR. F. S. STEVENSON, said, it had not been his intention to have taken any part in the Debate that evening, for one reason because the material at the disposal of the House was not sufficient to enable it to arrive at a right judgment on the question at issue. They had been supplied during the past few days with Blue Books dealing with the terrible events which had occurred in the Sasoun district in the autumn of 1894; and they were
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  promised within a few days two of the Blue Books, one dealing with the diplomatic aspect of the question, and the other dealing with the still more terrible massacres in Asiatic Turkey during last, autumn. It was therefore obviously premature at the present time to attempt to deal fully with what had occurred during the past few months in those regions. At the same time certain words had fallen from the last speaker and from the Government which made it necessary that a few questions should be put to the Government with regard to the incidents which had taken place. He fully agreed with what the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the Forest of Dean, had said—namely, that this question ought to be kept altogether clear of any party issue or party controversy. Therefore, when the last speaker assumed what was obviously a party line on the question, he, for his part, did not associate his view with those of the Party opposite. When the last speaker spoke of the alleged atrocities at Sasun he recalled that the Prime Minister had referred to the atrocities which had been committed in Asiatic Turkey as being atrocities which recalled what was done in the case of Genghiz Khan and Tamerlane. And when the last speaker referred to various other matters from what might be described as a party point of view, and when he referred to the language which he said had been used by speakers on this side of the House with regard to the person of the Sultan of Turkey, he could not leave out of sight the fact that one of the principal ducal supporters of Her Majesty's Government described the Sultan of Turkey as "a demon in human form." It was obvious, therefore, that feeling on this question was by no means confined to one side, and he did not think that any hon. Member on either side ought to make any attempt to impart to this question a political or party aspect. There were some points raised in the course of the

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  discussion to which some reply ought to be made. The last speaker referred to the difference which existed apparently between the policy of the late Government and the policy of the present Government with regard to combined action with the other European Powers, and he contrasted the policy of combination with France and Russia on this question unfavourably with the policy of combining with the five signatory Powers taken as a whole. There was a great deal to be said in favour of acting in combination with the European Powers. Lord Kimberley, when he received a deputation on this subject, said that combining with France and Russia would have the effect of trebling the power of England, and, of course, by a numerical computation, it might fairly be argued that action with the five Powers would have the effect of sextupling the power of England. It might, on the other hand, be that the combination with the central Powers would have the effect of rather arousing the susceptibilities and the jealousies of France and Russia. That was a point which might possibly be made clear by the Blue Book which was to be issued in a few days. The fact remained that action with the five Powers had failed so far as the coercion of the Government of Turkey was concerned for the purpose of putting an end to these massacres, and certainly the question should be raised, though not in any partisan spirit, as to whether a combination with France and Russia would not have been more, advantageous if it had been carried through and certain concessions had been made to them. The last speaker made a reference to the Sultan as head of the Mohammedan religion, but he seemed to forget that his position in that respect was a very precarious one. A large number of the Arabs—he might almost say a majority of them—were desirous of installing the Sheerif of Mecca as the Caliph and Head of the Mahommedan religion, and it
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  only depended upon a word from the British Government whether that was done or not. If it were done what would become of the position of the Sultan as head of the Mahommedan religion? It was argued by the leader of the House, apparently, that there were only two possible alternative policies. One was acting in conjunction with the other European Powers, and the second alternative was acting against the European Powers with the possibility of their making a casus belli of their sole action. Surely the right hon. Gentleman must be aware that there were other possibilities and other alternatives. It was only a few days ago that the Colonial Secretary made a speech in which he said that the resources of civilisation were not exhausted, and in which he suggested the possibility of the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack floating together in support of justice and humanity. That was a possible alternative. There were a great many other alternatives, and until further information from official sources reached them it was impossible for them to say how far it would have been possible to apply any one of those alternatives. What they had to consider was what would have been the alternative in view of the failure of the concert of Europe to act beyond a certain point. It was assumed by the right hon. Gentleman that in the absence of the concert of Europe, it would be impossible for England to act alone without incurring the active opposition of other powers. He would like to know on what this supposition rested? Was there any reason to believe that any one of the European Powers would have objected to such pressure as England could have brought to bear upon the Sultan? How, for instance, about the suggestion that England should seize the Smyrna Custom-house, the mere threat of which, in 1880, had produced the desired effect upon the Sultan? Would any one of the European Powers have made the

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  exercise of such pressure a casus belli? This question he put in answer to the suggestion that there were only two alternatives. Again, would it not have been possible for England to have acted jointly with one or two other Powers, with either France or Russia, or for Russia to have taken action with their consent? If so, were the negociations entered into with that intent? The Mover of the Address said we ought to hesitate with regard to Russia as a possible policeman in Armenia unless we had ascertained that Russia was willing to under take that task. That was precisely the point he would like to ascertain. At Bristol the First Lord of the Treasury intimated that Russia was not willing, and that there was no reason to suppose she was willing. He would like to know on what that supposition was based. Was it based on the fact that an invitation had been sent to Russia and that it had been refused? One could understand the reluctance of a Russian statesman to deal with turbulent tribes or to enter upon an occupation which would involve trouble with England under the Cyprus Convention; but one could not understand reluctance to the same extent if either mandate or invitation came from England. In reply to the hon. Member who spoke last about alleged atrocities in Armenia, he would like to quote a passage from the second report of Mr. Shipley, who said—
  "We have in our report given it as our conviction, arrived at from the evidence brought before us, that the Armenians were massacred without distinction of age or sex, and, indeed, for a period of some three weeks, viz., from August 12 to September 4 (o.s.), it is not too much to say that the Armenians were absolutely hunted like wild beasts, being killed wherever they were met, and if the slaughter was not greater it was, I believe, solely owing to the vastness of the mountain ranges of that district, which enabled the people to scatter, and so facilitated their escape."
  It must be remembered that the reports were dealing with what was almost ancient history—namely, the events in the autumn of 1894. Mr. Shipley gave
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  900 as the number killed; Mr. Consul Halwood gave several thousands; but Mr. Shipley, who was there as the auditor to the Turkish Commission, complained of the lack of facilities afforded to him as an independent investigator. In October and November of last year the massacres were on a far larger scale than in the case of Sasun. There were massacres at Trebizond, Erzeroum, Kharput, Sivaz, Tokat, Marash, and several other places, and of some of these we had the evidence of the photographs published by The Graphic, besides other sources of information. A discussion of the details of our policy, it appeared to him, would be premature pending the publication of the further Blue Book which was promised.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, he had been extremely disappointed by the speech of the last speaker, who was known as the author of a grotesque scheme for the partition of the Ottoman Empire, and had not availed himself of that opportunity for saying a word in defence of it. Instead of that the hon. Member had recommended that England should commit a burglary in Smyrna and Russia another in Anatolia, and he had finished by reading extracts which were falsified by being garbled. He had expected that the hon. Member would have defended some of the false statements about Sasun which he had made in a circular asking for subscriptions, and which were disproved by the Blue Book. Not a word had been said in defence of the statements that from 3,000 to 25,000 had been massacred at Sasun; and the Blue Book contained a complete falsification of the Armenian imposture by which the people of England had been duped. The hon. Member read an extract, not from the report of Mr. Shipley, but from Mr. Shipley's memorandum on his report, written three months after his report, and after he had come under the eagle eye of Sir Philip Currie, the English Ambassador. This figure of

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  25,000 was reduced by the absolute verdict of the three European delegates to 265, as anybody might verify by referring to the pages of the Blue Book. When Mr. Shipley got to Constantinople three months after he had made this report, the English Ambassador evidently said to him: "This will never do. Here is the Member for Eye, who has been talking of 25,000, and you have got it reduced to 265. Take your pen and write down 900." How was the 900 arrived at? It was a mere computation. It was stated by one authority that the victims were probably 20 to 60 per village; and now Mr. Shipley—not in his report but in his remarks on his report—said, if they took 40 per village, and assumed there were 23 villages where 40 had been killed, that made up the 900. You could arrive at any figures in that fashion. But the evidence taken before the Commission—before an English, a French, and a Russian delegate—which sat for 107 days, and made the most searching enquiry, showed that there were 265 alone as to whom there had been any testimony that they had been killed in this massacre, and of these many were subsequently produced alive to the Commission itself, and others were shown never to have existed. It was perfectly monstrous for the Member for Eye, who had been the means of disseminating this imposture through the country, to rise in his place and make no attempt whatever to show he had some grounds for these extraordinary exaggerations.
  MR. STEVENSON: I never gave any figures whatever. The hon. Gentleman is quoting from a book issued by Mr. Green. I have nothing to do with it.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I say Mr. Green was one of the hon. Gentleman's consorts, and he put the hon. Gentleman's name at the head of his application for subscriptions.
  MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Green happens to be an American gentleman.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: That makes it worse. I advise the hon. Gentleman, the next time he gets anybody to write a book, to get an Englishman to do it, as he will be more likely to keep within a fair limit of the facts. Continuing, the hon. Gentleman, turning to the Queen's Speech, whilst agreeing with much that had fallen from the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean, said he could not agree with him in his language of admiration of that Speech. He found in it a certain confusion of tenses, a certain introduction suddenly of "the prisoners" of whom they had never before heard, and at least one paragraph, that relating to agriculture, which was couched almost in the language of the servants' hall. When they had a Cabinet of 19 members, 19 men of genius, it was difficult to get them all harnessed to paragraphs, and he admitted that that difficulty had been overcome with a certain amount of success because the major part of the Speech was evidently not composed by the Cabinet at all, but by the inner Cabinet. He alluded to the Prime Minister and the Secretary for the Colonies. Fifteen of the paragraphs were from their pen; and, as showing the relative importance of the two Ministers, he mentioned that five were from the pen of the Foreign Minister, and ten from that of the Colonial Minister, while the other 17 men of genius were thrown together in a heap at the end. He trusted, however, that the other Members of the Cabinet would not forget that, in the language of Lord Salisbury, they were all equally, absolutely, and irredeemably responsible for every word of the Queen's Speech. They were promised in the Speech a searching inquiry into the origin and circumstances of the recent proceedings in the Transvaal, and he thought such a searching investigation was necessary; but, although he had nothing but praise for the action of the Colonial Secretary, still he could not conceal from himself the fact that it was extremely remarkable, when this extraordinary proceeding

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  of Jameson's vide across the frontier took place, everybody knew about it who ought not to have known, and nobody knew about it who ought to have known. The programme was published in the Cape Argus of the 13th December; the Consul General of the Transvaal in this country, Mr. Montagu White, warned his Government on the 16th December; and relatives of gentlemen who had been engaged in this adventure had received letters stating that there was going to be a great expedition and that there would be severe fighting somewhere. There was enough early in December to put the Government on inquiry. He did not suggest that the Government knew, but they ought to have known, and if they did not the fault must lie with those who served them in South Africa. He said this, not because he had distrust in the Government, or, least of all, in the Secretary for the Colonies, but because he held it to be extremely important that the good faith of England should be made manifest before the world, and not be subjected to the insinuation that they had repudiated this expedition because it had failed; that they knew of it, and would have taken the benefit of it to themselves had it succeeded. He hoped that the searching inquiry promised in the Queen's Speech would be held, whatever the result of the legal trial of the gentlemen implicated in this business might be. The Leader of the Opposition showed great want of gratitude to the Government in regard to Turkey, for the Government had adopted his policy. He talked of the policy of 1878, but this was not the policy of 1878—to uphold and maintain the Turkish Empire—but the policy of 1895—to divide it, partition it at the least, or to disorganise it, and render government in distant provinces impossible. The Leader of the Opposition quoted the Treaty of Berlin. But he was very careful. He had written on international law; he was an old stager, and himself sometimes called an old sailor.
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  [Laughter.] His statement of the effect of the 61st Article of the Treaty of Berlin and the Cyprus Convention was not incorrect, but it was calculated to produce an incorrect impression on the minds of simple-minded persons who were neither publicists nor sailors. [Laughter.] But he himself boldly declared that neither the 61st Article of the Berlin Treaty nor the Cyprus Convention imposed any obligation on this country. They gave a right, but they imposed no duty or obligation. The Leader of the Opposition would not deny this. Why had they not put into execution other Articles of the Treaty of Berlin? Articles 11 and 52 provided that the fortresses on the Danube and Bulgaria should be respected. They were both unexecuted, and he had never heard any protest made by England. Articles 9, 33, and 42 prescribed that Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenegro should bear their share of the Turkish debt, but to that day they remained unexecuted. Article 59 related to Batum. The Government of Lord Rosebery wrote a menacing Dispatch to Russia on account of her violation of this Article. When, therefore, the exact fulfilment and execution of Article 61 was claimed, in common decency the Articles he had quoted should be executed too. Why had these Articles been neglected—because they were in favour of Turkey and calculated to enable Turkey to carry on her Government in a regular orderly manner, while Article 61 was calculated to disorganise her Government. He complained bitterly of the way in which not merely this, but previous Governments had treated the House with regard to information on Turkish affairs. The Reports of the Asiatic Consuls for 1892, 1893 and 1894 had been in print for months, and the House ought to have them. He believed the reason they were withheld was that they were in favour of Turkey. The Report of the European Delegates was not published until the end of January. On the last day of last

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  Session the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs laid on the Table correspondence relating to Asiatic Turkey, but when they came to look at it they found it was a blank sheet of paper—a dummy. He had appealed for the distribution of the papers thus presented, and had cited the Order of the House of March, 1871, but was told that the papers would only be given when Parliament met. Fortunately, better counsels prevailed, and on the 28th January, five months after they had been laid on the Table, the papers were furnished. Then, another rule was broken, because in these papers presented on the 5th September, was a Paper which did not come into existence till the 12th of November. He did not think that was the right way to treat the House and the country. It seemed to him that when the Government knew, in July and August, that a gross exaggeration had been foisted on the public with regard to the Sasun massacres, they should not have concealed that knowledge from the country. He turned with a sense of relief to the Transvaal. In his opinion most, if not all, the troubles there had arisen from the extraordinary and irregular relationships which successive Governments have chosen to adopt in that country. They knew what a Sovereignty was and what a Protectorate was. But who knew what a Sphere of Influence was or a Suzerainty, or the limitations of a Power Paramount? Not one of these words had any definite sense attached to it: not one of them imported what our duties were, or what our liabilities might be. Most of them implied, in the apt words of the Leader of the Opposition, responsibility without power. In common with all those who thought it was the business of England to uphold justice, he felt a shock when he first read the news of Jameson's raid. They all deplored it; and it was to the prompt and energetic action of the Secretary for the Colonies, that they owed it, that the Transvaal was not plunged into a most bloody civil war. He wished to draw a contrast between the proceedings of the Secretary for the Colonies in giving information to the English people and the method pursued by the Foreign Office. The Venezeula question had been going on for 55 years, and no Papers had been given. With regard to Turkey they had
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  not till the other day, a Paper for four years, and they were still without important Papers. They were told that, without this secrecy, serious and delicate business could not be carried on. But the Secretary for the Colonies had found a different way. He took the public into his confidence, hour by hour, and half-hour by half-hour. His telegrams came forth like hot rolls, and the result was that the right hon. Gentleman had massed the whole English people behind him. He was proud to know that there was in the Ministry a man who had the courage to adopt a system of open diplomacy, and he trusted the example would not be lost on the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues. He repeated, in conclusion, that some explanation was due from the right hon. Member for Eye and his fellow culprit, the right hon. Member for Aberdeen, of the share they had taken in the Anglo-Armenian business. He charged them with having done a great injury to their country, with having done what they could to divert their country from the old and traditional policy which was necessary for these islands, and with having induced the Government to engage in strange and wild adventures fraught with mischief to us and certainly calculated to do no good to those wretched Armenians, whom they professed to patronise.
  Mr. J. BRYCEsaid that in the few observations he had to make he would refer only to that paragraph of the Speech from the Throne which dealt with recent events in Armenia. He agreed that this question ought to be treated in a non-partisan spirit. They ought to be put on the ground of national duty and national safety and humanity, and to avoid any recrimination it was possible to avoid. ["Hear, hear!"] He must say a few words on the speech of the First Lord of the Treasury, in which he endeavoured to deny that an obligation rested on this country to protect the Christians of Armenia. The right hon. Gentleman confined himself to the words of the Anglo-Turkish Convention and the Treaty of Berlin. It would be a great mistake to suppose that his right hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire had ever been an advocate or defender of either of those documents. He had not himself a seat in the House in

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  those days, hut, he remembered very well that his right hon. Friend was one of those who most condemned the policy followed in the Anglo-Turkish Convention, and the policy which led up to the substitution of the Treaty of Berlin for the Treaty of San Stefano. The Treaty of San Stefano guaranteed protection to the Armenians on the part of Russia. Russia undertook to protect them, knowing the danger's to which they were exposed and the powerlessness of the Turkish Government to restrain outrages. A circular by the then Foreign Secretary—the present Prime Minister—called attention to the exclusive right Russia was claiming in the Treaty of San Stefano, and the 61st Article of the Treaty of Berlin was, at the instance of Great Britain, substituted for the Treaty of San Stefano. It was impossible to consider the obligation imposed on this country by the Treaty of Berlin without remembering that it was substituted by us for the provision of the previous Treaty which gave, the Armenian Christians the protection, of Russia. It was therefore the action of this country which deprived them of that protection. The protection which the six Powers guaranteed by the Treaty of Berlin was intended to do for the, Christians that which Russia alone would have done if the Treaty of San Stefano had stood, and if the Treaty of Berlin had proved inefficient because six Powers were less vigorous than one would have been, this was Great Britain's doing. ["Hear, hear!] But the matter went further. By the Anglo-Turkish Convention this country alone undertook the protection of those Christians. Recognising that the protection guaranteed by the Treaty of Berlin might prove inadequate, Great Britain, herself undertook that protection. [Cries of "No, no!" from the Opposition, and "Read the words."] The right hon. Gentleman read the words, and proceeded to say that that was the provision which put the, Christians and other subjects of the Porte in those territories under the exclusive protection of England, whereas previously they had been under the exclusive protection of Russia. The Anglo-Turkish Convention was, in fact, the complement of the setting aside of the Russian protection promised by the Treaty of San
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  Stefano. ["Hear, hear!"] The meaning of that provision, was confirmed by three contemporaneous documents. The then Foreign Secretary, in a Dispatch to Her Majety's Ambassador at Constantinople, said that assurance was required to give England a right to insist on a satisfactory arrangement, and that that would be an indispensable condition of any agreement Her Majesty's Government entered into. ["Hear, hear!"] And Lord Beaconsfield, speaking at the Guildhall about that time, said:—
  "At all events we will not recoil from such; a task because it must seem to increase our responsibilities or add to our labours."
  Lord Salisbury, speaking at the same time, said:—
  "We need above, all things the sympathy of our countrymen. We have to effect great objects by the use of the authority of this country." ["Hear, hear!"]
  It was clear that England deprived these people of the protection they were previously to have had and took them under her protection, and that Her Majesty's Government did then undertake and England had since been bound to the protection, and the efficient protection, of the Armenian Christians. ["Hear, hear!"] It was not an undertaking which was gratuitous. It was not without consideration. The consideration was that we took away from these people that protection which they previously had, and thereby undertook the moral responsibility to give, them an equivalent protection. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had asked whether the British Government were going to war in order to compel the Turks to fulfil their obligations. In his view there was not the slightest reason why we should go to war for that purpose, because there were ample means of other descriptions by which we could enforce our demands upon the Porte. We had no right to fail to enforce our demands because it would be troublesome to do so. The obligations that we undertook towards these Armenian Christians in 1878 still existed, and we were bound to fulfil them at the present time. ["Hear, hear!] Every English Government that had been in office since 1878 had felt it to be their special duty, beyond other Powers, to endeavour to

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  fulfil their obligations in the matter and to protect the Armenians. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had said that the Anglo-Turkish Treaty had made things no worse for the Armenians, but in truth it had made things far worse for them. Before the date of that Treaty Russia alone was recognised as the natural protector of the Armenians, because she was close at hand, able to interfere if necessary, but since that date Great Britain had taken upon herself the sole responsibility for the protection of that people. The result of that Treaty being entered into was to give rise to hopes on the part of the Armenians and to a corresponding fear on the part of the Turks that, our obligations with regard to the former would be carried into effect, and that we should afford them efficient protection. The Turks thought Armenia might by our help be erected into a sort of principality, and this idea had made them infinitely more cruel and oppressive than they had ever been before. That protection, however, we had failed to afford them. He would venture in a very few words to remind the House of what had taken place in connection with this matter during the past six months. In June, 1895, the late Government were pressing upon the Turkish Government the necessity for their acceptance of the scheme of reform propounded on May 11th, and the Turks, as usual, were endeavouring to find pretexts for evading the demand. The time was fast approaching when the British Government would have had to decide in what manner the resistance of the Turks could be overcome. At this point the late Government quitted office and the present one came in. The only massacre that had occurred was that at Sasun, horrible enough, but on a smaller scale than some of those that had marked the last four months of 1895. In August came the speech of the present Prime Minister, which was intended to convey a solemn warning to the Turkish Government that Her Majesty's Government would no longer tolerate their proceedings and that adequate reforms must be carried into effect, adding that it must be understood that it was only through the mercy of Europe that the Turkish Government existed. Afterwards
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  came the massacres at Constantinople, which were again followed by other massacres, all over Armenia and Asia Minor, massacres which, in many instances, were organised in Constantinople and were carried out by Turkish troops sent from there to take part in them, while in other cases it was at least clear that the troops and the authorities aided or connived. In the meantime, the British Fleet was gradually Hearing Constantinople, and on September 30th it had reached Lemnos. This advance was meant to be a menace to the Turk. On November 9th, the Prime Minister delivered his famous speech at the Guildhall, and everybody must remember the solemn warning which the noble Marquess then uttered and the expectations to which his speech gave rise, that decided action was going to be taken. As showing the impression that that speech made he would read a few words from an article that appeared in The Times:—
  "Nothing is more noteworthy in the Prime Minister's speech than the tone of solemn earnestness with which he endeavours to impress upon the Sultan the utter futility of all hopes based upon the expectation of a division among the Powers."
  But in subsequent events was found a melancholy commentary upon the hopes which the Prime Minister then expressed so confidently. Soon afterwards there were massacres at Marash and other places. He was surprised that the gracious Speech from the Throne contained nothing to show that remonstrances had been addressed to the Sultan for the purpose of inducing him to issue orders for the cessation of these continual outbreaks of fury and fanaticism. It was a material fact that, according to the Prime Minister himself, the formal acceptance of reforms by the Sultan would be of no value in the absence of means for enforcing their application. Why then was nothing said as to pressure on the Turks to apply the reforms and to stop the massacres? The Speech from the Throne contained an extraordinary passage—namely:—
  "I deeply regret that a fanatical outbreak on the part of a section of the Turkish population has resulted in a series of massacres in those provinces."

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  It was a very surprising statement that these, massacres were the work of a section of the Turkish population, because all the evidence before them went to show that these massacres were the work of the Turkish Government, of Turkish officials, and Turkish soldiers. If they were the work of a section of the people, that section was the official and military section. The evidence at their disposal from Armenia and Asia Minor went to prove that the soldiers had been active in these massacres, that they had brought up fanatical mobs, that it was they who had, in some cases, as in the massacre at Urfah, actually opened the doors of the churches in which the Christians had taken refuge, and that it was they who had led on the mob in the work of slaughter. With regard to the massacre at Sasun, they had a statement of an official nature in Mr. Shipley's report. That gentleman said:—
  "In fact, and speaking with a full sense of responsibility, I am compelled to say that the conviction has forced itself on me that it was not so much the capture of the agitator Mourad, or the suppression of a pseudo-revolt, which was desired by the Turkish authorities, as the extermination, pure and simple, of the Ghéliéguzan and Talori districts."
  Thus, with reference to the only massacre about which they had really any official information, there was this declaration by the British Consul that it was his conviction that the object of the Turkish authorities was the extermination of the Armenian, population. As Lord Salisbury had well said, the Sultan was at present the sole source of authority in the Turkish Empire. The Sultan had superseded ministerial administration; he and his favourites directly controlled all the machinery of government, and he, therefore, was alone directly responsible for the action of the authorities through out the Empire. It was a curious and most significant fact that, during the whole course of the massacres, not; a single Turkish official or military officer had been recalled or punished, though in many cases, their complicity and encouragement of the massacres was beyond doubt. It was the same things when the massacres of 1876 occurred, and; nothing proved the complicity of the Turkish Government in those massacres more than the fact that no word of disapproval with the conduct of officials was
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  then uttered. The Sultan, if they could believe the Press, now denied that there had been any massacres, and his version of the case was that disorderly Christians had attacked Mahommedans at times of prayer. They knew the opinion of the Prime Minister himself, which was that in these massacres there had been perpetrated horrors the like of which Europe had not seen since the days of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. How many thousands had perished it was, of course, impossible to say, but probably the number of those who had perished by the sword was not greater than those who had died of starvation and exposure. Those who had lived longest in Turkey and had studied the subject had come to the conclusion that the massacres had been deliberately planned with a view, by getting rid of the Christian population, and thereby of getting rid of the need for any reforms at all. The scheme of reforms propounded on May 11, which he gathered the Turkish Government had since accepted, proposed that there should be, according to the number of the Christian population, a certain proportion of Christian officials; and by killing off the Christians, some by the sword and some by famine, the Sultan was so reducing or extinguishing the non-Mussulman element with the view of being able to plead that there was, in many places, no occasion for the application of the scheme he had accepted. He did not know whether the House had realised that in a great many of these massacres the people were given the choice of embracing Islam or death. He was told that there had been no less than 4,300 forced conversions in one place. It was hardly a matter for surprise that there were a great many of these poor people who preferred to save their lives in that way, but there had also been those who preferred to die rather than abjure their faith. At one place, near Kharput, the people, as they came out of the church doors, were given their choice of death or forced conversion, and it was stated that 52 preferred to die rather than to renounce Christianity.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESasked what authority there was for this statement.
  MR. BRYCE, continuing, said it was impossible for them to enter into the other aspects of the question because they

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  had not yet the Blue-book which was expected. He hoped that the papers when they were put before them would explain why it was that the Prime Minister spoke in August and November as he did, and how it came to pass that they had been allowed to expect so much from that Concert of Europe which now appeared to have had no effect except to preserve the Sultan from what would otherwise have been the coercive action of this country. They were also entitled to know what Power or Powers it was that prevented Britain from taking action. He was disposed to think that the Government, in the interests of humanity, would have done something if it had not been for some of the other Powers, and in that case they ought to know who these Powers were, and whether they merely intimated their unwillingness to join us, or whether they threatened active opposition to any coercive proceedings we might have taken. They ought also to know how it carne to pass that the prospect which there appeared to be in June of obtaining the consent of Russia and France to the independent coercive action of Great Britain no longer existed.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: There was no prospect.
  MR. BRYCEsaid, he agreed that this country could not and ought not to have entered upon any course which would have involved us in a European war—["Hear, hear!"]—but they had not yet any evidence to show that a European war would have resulted from our action. He did not wish to say anything about the disgrace, to this country, or the apparent result in the East—namely, that Russian interests predominated at Constantinople, and that Turkey had become, if not in name, at least in practice, a vassal state of Russia. The former of those two results all joined in regretting, and the latter was one especially regretted by hon. Members opposite, who always felt special alarm at the advance and aggrandisement of Russia. But those two results seemed to him altogether secondary to what had happened in the neglect or omission of Britain to fulfil the expectations she had herself aroused in the unhappy Armenians, and in the terrible; fate which Turkish savagery had inflicted on many thousands of innocent people.
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  Britain had not fulfilled her promises, but had looked on while horrors had taken place far worse than those of 1878, which had led to the engagements then made. He often heard hon. Members express great zeal that England should maintain her rights in every part of the world. They had not only rights as a great nation but also duties, and one of those duties was to do all they could to fulfil the obligations which they solemnly contracted, especially when they found that those obligations had the result of exposing the people for whom they were undertaken to far greater sufferings than they would otherwise have incurred. They owed it to their national honour and to their responsibility to God for the proper exercise of the enormous power and influence in the world which Providence had entrusted to Britain, that they should endeavour to do their duty by the weaker nations, who had looked to us and whom they had led to rely upon us; and if we had found it impossible to fulfil these obligations they must know how and why. [Cheers.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. G. J. GOSCHEN, St. George's,): I think the House will think that a more feeble and inconclusive appeal on behalf of the Armenians has seldom been uttered by a responsible; Statesman. [Cheers.] My right hon. Friend has challenged the Opposition to state what their policy is with regard to the Armenian question.
  MR. BRYCE: said, that he avoided entering into that part of the question because he concluded that more light would be forthcoming as to what had been actually done by the Government.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: The right hon. Gentleman went very near the point. He said there were a number of means by which we might coerce the Turk. We all began to listen with increased interest to the right hon. Gentleman. I want to know what methods the right hon. Gentleman, who from the first has taken the keenest and most sincere interest in the Armenian question, thinks ought to have been taken. The right hon. Gentleman wishes to wait for papers before he suggests what their own policy would have been. He wants more light. It would

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  have been better that he should have waited and suppressed the speech he has made. The speeches of right hon. Gentlemen do not strengthen the position which this country takes, nor are they useful to the Armenians. [Cheers.] It is now 16 years since the Armenian question has been before us. Nine out of those 16 years the party of the right hon. Gentleman have been in Office. [Cheers.] They have been as unable to produce those reforms as the present Government, and we should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman and his party what their policy now is. He says that they would not engage in such operations as would lead to a European conflict. He has not told us what measures short of that would have any effect on the present situation. [Cheers.] It was my duty in 1880, when the concert of Europe was invented, not by Lord Salisbury but by Mr. Gladstone and the party then in power, to represent this country in Constantinople and to do all I could on behalf of the Armenians. The task was a difficult one. Why? Because, though the concert of Europe, existed, though there was a friendly disposition with regard to the objects of the country, we had never been able to persuade the other nations of Europe to take that same view with regard to the Armenian question as was taken most sincerely and honourably by this country. [Cheers.] That was the difficulty under which this country laboured in 1880. Then, as now, we were anxious to force reforms on the Sultan. We were then endeavouring, under the Administration of the day, to see what effect we could give, not to our obligations, but to our desires, to help the Armenians. The right hon. Gentleman quoted from the Berlin Treaty and from the Cyprus Convention. Does he believe that there, was any obligation as between the Armenians and ourselves that we should insist on reforms, even at the risk of war with Turkey?
  MR. BRYCEsaid, they could not have a legal international obligation between one sovereign Power and the subjects of another Power. They could only have a moral obligation.
  The FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: There may have been distinct obligations that we should see through these reforms. We might have said in the face of Europe, "We shall go through with these reforms;" but what we did say was that "if Turkey carries out these reforms we shall stand by her and defend her." ["Hear, hear!"] Turkey has not carried out these reforms and we are not bound to defend her. [Cheers.] We are free from any engagement as to the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire. What did the party of the right hon. Gentleman do on the occasion of the Sasun massacres? What did they do when the Sasun massacres were brought to their knowledge? Did they withdraw their protection? What nonsense it is. [Cheers.] As I have said, the Sasun massacres occurred when the party opposite were in power. I ask, what did they do? They gave no notice to Turkey. I do not know whether it has been intimated that they were relieved of any obligations to defend these Armenians. [Mr. BRYCE: "That is my question."] There is no language too strong to express our feelings with regard to the massacres. The right hon. Gentleman says, "What, then, are you going to do?" and he tells us that if he had more light he will not say that we ought to attempt single-handed the coercion of Turkey. He asks what has been done in the interval. Well, we have done the utmost that any Power could do. There has not been a week, there has hardly been, a day, that our Ambassador in Constantinople has not endeavoured to convince the Sultan of Turkey and the European Powers of the paramount duty of putting an end to the state of things existing, not only in the interests of the permanence of his empire—for that is not of

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  much consequence [loud cheers]—but of the peace of Europe. We shall confidently appeal to the verdict of the country whether, short of bringing about the terrible results which we should have to be prepared to face, we have done everything that could be done to mitigate the lot of the Armenians and bring home to the Sultan the danger to his empire. We have not been idle to enforce that lesson. We have been anxious, not because we were bound to do so by any clause in a convention or in a treaty, but because we felt bound to do it as a civilized Power. We only wish we had been able to convince other Powers of the absolute necessity of putting a stop to these massacres which have lasted so long. It is not the fault of the Government; it is not the fault of the people of this country. It is impossible to give full expression to the feelings of the country. [Cheers.] It is known throughout Europe that we are horrified at what has taken place. The other Powers do not seem to have shared, I will not say the horror, but the duty, if I may say so, of taking such measures as might have brought about the cessation of these horrors. My right hon. Friend said that they shrank from a conflagration which might shake Europe to the centre by any application on the part of a single Power of coercive measures. Let us face that question. We are one Power, a very strong Power; but are we by single action to raise the whole Eastern question? Are we to raise these tremendous issues which on single Power would be prepared to undertake? Papers will soon be laid before you, and they will show what pains we have taken in order to carry the point. ["Hear, hear!"] If the Government have not properly responded to the feelings of the country in this matter, let us bring the question to the test of a vote of this House and let us know whether the Opposition and the country wish single-handed to undertake the task from which the right hon.
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  Gentleman and his friends have always shrunk. If they are not prepared to undertake that task, what is the good of making such speeches? What is the good of speaking of our impotence and attempting to inflame the country? Unless you see your way, those speeches are dangerous, and they may aggravate the fate of the Armenians themselves. We shall not be diverted from the imperative duty which is laid upon us to watch for every opportunity to consult with other Powers to take every possible means short of a European conflagration by which we may bring this Armenian question to an end. I do not even care to defend the Sultan or his troops or Ministers with regard to anything the right hon. Gentleman has said, but we shall be prepared to state everything that we have done, and the right hon. Gentleman will have that light which he desires, and when he has that light from us I hope he will respond to our wish and give us some light as regards his policy in this matter. May hon. Gentlemen then chance to guide us and to tell us what they think to be the duty of the country in the difficult circumstances. Until we are shown a better way we shall believe that we have done our duty under the most difficult circumstances, and that if we have failed and if events have taken place which have shocked our conscience if not the conscience of Europe, it is not on this country at least that the the reproach will lie. [Cheers.]
  SIR EDWARD CLARKEasked the authority on which the right hon. Gentleman made his statement with regard to the specific and touching incident mentioned in his speech.
  MR. BRYCEsaid it was on the high authority of the Evangelical Alliance.
  MR. DILLON MR. DILLON moved the adjournment of the debate.
  Debate adjourned till to-morrow.

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Motion made, and Question, "That this House do now adjourn,"—(Sir William Walrond)—put, and agreed to.
  House adjourned at One minute before Twelve o'clock.

Preamble
THE SECOND SESSION OF THE FOURTEENTH PARLIAMENT of Her Majesty the Queen, and the Twenty-sixth parliament of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was opened by commission at Two of the clock.

BLACK ROD.
The Lord Great Chamberlain acquainted the House, That Her Majesty had appointed General Sir Michael Anthony Shrapnel Biddulph, G.C.B., to be Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, in the room of Admiral the Honourable Sir James Robert Drummond, G.C.B., deceased, and that he was at the door
2
ready to receive their Lordships' commands; whereupon, the House directed he should be called in; accordingly he was called in, and officiated in his place.

COMMISSION.
Then Five LORDS COMMISSIONERS—namely, the LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Halsbury), Viscount CROSS (Lord Privy Seal), the Earl of LATHOM (Lord Chamberlain), Lord ASHBOURNE (Lord Chancellor of Ireland), and the Earl of KINTORE (Lord in Waiting)— (being in their Robes and seated on a Bench between the Throne and the Woolsack)—commanded the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod to let the Commons know that—
"The Lords Commissioners desire their immediate attendance in this House to hear the Commission read."
The Commons being at the Bar, with their Speaker:—
The Commission was read by the Clerk of the Parliaments (Mr. HENRY.J. L. GRAHAM). Then:—

THE QUEEN'S SPEECH.
The LORD CHANCELLORdelivered HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH to both Houses of Parliament, as follows:—
"My Lords and Gentlemen,
"I continue to receive from other Powers assurances of their friendly sentiments.
"An agreement has been concluded between my Government and that of the French Republic, having for its principal object the more secure establishment of the independence of the Kingdom of Siam. A copy of it will be laid before you.
"The Commissioners for the delimitation of the frontier separating my Indian Empire and the territory of Afghanistan from the dominions of the Emperor of Russia have agreed upon a line which has been accepted by myself and by the Emperor.
"The Government of the United States have expressed a wish to co-operate in terminating differences which have existed for many years between my Government and the Republic of Venezuela upon the boundary between that country and my colony of British Guiana. I have expressed my sympathy with the desire to come to an equitable arrangement, and trust that further negotiation will lead to a satisfactory settlement.
"The Sultan of Turkey has sanctioned the principal reforms in the government of the Armenian provinces, for which, in conjunction with the Emperor of Russia and the President of the French Republic, I have felt it my duty to press. I deeply regret that a fanatical outbreak on the part of a section of the Turkish population has resulted in a series of massacres in those provinces, which have caused the deepest indignation in this country. Papers on these transactions will be laid before you.
"A sudden incursion into the South African Republic by an armed force from
4
the territories under the control of the British South Africa Company resulted in a deplorable collision with the Burgher forces.
"My Ministers, at the earliest possible moment, intervened to prohibit, through the High Commissioner, this hostile action, and to warn all my subjects throughout South Africa against taking part in aid thereof.
"The origin and circumstances of these proceedings will form the subject of a searching Inquiry.
"The President of the Republic, acting in this matter with moderation and wisdom, agreed to place the prisoners in the hands of my High Commissoner, and I have undertaken to bring to trial the leaders of the expedition.
"The conduct of the President on this occasion, and the assurances which he has voluntarily given, lead me to believe that he recognizes the importance of redressing the legitimate grievances of which complaint has been made by a majority of the persons now inhabiting the Transvaal.
"The condition of affairs in Ashanti, and the violation by the King of Kumasi of the provisions of the Treaty of 1874 in regard to the suppression of human sacrifices, the freedom of trade, and the maintenance of communications, have for some years past engaged the serious attention of my Government. All endeavours to induce the King to observe his engagements having proved fruitless it became necessary to send an armed expedition to Kumasi to enforce the conditions which he had been called upon to fulfil.
"While I rejoice to be able to announce that the objects of the expedition have been achieved without bloodshed, I have to deplore the loss from the severities of the climate of some valuable lives, including that of my beloved son-in-law, His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Battenberg, who voluntarily placed his services at the disposal of myself and his adopted country.
"I and my dear daughter are greatly touched and comforted in this heavy bereavement by the widespread sympathy that has been shown by my subjects throughout the Empire at home and abroad.
"I trust that the establishment of an efficient British control at Kumasi will put a stop to the barbarous customs which have hitherto prevailed there, and, by preventing the inter-tribal conflicts which have interfered with the development of the country, will tend to the benefit of the people, and to the interests of peace and commerce.
"Papers on the above subjects will shortly be laid before you.
"On the north-west frontier of my Indian Empire the measures taken last year to secure an effective control over Chitral have been successful, and the engagements entered into by the border tribes for the maintenance and protection of the road from Peshawur have been loyally carried out without molestation or disturbance.
"Gentlemen of the House of Commons,
"I have directed the Estimates for the service of the year to be laid before you. They have been prepared with the utmost regard to economy; but the exigencies of the time require an increased expenditure.
"My Lords and Gentlemen,
"The extension and improvement of the Naval Defences of the Empire is the most important subject to which your efforts can be directed, and will doubtless occupy your most earnest attention.
"I regret to say that the condition of agriculture is disastrous beyond any recent experience. Measures will be laid before you, of which the object will lie to mitigate the distress under which the classes labour who are engaged in that industry.
"Elementary schools under voluntary management are a valuable portion of our educational system, and their condition, which is in many places precarious,
6
requires further assistance from public resources.
"The compensation to workmen for injuries received in the course of their ordinary employment has been under the consideration of Parliament upon several occasions. A measure dealing with the subject will be laid before you.
"Legislation will be submitted to you for the amendment of the defects which experience has shown to exist in the provisions of the various Land Acts, which have been passed in respect to Ireland.
"A measure for amending and consolidating the Law relating to public health in Scotland will be laid before you.
"Measures have also been prepared for the avoidance and settlement of trade disputes, for facilitating the construction of light railways in the United Kingdom, for the regulation of public companies, for checking the importation of destitute aliens, for amending the law with respect-to the supply of water to the metropolis, for the institution of a Board of Agriculture in Ireland, and for amending the Law of Evidence.
"I commend these weighty matters to your experienced judgment, and pray that your labours may be blessed by the guidance and favour of Almighty God."
Then the Commons withdrew.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed at Quarter before Three of the Clock.
PRAYERS.

ROLL OF THE LORDS.
Garter King of Arms attending, delivered at the Table (in the usual manner) a List of the Lords Temporal in the Second Session of the Twenty-sixth Parliament of the United Kingdom: The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

PEERS INTRODUCED.
Randall Thomas Lord Bishop of Winchester.
Ernest Roland Lord Bishop of Chichester.
Mandell Lord Bishop of Peterborough.
The Lord Carrington, K.C.M.G., having been created viscount Wendover of Chipping Wycombe, in the county of Buckingham, and Earl Carrington.
The Right Honourable Arthur Wellesley Peel, late Speaker of the House of Commons, having been created Viscount Peel of Sandy, in the county of Bedford.
The Right, Honourable Herbert Coulstoun Gardner, having been created Baron Burghclere of Walden, in the county of Essex.
The Right Honourable Sir Henry James, Knight, having been created Baron James of Hereford, in the county of Hereford.
The Right Honourable David Robert Plunket, having been created Baron Rathmore of Shanganagh, in the county of Dublin.
The Right Honourable, Henry de Worms, having been created Baron Pirbright of Pirbright, in the county of Surrey.
Sir Algernon Borthwick, Baronet, having been created Baron Glenesk of Glenesk, in the county of Midlothian.
Henry Hucks Gibbs, Esquire, having been created Baron Aldenham of Alden-ham, in the county of Hertford.
John Lord Bishop of Truro.
Were (in the usual manner) introduced.

SAT FIRST.
The Earl of Verulam—after the death of his father.
The Lord Bolton—after the death of his father.
The Lord Aberdare—after the death of his father.
The Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery—after the death of his brother.

SELECT VESTRIES.
Bill, pro formâ, read 1a.

ENDOWED SCHOOLS ACT, 1869, AND AMENDING ACTS. WELSH INTER MEDIATE EDUCATION ACT, 1889.
Schemes for the management of (1) The foundation known as Deythar Grammar School, in the parish of Llansaintffraid, Montgomeryshire; (2)The, funds contributed for the purposes of the Central Welsh Board by the county governing bodies for the administrative counties of Cardigan, Carnarvon, Merioneth, and Montgomery, and for the county boroughs of Cardiff and Newport, and by the county governing bodies for the administrative counties of Anglesey, Brecknock, Carmarthen, Denbigh, Flint, Glamorgan, Monmouth, Pembroke, and Radnor, and for the county borough of Swansea; (3) The funds applicable out of the county rate and moneys provided by Parliament, and out of the local taxation (Customs and Excise) duties, to the intermediate and technical education of the inhabitants of county of Glamorgan, in the matter of the foundations in the same county called or known as (1) The foundation of Edward Lewis for a school at Gelligaer; (2) Alldworth's Foundation at Eglwysilan; (3) The Cowbridge Grammar School.
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed.—[No. 1.]

EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENTS (IRELAND) ACT, 1885.
Schemes for the management of (1) The Viscount Limerick's Endowment, Dundalk; (2) The Kilmeague School and the Perceval Endowment.
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed.—[No. 2.]

UNIVERSITIES OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ACT, 1877.
Statutes made by the Governing Bodies of (1) Christ Church, Oxford, on the 8th of May 1895, altering Statute XXVI. of the Statutes of the House; (2) Pembroke College, Cambridge, on the 15th of May 1895, altering Chapters III., IV., V., and IX. of the Statutes of the College; (3) Jesus College, Oxford, on the 22nd of June 1895, altering and amending the Statutes in relation to the College in the matter of "A Statute for Jesus College concerning the Meyricke Endowment "; (4) Governing Body of Brasenose College,

9
Oxford, on the 3rd of May 1895, altering Statute, 8 of the Statutes of the College; (5) University of Cambridge, on the 23rd of July 1895, altering Statute A., Chapters II. and VII., of the Statutes of the University.
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed.—[No. 3.]

ADDRESS IN ANSWERS TO HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.
THE LORD CHANCELLORdelivered the Report of HER MAJESTY'S GRACIOUS SPEECH from the Throne.
LORD STANMOR*LORD STANMOR rose to move:— "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty in reply to the Speech from the Throne." After craving their Lordships' indulgence the noble Lord said: I am confident, my Lords, that the first paragraph in Her Majesty's Speech which will have attracted universal attention, and commanded universal sympathy, is that in which the Queen informs us of the sorrow which has befallen Her Royal House. [Cheers.] I have no doubt that the, subject will be touched on later in the Debate by my noble Friend, Who sits below me, in words far more felicitous I ban any I could use. I will not anticipate those observations. I will merely say this, for it is a remark which I think deserves notice, that, sincere as is our sympathy for the widowed Princess, and sincere, as is our regret for the loss of the Prince her husband, it is rather to the sorrow of the Queen that the feeling of the whole nation is turned. ["Hear, hear!"] And it must, be consolatory to Her Majesty to know that her sorrows are her people's sorrows, and her joys theirs, by reason of that feeling of well-nigh filial attachment to her. ["Hear, hear!"] But while the death of Prince Henry of Battenberg, in the prime of life and while engaged in the service of his adopted country, has cast a shade over what would otherwise be feelings of exultation at the rapid and bloodless success of the campaign in Ashanti, it must not be allowed to divert our attention either from the skill with which the expedition was planned or the promptitude and vigour with which it was executed. To those who were engaged in it the thanks of this country are due, and by this House I am sure will be readily accorded. The next
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point which will have excited your Lordships' attention in Her Majesty s Gracious Speech is the unusual number and the unusual importance of the paragraphs relating to events which have taken place beyond the, limits of Great Britain. I remember in the last Session of the last Parliament that my noble Friend below me (the Marquess of Salisbury) uttered some very weighty words with regard to the increased danger and risk which, in these days of rapid communication and universal publication, attends ill-considered and intemperate speeches with regard to foreign affairs. There is at least one paragraph in the Speech to which that warning emphatically applies. I mean the paragraph relating to recent events in the Transvaal Republic. The events which are connected with that rash and lamentable adventure which has of late so largely filled the public mind will undergo the ordeal of judicial investigation, and it is manifestly undesirable that anything should be said, either in this House or elsewhere, which may in any way appear to prejudge the decision of that tribunal. But even if that were not the case, I think that the imperfect state of our information with regard to the events which have taken place would in itself be quite enough to preclude discussion on the present occasion. Moreover, we know from the Despatch published the other day in the newspapers, that negotiations are now going on between this Government and the President of the Transvaal Republic. Those negotiations on the part, of this country have been entrusted to strong hands; and the moderation and the good judgment displayed by the President of the Transvaal Republic and the conciliatory spirit which he has indicated, offer a good augury for the success of the negotiations. ["Hear, hear!"] The next topic to which I refer is that, first mentioned in the Speech. It is one on which the same reticence need not be observed. The Agreement between this country and France with regard to the neutralisation of a great part of the kingdom of Siam is now completed, and is, therefore, open and subject to criticism, nor can it now be affected by what is said of it. It may seem to some paradoxical, but I confess that I for one view that Agreement with

11
great satisfaction for the very reason that it affords nothing like a brilliant triumph to either of the parties to it. The complement of triumph is humiliation, and where humiliation exists there is usually soreness and disappointment; and if the party humiliated be a great State, the consequences may be decidedly mischievous. Triumph is a legitimate thing very of ten, where you have overcome wrong and established right; but in the case of negotiations conducted on an equal footing between two parties who are equally convinced of their rights, and who are acting in perfectly good faith, I am not at all sure that the solid advantage is always on the side of the party which has gained a triumph. I think this Agreement ought to be regarded as satisfactory by all those who do not misunderstand it. But it has been misrepresented, and therefore, I suppose, has been misunderstood. It is said that what this Agreement does is virtually to partition Siam; that we have put the king, in what remains of his dominions, under the tutelage of two great Powers, and that they have taken the remnant to themselves. Nothing could be more inaccurate or unjust. The provinces of Siam which are not referred to in this Agreement stand exactly on the same footing now as they did before the Agreement. Should any interest, British or French, be affected in those provinces, either to the east or the west of the centre of Siam, there is nothing to prevent those interests being safeguarded and looked after exactly as before. What, has been done is this. That whereas before this Agreement the whole of the kingdom of Siam was in the same condition as these exterior provinces are now, the central and most important provinces of Siam have now been guaranteed in their neutrality. Neither France nor England can, without the consent of the other, move an armed force into that territory, and the two Powers are prepared to prevent any third Power from doing that which they themselves refrain from. That arrange is a great advantage to the two great Powers concerned. It relieves them from many misgivings, it sets at rest many suspicions, and it prevents much misunderstanding. It is an advantage to Siam, because it leaves that country free to employ its whole resources on its own development, instead
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of in useless military defences which, in case of need, would probably serve it in very bad stead. It is a service to the whole world in settling questions which might give rise to unpleasant discussions in the future. It is true that Mongsin has been given up, and I admit as fully as any noble Lord who mourns the loss of that possession, that to recede from territory once gained is, in Oriental countries, always attended with some risk. But if ever the risk in retrocession were reduced to a minimum it is in this case. Mongsin is not a populous and extensive province; it is a triangle of earth not larger than one of the smallest of English counties, with a population of less than 2,000, and with a reputation, even in that unhealthy region, of possessing an especially deadly climate. The exchange of a land frontier for a fixed and evident river boundary is an absolute gain; and, at all events, the price paid is well worth paying for the satisfaction of effecting an Agreement which sets at rest so many matters of dispute. The next subject which I approach is, perhaps, less easy to deal with. I mean the difficulties which have arisen with regard to the frontier between the Republic of Venezuela and the Colony of British Guiana. I think that, speaking generally and with some exceptions, the Despatches which have been published on this subject have received a general approval from the public and the press. The only objection of any importance, which has been raised in some quarters, is this: It is asked, why should the Government have excluded from a reference to arbitration any part of the territory claimed by Venezuela? We are asked why, if our case is so good, and if we are certain it must prevail, do we object to put it before an impartial arbitrator. The contention is plausible, but neither sound nor convincing. We are rhetorically told that it is not worth while to imperil the grave interests of the nation for a mere strip of marsh and forest. I should like to clear away the ridiculous misstatement that what Venezuela claims is a mere strip of marsh. Setting aside altogether that part of our claim which is situated to the westward of the Schomburgk line, in regard to which we have expressed our full willingness to submit to arbitration, the claim of Venezuela is to more than two-thirds of the whole

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colony of British Guiana. Of the 100,000 square miles included in the colony of British Guiana, Venezuela claims 80,000. That cannot by any stretch of rhetoric be called a mere strip of swamp and forest. There are, therefore, grave reasons which well may make Her Majesty's Government hesitate to put the whole claim made by Venezuela into arbitration. The left bank of the Essequibo river, which is claimed by Venezuela, was for a hundred miles up from its mouth settled by the Dutch before we ourselves took the colony. The remains of Dutch forts are to be seen on the various rivers flowing into the Essequibo, and on the site of one of them the chief penal colony of British Guiana has been for at least 50 years established. These are our undoubted possessions, and we cannot well put them into arbitration. Before a country submits to arbitration it must admit that there is some subject of dispute, but in this case it is impossible to suppose that, as regards the extreme Venezuelan claim, any real subject of dispute arises. The extreme claim of Venezuela could only be compared to a claim—if such an absurdity could be imagined—that we should refer to arbitration whether the Channel Islands, which once were part of the Duchy of Normandy, did not belong to the French Republic, because the. Duchy of Normandy forms part of that Republic. But there is another reason against submitting the whole claim of Venezuela to arbitration. All arbitration, even the best, involves an element of uncertainty, and we have no right to expose the interests of British subjects in British Guiana, who have long held their possessions under our rule to the chance of being handed over to the tender mercies of a South American Republic which has been no less truly than wittily described as "a dictatorship tempered by revolution." Perhaps remarks made in this House or the other House of Parliament in reference to Venezuelan government or revolution may be resented on the other side of the Atlantic, and as what is said in the Senate of the United States may meet with more respect, I would refer to the speech of Senator Walcott, published in The Times of Friday, for a candid opinion of Venezuelan government. There is one other reason against arbit
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tration I think a mistake is made by some people as to the difference between mediation and arbitration. The duty of a mediator is to arrange a dispute he is asked to settle in the best way he can. The duty of an arbitrator is to pronounce as a judge upon a case laid before him. The case which Venezuela asks to be laid before an arbitrator is the whole territory involved; and I apprehend that if the arbitrator, in despair of being able to pronounce which party is right, was to advise the adoption of a line which appeared to him to be a just and fair boundary, he would be told by Venezuela that he had no right to say what the boundary ought to be; that his duty was to say what the boundary is. That may seem to many too fine a distinction to be applicable to practical affairs. But it is nothing of the kind. The case has actually happened. There was a dispute long ago between the United States and. this country as to the proper boundary between the United States and Canada—what was called the North-East Boundary Question. That dispute was referred to the arbitration of the King of the Netherlands; and the King of the Netherlands in despair, as he well might, of finding a boundary made by treaty, laid down a line which he thought was a reasonable boundary, and said to the parties—"There is your boundary." What did the United States do in that case? They said to the King of the Netherlands— You have gone beyond your powers; you have not decided the question laid before you; we will have nothing to do with the boundary you have struck, and we go back to our original claim. Is there anything more likely that Venezuela would follow so highly respectable an example and repudiate anything decided by the arbitrator that was not in favour of its own claim? But while we say that the extreme claim of the Republic of Venezuela is inadmissible, I do not read the Dispatches of the noble Marquess as in any way precluding a reasonable settlement of the difficulty that has arisen, or even as saying that we are resolved not to give up of our own free will any of our territory within the Schomburgk line, as to which we say that our rights are incontestable, and cannot be submitted to arbitration. But, though I have no information on the subject any more than the people in the

15
street, if Venezuela were to give up its extreme, and, I must say, absurd claim, as we do not wish to press our extreme claim, which includes country Venezuelan by settlement and Spanish by language, I imagine there would be no difficulty in finding by negotiations a reasonable settlement of the question. And now, my Lords, if I have required your indulgence before, I need it far more now in dealing with the last topic of Foreign Affairs upon which I shall touch. It is a painful subject and an important subject, and one upon which I feel, as many Englishmen feel, exceedingly strong conviction. I refer, my Lords, to the situation in Armenia. So long as that question remains in its present unsettled condition, so long will there be very grave dangers attending it. Of late important events which have occurred in other places have distracted public attention in some degree from It. It has been said, with some exaggeration no doubt, but still with some truth, that Englishmen can only think of one foreign subject at a time, and no doubt the number of subjects that have crowded upon their attention lately have, perhaps, diverted some of the attention that was previously fixed upon Armenia. But that fact does not make the state of things there less important or less intolerable. The winter is not less severe; the misery of the homeless and the plundered is not less keen, the brutality of Turkish officials is not diminished because attention is now less directed to that unhappy country. There is one sentence, and one sentence only in the Speech from the Throne in regard to the intolerable state of affairs in Armenia which gives me pleasure, and that is the statement that the reforms started by the late Government and pressed forward by the present Government have been accepted by the Sultan. I for one, however, have no great faith in the value of that mere acceptance, and I do not think the noble Marquess below me (Marquess of Salisbury) has much more. Still, much good may be done if the Concert of Europe, which had been formed for the purpose of obtaining them, sees that those reforms are carried out effectually. That Concert it has been, it is, and I have no doubt it will be the object of Her Majesty's Government to maintain and to secure; and, unless it can be secured,
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I look upon the condition of the whole of those countries as hopeless under Turkish rule. It has been, it is, and it will be a curse and a blight upon every country in which it exists; but nevertheless, I hold the policy which Her Majesty's Government have pursued to be thoroughly and entirely sound. It is the Concert of the European Powers only which will enable anything effectual to be done to redress the miserable condition of these provinces. There have been murmurs in this country to the effect that the Government have been inert, and that more should have been done to press reforms upon the Turkish Government. It is an easy luxury for those who are not in office, who have never been in office, and who are never likely to be, to indulge in the cheap luxury of criticism; but Governments have to act; and what is it they would wish Her Majesty s Government to have done? Some have said," Land forces at Scanderoon and send them into Armenia." I admit, if this could have been done without the risk of opposition from other Powers, if it could have been done even with their tacit consent, and we could safely have denuded our country of most of its troops, and locked them upon the mountains of Armenia, it might have been effectual; but, had we reason, to anticipate anything of that kind? I fear we had every reason to anticipate the reverse; and I do not think any noble Lord opposite would advocate such a course. Again, it has been said, "Let us send our fleet to Constantinople and so force the Sultan to comply with our demands. There again the same difficuly meets us; what if the Turkish fleet be not the only one we meet in the sea of Marmora? and I do not think any noble Lord will suggest that course. A third course has been suggested, more moderate in appearance but really not very different, and it is that we should seize the Customs of Smyrna and hold them as a material guarantee. But, what if the other Powers of Europe refused to recognise our right to do that, and refused to allow their merchant ships to pay dues to the authorities we put there? What would be done then? We should be reduced to a confession of impotence or forced into new hostilities. I do not think any noble Lord will, recommend that. Only

17
one other course has been suggested, and it is hardly worth mentioning; it is said that we should show our displeasure with the Sultan by recalling our Ambassador from Constantinople; a more futile and mischievous course could not be imagined, for the effect of it would be to show that we were powerless, and that we had given up the hope of effecting any improvement while unchecked scope would be given to every kind of hostile intrigue. The Concert of Europe has effected almost everything that has been done with success in the East. It effected the liberation of Greece; and in that case, as in this, the public conscience of England was aroused long before any active step could be taken. The Government then, as now, said it could not act except in concert with Europe. If ever there was a time when the English Government could have acted alone it must have been in the ten years following the Battle of Waterloo. If there was anyone who sympathised with the Greek cause it was Mr. Canning; yet, he told the Greek delegates that he could not act without the Concert of other Powers; when that was obtained the Protocol of St. Petersburg developed into the Treaty of London, and though every Power concerned afterwards wished at one time or another to escape from its provisions they were loyally observed and secured their object. Impatience in waiting for the Concert of Europe more than any other cause involved us in the Crimean War. After the massacres at Damascus, the Concert of Europe gave better government to the Lebanon. It is to the Concert of Europe we must look now, for without it we cannot do anything. Of late years we have often seen what has been called the dawn of a new era in Turkey; there have been half-a-dozen since the hatti humayon of 1856, which professed to give privileges to the Christians. But all these eras have been much alike. There was no diminution of oppression and corruption; in all there have been misgovernment and massacre; indeed massacre is in the East—not in Turkey only—regarded as one of the instruments of Government, and a very effective instrument it sometimes is. There are plenty of quiet and silent nooks in the provinces of Turkey which once were busy and populous. There have been all manner of small massacres;
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the larger massacres have generally been followed by fortunate results. It was the massacre of Chios brought about Greek independence; the massacres of Bulgaria deprived the Porte of several provinces. What will the massacres in Armenia effect? I trust the Government will not cease to press for that Concert of Europe, which, if it does not succeed in introducing all the reforms we desire, may establish a better Government, like that of the Lebanon. With regard to domestic matters, having trespassed on the attention of the House so long, I will only venture to say I am glad to see among the promised measures one relating to Employers' Liability. From the other measures mentioned in the Queen's Speech we may form a good idea of the policy and intentions of the Government. I conclude by moving an humble Address to Her Majesty.
THE EARL OF ROSSLYN,who wore the uniform of the Fife Light Horse, in seconding the Address, said:— It is with the greatest diffidence that I rise to address your Lordships' House, and to second the Address so ably moved in reply to Her Most Gracious Majesty's Speech from the Throne. But I feel convinced that in what appears a some what, difficult though important duty the indulgence which has ever been accorded to the members of your Lordships' House will not be withheld from me on this occasion. My Lords, before applying myself to the text of the Queen's Speech, I would first and foremost, add my tribute of humble yet most sincere sympathy to that of the noble Lords who has just spoken, and which I know is reciprocated by every Member of your Lordships' House, with Her Majesty and Princess Beatrice, who have been plunged into such terrible grief by the death of Prince Henry of Batten-berg; and further, I would, on your behalf, assure Her Majesty that the sad bereavement the Royal Family have sustained has only added another link to the already long chain which binds Her Majesty's subjects throughout the world in that loyalty and devoted sympathy which only a national joy or a national calamity, such as the present one, can fully bring to the surface. Not only do we share the grief of the Royal Family, but we mourn the loss of a brave and upright man, a man sans peur et sans reproche, who,

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when opportunity offered itself, was prepared to lay down his life on behalf of his Queen and country. My Lords, the love for our Royal Family has ever burnt fiercely in our country's breast, and the noble example of patriotism exhibited by the dead Prince will, I do not hesitate to say, enhance that feeling, and I trust prove a source of consolation to those who mourn a devoted relative and a nation's friend. My Lords, reverting to the text of the Speech, in which the position of Foreign Affairs holds so prominent a place, I will not detain your Lordships' House on this question beyond venturing to think that the troubles which have recently arisen throughout the world, and in which this country has been chiefly involved, have been due partly to misconception, partly to a system of weak government in Turkey, and partly to causes which no Government could have prevented. To misconception I attribute the threatened trouble with the United States, and I feel sure, now that the first impulse of excitement has cooled down, we may look to a calm and friendly settlement of the difficulty. To a system of weak Government in Turkey must be attributed the recent terrible massacres in Armenia, and it would be futile to suggest that Her Majesty's successive Governments have shown weakness in not dealing peremptorily with the question, notwithstanding the Treaty of San Stefano and the Convention of Cyprus. So long as there was unity of action among the foreign Powers, so long as the Sultan was willing to cooperate in our suggestions, so long was there a possibility of an end to the atrocities; but when nothing less than the serious risk of a European war stared us in the face, a war which would have proved more heinous than any district insurrection could possibly have warranted, England had but one course to pursue, and that course I consider has been pursued with that dignity which has ever characterised the noble Marquess when at the head of Foreign Affairs. And as regards the disturbances in the Transvaal, I assert that no Government could have foreseen or prevented them, no Colonial Secretary of State have acted with greater decisiveness of judgment than has Mr. Chamberlain. International law was violated and a friendly
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country invaded in order, forsooth, to enforce a better system of internal government which no Englishman is compelled to live under against his wish, however severe it may have been. My Lords, in leaving this subject I would fain think the magnanimity shown by President Kruger is well worthy of our thanks and our cordial recognition. Nor will anybody deny that good has probably arisen out of evil, for amidst all our threatening dangers, dangers threatening not only the peace of Europe but of the world, we have received messages of sympathy, expressions of good will and testimony of devotion to the mother country, not only from all political parties in Great Britain but from all our dependencies, from all our colonies throughout the world. We have been shown that, notwithstanding their several internal difficulties, they are one and all prepared to join hands with us in mutual reciprocation, and in one bond of love and good fellow-ship against our enemies. But we should remember that the very greatness of a nation such as ours is may in itself become the source of envy and hostility on the part of others, and strong though we may be, in view of all that has recently occurred, we should devote ourselves still further to Imperial Defence, to protect not only our country but our possessions, to protect not only these but our commercial interests. We must continue to carry out the defensive programme of our predecessors, and, without defying the world, safeguard our interests; and I feel sure that the question of Naval supremacy, to which I am now alluding, will not fall on ears deaf to so important a policy, but on the ears of men who will cast aside all party feeling in their determination to sustain the honour and the safety of the greatest country in the world. No considerations, whether of politics or finance, should be permitted to influence the maintenance of our fleet. Above all such considerations the importance of sea-power reigns supreme. Not only should the strength in battleships be effectively superior in equipment, in speed, in manœuvring, and in their sailors to that of the combined fleets of any two, perhaps of any three of the greatest naval Powers, and so be co-ordinately increased, but the numbers of cruisers to protect our commerce

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must bear a higher ratio than at present to the enormous and scattered trade they have to guard, a trade at once so vital to the Empire that its demoralisation would lead to its downfall. The aggregate Naval expenditure of the whole British Empire in 1894 was about 17½ millions sterling, to protect a mercantile fleet of over 13½ million tons and a seaborne commerce exceeding 954 millions. Russia spends five millions for the protection of a mercantile fleet of 500,000 tons and a commerce of less than 70 millions in value. Germany was about the same as Russia, but France spent 11 millions for the protection of a mercantile marine of one million tons and a seaborne commerce whose value was 295 millions. So it is shown that, though our seaborne commerce is far greater than that of France, Germany, and Russia combined, yet our insurance is insignificant when compared with the insurance of the other three countries. My Lords, Parliament will again be, asked to vote a large sum for the increase and improvement of our naval armament, and from all I can gather such a vote will meet with no opposition. We have the satisfaction of knowing that the noble Earl the late First Lord of the Admiralty was one of the first to support and adopt a programme of naval improvement; we have had the testimony of our present First Lord that he has succeeded to an already well-organised department, and we have the satisfaction of knowing that we can equip and man a flying squadron in a very short space of time. Finally, there is the consideration, I may say the ever-pressing question, of men. None can deny that at the present moment we have more ships than we can man, more engines in those ships than we have engineers to drive and firemen to stoke; but I believe Her Majesty's Government have ample proof that men will be forthcoming when necessary, that we shall also be able to draw from our commercial fleet able-bodied seamen qualified and capable of representing Her Majesty's Navy. It is quite possible that the advisability of increasing the training ships will be manifested, but we may rest assured, I feel certain, that we shall not have to resort to a maritime conscription any more than we have to recruit our Army by compulsory enlistment. The advantages of
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our naval supremacy are too well known in your Lordships' House to dilate on them; suffice it to say that no thought will ever be paid to those who suggest a withdrawul of our sea power from the Mediterranean—the absolute key to all our possessions. Where should we be without the approaches to the Suez Canal? Where without a fleet to guard the straits of Gibraltar? Where without a sufficient naval force to act as the first line of Malta's defence? We do not anticipate war—far be it from us—but we cannot disarm; we have been forewarned, we must in consequence be forearmed. My Lords, though we look with pride upon our present naval armaments, it is in the preparation for war that we have the best guarantee of peace. And now, my Lords, I am led to a subject concerning our internal, though to a certain extent, our external affairs. I allude to the depression in our greatest, of industries—agriculture. We have just passed through a period of triennial chaos, a period of promises and vows unfulfilled, a period of disquiet, a period of unrest. We have practically as a country been made to waste three years in trying to force upon the people measures distasteful to the majority, measures not in keeping with the traditions of this great country; we have been asked to spoliate venerable institutions, and destroy ancient constitutions; we have been asked to separate the systems of government in parts of the British Isles; we have been asked to do more than oven the late Government now says it could have done. I do not intend to touch upon what is passed, I intend to look forward to the future. The one great cry has been for the past fifteen or twenty years, "What can be done to alleviate agricultural distress?" Government after Government has promised assistance, some have assisted slightly, others have more than failed; but the time has come when our lands must not be allowed to go out of cultivation, our labourers to continue to drift into the already overcrowded cities and towns without every effort that is possible being made to avert these results of depression. I think I may fairly claim that among all the legislative problems set to any Government the one for relief of agriculture is perhaps the most difficult. The Duke of Richmond's

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Commission of 1881 failed to stem the ebbing tide. The Commission appointed by the late Government has not yet issued its report, and from the information it is possible to derive from the hitherto published Blue Books of the present Commission the situation may be summarised as follows:—Since the date when the Duke of Richmond's Commission reported in 1881, agricultural depression has continued, and steadily increased. With few, if any, exceptions, no part of Great Britain has been free from it. In many districts it is most acute, while in others, and they are rapidly increasing, the condition is one of absolute ruin, and the land has gone, and is still going, out of cultivation altogether. The effect of this disaster is felt by all classes connected with land, the owner, the occupier, and the labourer as well, for where the plough is standing idle, where the farmer has been driven to abandon a profitless, nay, a ruinous undertaking, by the further cultivation of arable land, thereto the labourers are driven by hundreds to the towns and overworked cities. My Lords, if I search for the cause of all this trouble, the answer is unanimous from every witness who has been examined by that Commission—First, that it is the heavy fall in the prices of agricultural produce, which with little, if any, intervals has been steadily progressing now for many years; and secondly, that unless something can be done to stop this downward tendency in prices, and to turn the tide again in the opposite direction there is no hope or possibility of any real or permanent improvement in the future. My Lords, if I should sewn to exaggerate I will quote two witnesses in ray support. The first shall be Mr. Hunter Pringle, dealing especially with the effect of this calamity on the interests of labourers. He says:—
"It is my plain duty, and I do not shrink from it, to advise the Commissioners that if prices do not at once make a very great improvement the country may be prepared to see thousands of acres of good corn growing land thrown into grass, and thousands of farm labourers cast into poverty and idleness."
Again he says:—
"I speak nothing but the opinion of Bedford, Huntingdon, and Northampton, when I say that although the consequences of this long continued depression must tell severely on the rent rolls,
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and complete the ruination of scores of tenants, it is upon the employment of labour the deepest impression will presently be made."
The second witness, that noted agriculturist, Mr. Clare Read, acting upon a deputation to the First Lord of the Treasury, so lately as Thursday last, declared his opinion to be that—
"Although genial and fruitful seasons should return, yet, unless there was a substantial rise in the price of cereals, he was sure that agriculture was doomed. They had not only to contend against a one-sided free trade, but the prices they obtained were unnatural and artificial. A large portion of the wheat introduced into this country came from countries which had a depreciated currency. He believed that Argentina, India and other silver-using countries could undersell wheat against the whole world, and yet, in consequence of the exchange, leave themselves with a substantial profit."
My Lords, I am afraid then, gloomy as it may be, that this is a true, and only a too true, description of the agricultural situation of to-day. And the question that the country and Parliament and the people have to face is this: "How is this great national calamity to be met?" If all these witnesses are right, if it be true indeed that the cause of all this ruin and disaster to so many classes is the fall in prices, will Parliament, will the country, will the Government have the courage and resolution to face it? Will they consent to reconsider, in the light of this national disaster, the cherished traditions which have found favour in this country now for at least two generations; or, are we to sit still and be content to suffer the greatest of all our English industries to perish? My Lords, I know of only two proposals by which it is suggested that this evil can be effectually dealt with—one is protection, the other is reform of the currency. I read with pleasure the speech delivered by the Leader of the House of Commons, Mr. Balfour, and although he made it clear that he was only speaking for himself on the latter point on Thursday last, I frankly own my sympathies are with both of these proposals. But it would be presumptuous in me to urge my views upon these subjects in your Lordships' House upon this occasion. Moreover, I recognise that they are changes of such gravity and importance that the boldest among us may pause before recommending them, until we have before us the

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report and recommendations of the Commission which has been specially appointed to enquire into the causes and the remedies in Agricultural Depression. But if it be considered impracticable at present in do anything to arrest the fall in prices, Parliament can at least do something to lessen the burden of taxation, of which many of us think the land bears more than its fair share. I am not aware whether your Lordships have noticed the evidence which was recently given by Sir Alfred Milner before the Royal Commission now sitting on Agriculture on this subject; but it seems to me to be very striking. A summary of his evidence was published in The Times some weeks ago, and, in my judgment, it strongly supports the contention, which I submit with all deference to your Lordships, that land at the present time is unfairly taxed, as compared with other properties, and is justly entitled to relief. Secondly, I think everything that is possible should be done to encourage the breeding and production of stock in Great Britain. Cereal cultivation at a profit in vast districts of the country has become impossible, as we have seen, at present prices. As a matter of fact, you will find, from the information in the possession of the Board of Agriculture, that the area devoted to wheat cultivation in the United Kingdom in 1895 was less by the enormous amount of 500,000 acres than it was in 1894; and more and more of the land every year is being turned to grass. It becomes more necessary, therefore, that every precaution should be taken against the importation of foreign diseases, which have inflicted such incalculable losses on agriculturists in former years. Much has been accomplished in this direction already. Certain measures for this purpose were recommended by the Duke of Richmond's Commission in 1881, and have since then been carried out with the greatest benefit to the agricultural community. I observe that the noble Duke, in giving evidence before the Royal Commission which is now sitting, made further recommendations on this subject, and, fortified by his high authority, I do not hesitate to urge that the slaughter of all foreign cattle should be made obligatory by law in future at the port of debarkation. Thirdly, the incidence of railway
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rates for agricultural produce has constantly caused friction, but it is indeed satisfactory to see that two or three of the great railways, whose lines traverse some of the most distressed counties, are now doing their utmost to assist their customers, and I earnestly trust that we may see voluntary arrangements, not necessitating legislation, arrived at by railway companies and farmers whereby the co-operation of the latter in making up larger consignments may facilitate the efforts of the former, and so our home producers may be helped to compete on more equal terms with their foreign rivals. There is another matter which has been the subject of a great deal of complaint among agriculturists— and that is the working of the Agricultural Holdings Act, which was passed in 1884. It is not so much against the principle of the Act, as its provisions, not against the administration of the Act, that complaints are made. It is urged that the procedure for obtaining compensation is too complicated and expensive, and a general desire is expressed that it should be simplified as far as possible and made less costly in the future. It is not suggested that it could be in any way a remedy for agricultural depression, but I believe your Lordships will agree with me in thinking that the demand which is made upon this subject by many tenant-farmers is a reasonable demand, and that it is desirable that the Act should be amended in this direction, and if in addition to this, provision could be made by which the State should advance loans to landowners for the improvement of their estates, on cheaper terms that it can be obtained by owners generally, situated as they are at present. I believe that any such proposal would be received with general satisfaction. If a system of light railways be carried out, I for one venture to hope that a moderate expenditure from the Treasury will do something, by improving their means of transport, to encourage and assist the farmer in his present arduous undertaking. My Lords, I have spoken on this subject I am afraid at too great length, but I speak from my heart as a landowner who, in a short life, has seen changes and depressions of alarming magnitude, and I may be excused if I have tried to point out at too great length how much may be done by a

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readjustment of the rates, and by placing the home producer and foreign importer on at least an equal footing. If I omit reference to several of the measures in Her Majesty's Speech, it is not because I have failed to notice them, but because I feel I have already prolonged my speech beyond the customary limit of time, but I would draw your Lordships' attention to a Bill for the restriction of the immigration of pauper aliens—a wise and protective measure in itself—and one which I believe has answered very well in the United States. Our country has already too many paupers of its own nationality to support, without being burdened by the pauper aliens of foreign, countries. Humanity must bow to common sense—and charity must, as the proverb says, begin at home. That there are innumerable difficulties to contend with in such a measure cannot be gainsaid, for we have to face the question of definition. What is a pauper alien? An able-bodied foreigner, anxious for work and likely to got employment who lands here with half-a-crown in his pocket? Or a man and wife with a young Family and five pounds in his pocket? I leave it to your Lordships to satisfy your minds on this point. Then we have to face the difficulty of who is to decide this question of pauperism. Are we to leave it in the hands of inspectors with sole powers? Or is there to be a Court of Appeal? Further, at what ports are these regulations to be observed? Are there to be inspectors along our whole seaboard, or only at our large shipping ports? My Lords, I have no doubt the noble Marquess, who presented this Bill to your Lordships' House last Session, has made ample provision for these emergencies, and there is no doubt one great advantage to be derived from such legislation will be that of preventing the reduction of wages below what is so often alluded to as "a living wage" by the competition of pauper aliens, who are only too thankful to obtain work at any price to the detriment of those of our countrymen who have not only themselves to support but also in many cases large families. And last, but by no means least, my Lords, I would touch upon the measure in course of preparation for the avoidance and settlement of trade disputes—a proposal which in
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itself spells Peace. That our recent trade disputes have been of such magnitude as to be deplorable, that they should have been the cause of enormous losses throughout the country not only to employer but employed, is in itself a sufficient reason for the introduction of such a Bill. We have found that the good offices of the late Prime Minister, and latterly of a noble Lord who sits on the Government Benches, have been of the greatest service in such emergencies, and though I deplore any State interference between Capital and Labour, between man and master, between employer and employed, I am not blind to the fact that such interference has lately had the most satisfactory results. I am inclined personally to believe that conciliation is best effected by suavity of manner, courtesy of bearing and genial intercourse between those at enmity, and I for one have had a practical experience of the benefits to be derived from the presence of our great friendly and benevolent societies. A question of some magnitude arose, which appeared likely at no distant date to culminate in serious warfare between workmen and employer, but by the opportune though unexpected meeting between myself as an official of Fife Freemasonry with the leader of the opposite side, in a Masonic Lodge, where the enemy's leader acted as Master, I was able not only to extend the olive branch of peace and to come to a satisfactory and peaceful settlement, but also to foster the hope that such an arrangement had been come to whereby my workmen and myself might live in amity for ever. If I have spoken at too great length, if I have wearied your Lordships by my want of eloquence, I may at any rate claim that the importance and magnitude of Her Majesty's Speech demanded a special notice from the mover and seconder, and in seconding the address I beg to thank your Lordships for the great indulgence you have accorded me and hope I may be spared to many years of useful life in this great constitution, of which I have the honour to be an hereditary member.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: I cannot but be struck, my Lords, by a daring disregard of precedent on the present occasion which I could only anticipate from a Tory Government. It has been

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always, I have understood, in this House, the practice to give the moving and seconding of the Address to some young orator who shall deliver his maiden speech on that occasion. I, when I sat opposite, was not able, for material reasons which will easily occur to your Lordships, to carry out that excellent tradition. [Laughter.] But the noble Marquess has no such excuse, and, without offering any disrespect to the noble Lord who moved the Address, I think the duty might have been assigned to some one who had more of a halo, if I may so express myself, of political virginity than the noble Lord. It certainly is not his maiden speech to-night, for if I can trust my memory so far, the occasion for which that effort was prepared was in advocacy of the Home Rule Bill of Mr. Gladstone in 1893, and though, owing to the pressure of circumstances, that speech was not delivered, and although under that untoward silence the noble Lord was compelled to confine his advocacy of that measure to a direct vote in its favour, we have been frequently favoured with his opinions in this House since then, and we on this side must always regard him with a tender and sentimental interest as being the last Peer who, I think, was bequeathed to us on the nomination of Mr. Gladstone. ["Hear, hear!"] My Lords, I pass to a more agreeable example of versatility in the seconder of the Address. We have all heard him with the greatest pleasure. ["Hear, hear!"] He has expressed, without any want of courage, original views on the great problems of his time, and has done so with a grace and ability worthy of the brilliant traditions and talents of his family. I am sure that all of us, on whatever side of the House we sit, will share in the wish of his peroration that he may be spared for many years to enjoy the amenities and participate in the duties of this Chamber. ["Hear, hear!"] There is one topic which both the mover and seconder placed very justly in the forefront of their remarks. It would be very unfitting in one in my position and very remote from my heart if I were not also to give the first place in what I have to say to the great calamity and bereavement which have befallen her Majesty the Queen and her youngest daughter. Prince Henry of Battenberg was, perhaps,
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not so well known as some of the Princes of the Royal House, but to those who knew him his genial and generous bearing and the last act of his life—that gallant chivalry which determined him to identify himself with his adopted country in the field and in warfare—will always leave behind them an imperishable memory dear to those who were his friends. ["Hear, hear!"] My Lords, I would not intrude an ungracious consideration on such an occasion; but one cannot help being reminded in this melancholy catastrophe of the death of the French Prince Imperial in the Cape 16 or 17 years ago. It must have occurred to us all that these deaths had been incurred not uselessly—because no gallant life is ever lost uselessly—but in some degree without the urgent necessity which drives regular soldiers to the field; and I do hope it will be a warning to all successive Governments that they ought to weigh carefully the circumstances of each volunteer, however illustriously placed he may be, before they incur the risk and the responsibility of placing them in the field. My Lords, I turn for a moment to the less important part of the gracious Speech which relates to the domestic topics. The Bills that are proposed are not, I think, much less numerous than that ample list with which we were so frequently taunted for bringing forward. Some of them, indeed, are derelicts, old friends of our own. There is an Employers' Liability Bill, a Scotch Public Health Bill—that is a very old friend—and there are others to which I could allude. But there are two or three new features as to which it may be well that I should say something. In the first place there is the condition of Agriculture. The remark in the gracious Speech on the state of Agriculture is unhappily too trite and familiar to all your Lordships who are connected with land. We have all bewailed and sympathised with that condition, but we have not been able to find a remedy. How to find a remedy when the causes are so obvious and irremediable it is not easy to see. The world has grown smaller; the means of transport have become more direct; the products of great virgin tracts of land cultivated by cheap labour are brought within the markets of Great Britain to which they

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were unknown formerly; and last, but not least, climatic influences, against which it is vain to contend, have also been against the British farmer and landowner. Well, I will not anticipate the remedies which we are taught and encouraged to expect. I do not know whether the Seconder of the Address was inspired when he mentioned them this evening. He mentioned the favourite remedy of the First Lord of the Treasury, which that right hon. Gentleman, as First Lord of the Treasury, finds himself precluded from applying— I mean Bimetallism. [Laughter.] He also mentioned that other remedy, which was the favourite one of Mr. Chaplin until he abandoned it in favour of Bimetallism—I mean the remedy of protection. I do not know whether the noble Lord spoke under inspiration, but I rather doubt it. [Laughter.] There is another paragraph devoted to a subject of which we have heard much in the Recess—I mean the subject of Voluntary Schools. I will not anticipate what the measures of the Government may be on that, subject, but I derive a certain confidence respecting them from the fact that the Department from which they will issue is under the calm, cool, and sensible control of the President of the Council. The President of the Council has given in the past many pledges to fortune in respect of the treatment of Voluntary Schools, and though I should be the last to maintain that pledges given in the past have any direct influence on the policy of the Government in the present, still I am inclined to hope something from the noble Duke, for he repeated some of those pledges at Birmingham not long ago. I am also encouraged by his temperament. I will not notice the speeches delivered in the Recess except to this extent—that the noble Duke has been used as a universal refrigerator. [Laughter.] Wherever there has been any bud or blossom of hope springing up after the previous sowing of promises which went on throughout the General Election, when that bud or blossom has seemed for a moment to approach the condition of fruit, the noble Duke's icy cold spray has been turned on, and no political plant with which I am acquainted has survived that mortifying process. [Laughter.] As far as we are concerned, the conditions which we attach to any
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scheme such as is likely to be laid before us—and though we cannot enforce them largely by vote we certainly shall enforce them by voice—are that there shall be no lowering of the standard of education, no interference with Board Schools as at present constituted, and that where public funds are to be given to Voluntary Schools the element of efficient popular control shall be introduced. There are two other domestic topics in the Speech which I would notice in passing. I do not know what the remedy for distressed agriculture is in England but I see that the remedy in Ireland is a Board of Agriculture. Now, without disparagement to my noble Friend, Lord Burghclere, whom we are all glad to see among us—["hear, hear!"]—I cannot flatter myself that the Board of Agriculture has been very successful in arresting agricultural depression in England, and I do hope that when the noble Marquess rises he will give us more light on this subject and as to the emergency that has arisen for a Board of Agriculture in Ireland. Then there is a very important question, the question of the water supply of London. That is to be dealt with. Whether it will be dealt with according to the wishes of the County Council or according to the wishes of Her Majesty's Government and the potent influences inside the Government, of course we can only surmise. [Laughter.] There is one point with which the Seconder of the Address dealt as to which we should like much more copious information. There is rather a brutal paragraph in the Queen's Speech, if I may use such an epithet as "brutal," in conjunction with that gracious Speech. I use it only in connection with one substantive—it is the "importation" of aliens. [Laughter.] I remember very well that when the noble Marquess, in Opposition, was impelled to legislate on this subject, he delivered a speech which will long dwell in the memory of those who heard it. The speech was divided under two heads. The first related to what he would now, in the recklessness of power [laughter] call "the importation of destitute aliens"; and the second, the most important part, related to what he said was absolutely necessary to the good Government of the country—namely, the power of dealing with political refugees, who are also aliens, a

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power which he claimed on behalf of a Government in which he had no confidence, and which, therefore, he ought more surely to assign to a Government in which, presumably, he has a good deal. Perhaps the noble Marquess will tell us why he now limits his measure to destitution, and not to political refugees, because it would be an explanation of a course which he adopted when in Opposition and which gave some embarrassment to the Government of the day. My Lords, I come now to the most important part of the Speech—the portion relating to Foreign Affairs. I do not know if the first paragraph of the gracious Speech is one which is framed according to the usual order of things. To my mind and apprehension there is something new and something cold about the tone of it. I think we have been accustomed to hear that "Her Majesty's relations with Foreign Powers continue friendly," but the phrase is now worded, "I continue to receive from other Powers assurances of friendly sentiments." When you take that in conjunction with the exigencies of the increased expenditure to which allusion is made in the Speech, and the extension and improvement of the naval defences of the Empire, as to which we have had some light of late, I confess I regard the tone of the Speech as somewhat ominous in respect of our foreign relations. When we begin with Foreign Affairs the question arises where we are to begin. It was that difficulty which I think occurred to the noble Mover of the Address, a difficulty which was only paralleled by the difficulty which he seemed to experience in coming to an end. [Laughter.] Well, we had the programme, the manifesto of this Government, delivered, not by the noble Marquess opposite himself, but by his authoritative representative in the House of Commons at a very early period of last Recess. Mr. George Curzon, in October, made a speech which I am sorry to have to quote now, because you know it so well. I quote, however, only one portion of it. He said:—
"Foreign Powers felt they could not, rely upon the late Government, because they knew it could not rely upon itself. But when Lord Salisbury spoke the world knew that Great Britain Was behind him and that his policy was not the mere phantom of a moment, but that it would be in
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accordance with the sustained tradition of a succession of years. Already in many parts of the world we had evidence of the salutary change. When matters having dragged along under one Government, found a speedy solution under another, when crises impending under one Government disappeared when another entered office, the irresistible conclusion was that a different impression had been formed abroad of the calibre of the new Government."
Well, certainly, a very different impression has been produced by the new Government, but whether the state of affairs during the closing months of last year and the opening months of this year has been more peaceful or more creditable to those who represent us in foreign affairs than that which existed under the late Government I will leave your lordships to judge. But the remarks of which I complain from Mr. Curzon are not those of anticipation, but those which he proceeded to deliver. He said:—
"This was not, an isolated occurrence. He had visited a good many Courts and capitals of the world, and he could only say he had never been to a Court or capital where there was not greater respect felt for England under a Conservative then under a Liberal Government."
Well, of course a Liberal Minister has not the same opportunities of mingling in the Courts of the world as a person of Mr. Curzon's position. [Laughter.] Therefore I will not answer for what may be the state of feeling in the Courts and capitals of the world. I hurry on to his concluding sentences:—
"He had never set foot in any Consulate, Ministry, Embassy, or Legation in which there was not rejoicing over Conservative and lamentations over Radical victories."
My Lords, I say at once that that statement is not true. ["Hear, hear!"] I state it without the slightest hesitation, because it imputes to a great branch of the Civil Service conduct which would be wholly unworthy of that service—["Hear, hear!"]—a sympathy with either political Party in the discharge of their duties as a permanent part of the administration of the country. I confess it was with horror that I read from the second chief of the Foreign Office remarks of this kind, which might convey to those who know less of the Diplomatic Service than I do the grave imputation which was apparently present

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to his own mind. I pass from that subject with the remark that I do not know whether shouts of joy arose over the latest appointment to the Legation at Peking, but if those shouts of joy have arisen they certainly have not reached my ears. [Laughter.] I come now to the question of Ashanti. I do not know if there was anything in the position of the late Government which would exactly justify the war against Ashanti, though it was quite true that our relations with that kingdom were becoming strained. I do hope that the information which impelled an actual expedition, which, though not meeting with resistance, involved so calamitous a loss of life, will be placed before your Lordships without great delay. I pass now to the agreement with Siam. The Mover told us that the agreement with Siam filled him with unqualified satisfaction. I cannot help wondering, with all respect to him, whether it would have filled him with the same unqualified satisfaction if it had been concluded by my noble Friend.
LORD STANMORE: Yes.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: I accept his assurance. I know that he has an impartial mind. [Laughter.] I do not know whether I am to accept the assurance of the noble Lord as to what his attitude would have been, but I must say that it is not such an arrangement as might have been anticipated from the speeches of the present Party in power when they were in Opposition. We have given up a great deal by that arrangement, and what quid pro quo we have received for it we shall hear, no doubt, from the noble Marquess when he speaks; but we have not been informed as yet. We have given up the principle of the buffer State. We have given up Mongsin, and the noble Lord the Mover of the Address thinks little of it. But Mongsin has been occupied by a British force, and when there was the question of the evacuation of Chitral we were told, I think by the First Lord of the Treasury, that the first principle of this Government was that where a British soldier had once been there he must always remain. Thirdly, we have given up the British dominions on the other side of the Mekong river. Fourthly, we have taken the Mekong as our boundary between France and ourselves, in
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direct disregard of the advice of the principal local authority on that matter. If I might again quote Mr. Curzon, whose defence of this arrangement I shall go to the gallery of the other House to hear, I mast state that I remember, when we were in office, he attached a special value to the retention of the dominions on the other side of the Mekong. I am not going to make any remarks on the inferences which I draw from the language of the Treaty. I would rather have it explained by the noble Marquess; but whatever inferences I may draw from its natural language, I cannot express, for fear any argument should be built upon them in the French Chamber in the discussion that is soon to take place there. But I must honestly say that I think we have a right to some explanation from the Government as to what are the advantages in exchange for which they have given up the four very valuable points to which I have referred. But, tacked on to Siam, were a couple of other quarters of the globe. There is a Commission with regard to our territories on the banks of the Niger. If that Commission does its work well, I for one have no criticism to offer; and, lastly, Tunis is brought in in connection with that strange arrangement. Our treaty with Tunis is, so far as I can understand the language of the instrument, to be put an end to and to be negotiated afresh—a very important concession as bearing on the interests of Italy as well as ourselves, and one on which I hope we shall have some explanation from the noble Marquess. I pass on to the Transvaal. If we may judge by the length of the paragraph given to the Transvaal, that episode is, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, much the most important part of the Speech. Five paragraphs are given to the Transvaal; one jejune paragraph is given to Armenia. I suppose I must begin, though I am very late in the day, what I have to say on the Transvaal by laying a chaplet, a meagre tardy chap let I fear, on the opulent shrine of the Colonial Secretary. [Laughter.] I do it, though late in the day, and I do it, I confess, with some little reluctance, not from any ungenerous motive, but because the excessive eulogy which has been, heaped on the Colonial Secretary

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conveys a grave imputation on the statesmanship of this country. [Cheers.] He did his duty, and he did it promptly. ["Hear, hear!"] But to read the long columns of eulogy devoted ungrudgingly, so far as I am concerned, to the services of the Colonial Secretary since that event took place, any distinguished foreigner would receive the impression that no British Minister had ever done his duty promptly before. [Laughter.] Now I will lay a wreath, which is perhaps more needed, on the shrine of Sir Hercules Robinson. I am glad to see in the Dispatch published in the newspapers the other day, that due justice was done to Sir Hercules Robinson, to whom, I think, the Government themselves are inclined to attribute no mean part of the success which they have achieved. [Cheers.] It is the more generous of the Colonial Secretary to have produced this tribute to Sir Hercules Robinson, because I recollect that when his appointment was made by the late Government there was no more bitter critic or opponent of that appointment than the Colonial Secretary. It is unnecessary to discuss the raid which took place under the auspices of Dr. Jameson, because that raid will form the subject of judicial inquiry; and I will merely pass from it with the observation that it seemed, in its inception and in its carrying out, more worthy of the reign of Elizabeth, more suited to the days of Elizabeth, than to the days of Her Gracious Majesty. The Government, in my opinion, were right as promptly as possible to reprobate and disown in the severest terms what could not but be regarded as a filibustering excursion. They did so for a long time amid the marked incredulity of some foreign powers; but I am inclined to think, if they did desire so to dissociate themselves, it was a little unfortunate that shortly after it took place they should have taken occasion, in their official organ, through their official poet [laughter], to print and publish and circulate a glowing eulogium of that enterprise. I take this opportunity to say that I have always considered the Laureateship to be an obsolete office; I am now inclined to consider that it is also a dangerous one. [Laughter.] Whatever the result of that raid may have been, and whatever the result of
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the Inquiry into it may be, Her Majesty's Government cannot disregard the grievances with which it was intended to deal. Indeed, they have already gone so far, in the person of the Prime Minister, as to compare the Uitlanders to those cherished Ulstermen on whom they have been accustomed to heap so much eulogy in former days. I think there is a more solid guarantee for the redress of the grievances of the Uitlanders in that able Dispatch which, I suppose, after careful consideration by the Cabinet, has been sent to the newspapers—[laughter]—and the policy of it, I suppose, has been discussed already with President Kruger; for I do not suppose the Government could be capable of anything so maladroit as to let President Kruger know the nature of their proposals from the columns of a newspaper, or their invitation to him through the same non-confidential source. [Laughter and cheers.] In that Dispatch there are three prominent points. There is the eulogy of Sir Hercules Robinson, to which I have referred; there is the invitation to President Kruger, who, we are told, is disposed to accept it, and there is the very remarkable proposal of Home Rule for the Rand, coining from the source which it does, and after the very open denunciation of the doctrine which has just been produced by the Prime Minister. [Cheers.] I do not know whether President Kruger will listen to the invitation of Mr. Secretary Chamberlain or to the more sepulchral warnings of the Prime Minister against the principle—[laughter]; but I should be curious to know, if that distinguished man comes to England, what the exact nature of the meeting will be between the Prime Minister, the Colonial Secretary, and President Kruger on this subject. [Laughter.] There is one very regrettable consequence that seems to be involved in this Transvaal business. If we judge of the tone, of the Press abroad, the note of our relations with Germany has been sensibly impaired. It is said—I do not know with what truth—we have no direct authority at present—that Germany wished to land troops in Delagoa Bay with the purpose of marching them to the Transvaal. I do not mention that in order to ask whether it be true or not; because in time, no doubt, we shall know whether

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it is true or not; but what I do understand to be true is this, that on some such overture being made it was unhesitatingly repelled by Portugal; and what I want to call attention to is this, that in my humble judgment, the rejection of that overture by Portugal was due to the policy of Her Majesty's late advisers; and in the condition we found our relations with Portugal, and in the condition they were left by the noble Marquess after his ultimatums and rather aggressive policy towards that ancient ally of Great Britain, I doubt whether that result would have been the same. There is one other circumstance I mention in connection with the Transvaal. I offer my humble condolence to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs on the speeches of the Colonial Secretary. The Colonial Secretary boasts that he takes a manly, an upright, an outspoken view of the power and the responsibilities of our Empire. Let him do that as much as he chooses, but do not let him indulge in mischievous and puerile reflections destined to irritate needlessly the susceptibilities of other Powers. What, I ask in the name of all policy and public spirit, is the advantage of telling Germany that the Colony of Queensland is three times as great in area as she is? [Cheers.] Is that the oil which the trusted advisers of Her Majesty pour on the delicate subject of the relations with Germany at a critical moment? It would have been open to Germany to retort with perfect truth that Venezuela, with which we have a difficulty, has an area at least five times as great as that of the United Kingdom. [Laughter.] I am glad to say she has refrained from any such tu quoque; but I hope, however proud a Colonial Minister may be of the great Empire attached to these islands over which he is called upon to preside, he will not indulge in those thoughtless reflections again. [Cheers.] I now come to the subject of Venezuela. There are one or two circumstances to be noticed before I come to the very gratifying announcement which I notice in the Speech. The subject of Venezuela is very far from being a new one. We have all of us tried our hands at Venezuela; some of us have tried very hard to arrive, during our term of office, at some understanding with that somewhat troublesome State. ["Hear, hear!"]
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But there has been one great difficulty hitherto in dealing with Venezuela, and that is—I wish to avoid anything that may be disrespectful, and I hope I shall be more successful in doing so than the noble Lord who moved the Address—that the Government of Venezuela has not in past times been such as to command the unlimited confidence of her Majesty's Government. I know nothing of the Government of Venezuela at this moment; it may be completely changed, but when I was chiefly concerned with this affair in 1886 the Government of Venezuela was not such that we cared to hand over to the chances of arbitration, which have not always been uniformly favourable to this country, some 40,000 subjects of Her Majesty who had settled in districts which we firmly believed and still believe to be part of the British Empire. [Ministerial cheers.] My Lords, during the past year, two circumstances, one regrettable, one very much the reverse, have brought Venezuela out of the phase of those long-standing questions which are apt to haunt some public officials for half a century or more. The first was the reported sending—I do not know if it is true or not—of Maxim guns to British Guiana. If we were rightly informed, British Guiana did not want the Maxim guns, still less did she want to pay for them, but the sending of those guns caused an impression throughout the United States, where some newspapers are ready occasionally to foster such impressions, that her Majesty's Government in their difficulty with Venezuela were inclined to resort to force rather than to more peaceful methods for a settlement. That is the unsatisfactory incident. The satisfactory incident is the intervention of the United States in this matter. The intervention of the United States introduces into this controversy the important element of a solid and substantial Government, which, in effect, offers a guarantee for the permanence and the reception of any settlement that may be arrived at. Now, it seems to me quite obvious that that view is sound, and that the United States, after the part she has taken in this controversy, could not remain an indifferent spectator if Venezuela, as we have often feared, was not likely to abide by any peaceful settlement which might be arrived at. I welcome, therefore, the mingling of the

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United States in this business, but I welcome much more the announcement of her Majesty's gracious Speech. What are the words of her Majesty's gracious Speech?
"The Government of the United States have expressed a wish to co-operate in terminating differences."
I take that as an announcement that some negotiation is going on between her Majesty's Government and that of the United States, indirect, it may be, but none the less probably fruitful for that it leads to some hope of getting rid of these most troublesome questions. I think so. I feel sure of it; because I am certain that her Majesty would not have been made to use that language simply with reference to the Message of President Cleveland. Something must have occurred since the Message of President Cleveland. Something is evidently going on, or has gone on, and I for one will not be unduly optimistic in hoping that Her Majesty's Government may have some announcement to make about it even this very evening. I rejoice at this, because both parties had got into an impasse. On the one side the noble Marquess had refused arbitration except under limitations which Venezuela could not accept; and on the other side, the language of President Cleveland's Message, it must be admitted, was not calculated to produce any concession on our part of a direct or tangible kind. We, therefore, as diplomacy, had to extricate the two representative executive officials of the two countries from a position of such extreme difficulty that it did not appear they could be extricated, either of themselves or by themselves, without some loss of dignity. And, my Lords, although there are many obvious diplomatic methods by which this might have been effected, I at any rate was not able to perceive that any of them were being approached. It is, therefore, with unfeigned joy that I welcome the assurance in the gracious Speech. Out of most evil there comes a certain amount of good, and we may at any rate welcome two things as the outcome of this difficulty with the United States. The first is the unbounded expression of the loyalty of Canada [cheers], which would have been the colony most affected had our
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difficulty with the United States reached an acute stage; and in the second place, I at any rate welcome heartily, and in the most ungrudging spirit of delight, the movement that has set in, in a serious spirit, on both sides of the Atlantic for some form of permanent machinery of arbitration which shall enable either nation, in regard to questions which can be so referred without loss of dignity or impairment of its sovereign rights, to refer to that method of terminating our difficulties. I now come to the last topic of which I shall speak, and it is a tragic topic. I cannot but compare the glowing paragraphs which are set forth in other parts of the gracious Speech with the curt and cold paragraph which deals with Armenia. My Lords, I hope that on that subject also we shall receive more copious information before the Session is very much advanced. At present we know little, except that massacre and rape and robbery have run almost uncontrolled in some of what Lord Beaconsfield used to call "the fairest regions of the world" throughout the greater part of the Recess; and in that time of discouragement to all who are interested in the fate of Christianity and the future of the populations of the East, we have had nothing to live upon but the words of the Prime Minister. My Lords, what were those words? He has delivered four remarkable speeches on this subject. The first speech was in this House in August last, when we listened to a declaration so grave, that I venture to say it has hardly a parallel in the history of this country, except when it has been followed up by war. I venture to say that no one who heard the noble Lord's remarks about the character of the dominions of the Sultan of Turkey can have failed to believe that those words were in the nature of a menace which would soon be followed up by action. Well, we waited for that action till the month of November, and then, at the Guildhall, we were treated to a speech before which the followers and newspapers of the noble Lord fell down in ecstasy, because it contained language, I think, if possible, more menacing than the previous speech, and assured us—of which we stood sadly in need—that the Concert of Europe was practically complete. Then it was followed up almost

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immediately after, not by action, indeed, but by another speech, this time at Brighton, and there the Prime Minister took the unusual course of reading a communication that he had received from the Sultan of Turkey himself, which he treated, if I may so speak, with cold derision, but which contained an invitation to the noble Marquess to follow up his former speech with another speech which would be more agreeable to the Sultan—an invitation with which the noble Marquess has since complied. My Lords, during these speeches every friend of Armenia and the suffering Armenians themselves looked up with hope and with belief to her Majesty's Government and the action that they were presumably about to take. But when we came to the action that was being really taken, when we endeavoured to trace the course of the negotiations which were to regulate the internal affairs of Asia Minor and save a population from the grossest cruelty and wickedest massacres in record, all that we could find was that her Majesty's Government, in concert, presumably, with the rest of Europe, were maintaining that Concert unimpaired by negotiating—for what? For autonomy for Armenia? For some guarantee that Armenia should not be harried and plundered? For the dispatch of some mission to see that the reforms which had been promised were being carried out? No; for none of these superfluous things, but for the supply of an additional dispatch-boat for the service of her Majesty's Embassy at the Porte. That negotiation, which was promising on the day it appeared, when it was supported by the unimpaired Concert of Europe, was in the first place futile The noble Marquess sent up his dispatch-boat, but in a spirit of edifying humility, in the spirit of a Christian Statesman, not unworthy of the representative of a great Christian Power, he withdrew that dispatch-boat on finding that it was not acceptable to his Majesty the Sultan. Now, that is the diplomatic history, so far as the public know it, of the transactions relative to Armenia under the auspices of her Majesty's Government. I do not doubt that those noble Lords who sit over there (pointing to the Benches behind Ministers) and who have graciously overflowed over here to fill our sparse Benches—I do not doubt that
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they feel a pride in the proceedings of the Government, a chastened and subdued pride, but still a pride in the position of the Government, at whose approach, in the language of the Under Foreign Secretary, every foreign difficulty subsided as if by magic. [A laugh.] I confess I do not share that pride, but I do feel the most unbounded and the most legitimate pride in the proceedings and the attitude of what has been called her Majesty's Opposition. When the stress on Christian England at the narrative of these horrors was so great that in the stricken silence which prevailed it seemed as if you could almost hear the beating of the nation's heart—when a thrill went through this country I think unparalleled since the time of the atrocities that were committed in Bulgaria, it was easy, it was tempting, if not for the leaders of the Party, at any rate for the rank and file, to utilise so obvious and so glorious an opportunity of denouncing this spirited, this omnipotent, this great Government. We remained quiet. We remained silent, and we remained silent for this simple reason—that we would not by a word or gesture of ours diminish or impair in the slightest degree the voice of Great Britain when, as we believed, she was demanding justice and mercy for the suffering populations of the East. [Cheers.] We also clung to the hope that, if we abstained from criticism, these brave words would be followed by brave deeds; and I, at any rate, always remained under the impression that if Her Majesty's Government had not been able to do more, it was because they had to choose between the alternatives of redressing the wrongs of Armenia and facing a European war. We remained under that belief till the speech which was delivered to the Tory Nonconformists by the noble Marquess the other day. The speech was worthy of the occasion and of the audience. Let us recall what were the genesis and the circumstances of that speech. At Brighton the noble Marquess, as I have narrated, had read a message from the Sultan inviting the noble Marquess to correct his speeches, so offensive to the Sultan, by a speech more agreeable to that potentate. The noble Marquess derided that request, and I certainly did not expect that he would so readily comply with it. But we now

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understand that the speech he delivered on that occasion has been—and I am not surprised to hear it—highly agreeable to his Imperial Majesty, and that, while previous speeches of the noble Marquess have been forbidden introduction into Turkey, this later speech has been circulated broadcast. [Laughter.] Whatever action we might have anticipated from the language of the noble Marquess, we would never have expected so ready, encouraging, and generous a compliance with the request of the Sultan. There are three deductions which we must draw from that remarkable speech. In the first place we must come to the melancholy conclusion that the noble Marquess is forced to abandon the cause of the Armenians—that, having set his hand to the plough, having made the speeches that we wot of, he has been compelled to turn back. The second inference which we are obliged to draw is this—that when the noble Marquess said, and said I have no doubt with perfect accuracy, that the Concert of Europe was complete, the inference which we drew from that statement was incorrect; and, while we hoped and believed that the Concert of Europe was directed under the inspiration of the Prime Minister for putting compulsion on the Sultan, it was in reality a Concert directed under the inspiration of the Sultan for putting constraint upon the Prime Minister. [Cheers.] And the third and most amazing deduction which we can make from that speech is this—that we were informed that Article 61 of the Berlin Treaty and the Cyprus Convention, on which we have been accustomed hitherto to base our surest hopes for the enfranchisement of the Christian populations of the East, were after all a delusion and a snare. The noble Marquess said that these were not compulsory stipulations. They were merely optional promises.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Will the noble Earl quote my words.
THE Earl OF ROSEBERYwas searching for the extract, when
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, I said there was no promise.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: I will take that word, for it is quite enough. It is always wearisome reading extracts, and I will not do the noble Marquess the bad turn of reading his speeches to
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him as he often reads mine to me. But if there was no promise or guarantee it is enough to make some of us open our eyes. ["Hear, hear!"] The chief work of the noble Marquess at Berlin—if we may trust the protocols of the Conference there—was to raise his voice on behalf of a guarantee for the Christian populations under the dominion of the Sultan. What was the very origin of the Conference at Berlin, but that we took over the obligations of the Treaty of San Stefano, which were, though obnoxious to us, efficient for the purpose for which they were designed—namely, that of protecting the Armenians from spoliation and plunder. We took over those obligations to ourselves and placed them in the hands of the Great Powers, as being a surer guarantee than the mere agency of Russia could provide. What more did we do? We made a separate convention with the Sultan which implied two principles on both sides—that we would defend the dominions of the Sultan in Asia Minor, if he on his part stipulated, as he did stipulate, to introduce good government into those provinces. I do not think that any of us who were present can have forgotten the sultry afternoon in July, 1878, when the noble Marquess and his colleague came down to a House unparalleled in crowd and brilliancy to deliver an account of their stewardship. We all remember the emphasis which they then laid upon the efforts they had made to procure good government in the East. At the continual banquets in which the noble Marquess and his colleague lived the next few weeks we had these assurances constantly repeated. I remember one of the expressions of Lord Beaconsfield, in which he stated that the main effect of the operations at Berlin would be that peace and order and good government would be seen in those regions of Asia Minor to which those angelic visitants had been hitherto too much strangers. And on another occasion he drew a contrast between the promises given by the Sultan at the Treaty of Paris for the better government of those provinces and the stipulations which he had included—a contrast, I need not say, very much to the advantage of the latter. Those, he said contained a distinct stipulation on behalf of the Sultan which he could not

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break, and which involved also our rights and privileges of interference. Some of the perorations of that day went a great deal further than those of the noble Marquess and the noble Earl. I remember Lord Harrowby promising that by the time the policy of Her Majesty's Government had reached its ripe fruition, the steam plough would be doing its beneficent work in Asia Minor. The Kurd is the steam-plough in Asia Minor at the present moment ["Hear, hear!"]; and as far as we can judge at the present there is not one vestige left, in the speech of the noble Marquess to the Nonconformists who assembled round him the other day, of all the promises and of all the policy relating to the Christians of Asia Minor, which the noble Marquess and the Earl of Beaconsfield brought back from Berlin. ["Hear, hear!"] We know what the result of that was. We know that it was "Peace with honour." We remember that there were a series of ovations such as have never before occurred in the annals of Great Britain in honour of the distinguished statesmen who brought back to us security for the Christian peoples of the East. Skip eighteen years, and what becomes of that policy? We are now face to face with the declaration of the noble Marquess that it is open to the Sultan apparently to make the promises and to keep the promises or to disregard the promises as he may like; "and," says the noble Marquess,
If the Sultan does not keep his promises, what means have we to force him? We are a naval and not a military Power. We cannot plant a fleet in the centre of Asia Minor."
No one said you could. But if this is so, if your means are so inadequate, why did you make the convention to protect those frontiers, why did you take the solemn and separate responsibility of the Cyprus Convention for the condition of the suffering Christians in the East? [Cheers.] We are now to understand that your means are not equal to it. Was it that your means in 1878 were greater than they are now? You know that they are now twice as great, and you are proposing to increase them incalculably. Why did not you explain to us in 1878, that these stipulations on which we foolishly laid so much stress
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and in which we placed so much faith, were nothing but a delusion and a snare? ["Hear, hear!"] The bubble is burst. By a strange irony of fortune it devolves on the noble Marquess, who partly blew that bubble then, to prick that bubble to-day. [Cheers.] I do not envy the noble Marquess his position. This is where we stand as the result of "Peace with honour"—in an elaborate impotence, elaborately declared. [Hear, hear!"] I do not know what have been the obstacles that have reduced us to this humiliating position. I cannot believe, and there are millions and millions of my fellow-countrymen who cannot believe, that all has been done that might have been done. We do not live in an age of crusades. The inspiration and perhaps the faith which impelled embattled Christendom to rescue the Cross from the dominion of the Crescent are not present in these days. But between the chivalrous exaltation and the position of apathy, and, I will add, of degradation, in which we now find in reference to the Christian populations of the Sultan there is a wide abyss. I cannot but believe that between these two extremest points some middle course might have been found, and that we might have been spared a page in our history to which we shall never look back without compunction—the humiliation of seeing these Christians whom we were pledged to protect, massacred and plundered and harried under the sublime gaze and countenance of the European Concert, complete in itself, and directed by one of the authors of the Treaty of Berlin. [Cheers.]
THE PRIME MINISTER (The MARQUESS of SALISBURY),who was received with loud cheers, said: My first duty is to thank my two noble Friends, who have moved and seconded this Address, for the manner in which they have dealt with the topics of the Speech. It was to me a great satisfaction to receive the support of my noble Friend Lord Stanmore, because his recollection and his experience went back to the commencement of all these troubles and to the opening of the Crimean war, with which our later relation with the Eastern question began, and from which all our difficulties flowed. I was glad to hear from him that he appreciated, as

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I was sure he would do, that no sympathy with the sorrows of our Christian fellow-countrymen in the East would justify us in facing troubles, calamities, and slaughters compared to which the Crimean war, that he can well remember, would be a trifle. ["Hear, hear!"] My Lords, I cannot pass to the subjects of the Speech without echoing the graceful and eloquent words which have been uttered both by my noble Friends behind me and the noble Earl opposite in reference to the Prince—the volunteer Prince whose fate we have to deplore. The noble Lord seemed, while doing full justice to the lofty and amiable character of the Prince, to throw some blame upon the Government that had allowed him for so inadequate a cause to throw so valuable a life away. I do not know whether we were to blame or not. It would have been a very strong measure to have interfered with an absolute prohibition. The Prince himself was most earnest and anxious to go, and many were the resistances which it may well be believed he had to overbear before his expedition was undertaken. But he felt it to be a sort of reproach to himself to live in comparative inactivity in this busy community, and not to show by some act and some sacrifice the devotion which he felt to his Sovereign and to the country by which he had been so heartily adopted. It was a noble aspiration on his part; and, terrible as we have felt the calamity in which it issued, I cannot blame myself that that aspiration was not repelled by us. It was fated that his desire to show his devotion to his country and, it may be, to win some distinction in her service was baffled by events. But still the sacrifice has not been in vain. ["Hear, hear!"] The example of great unselfishness and renunciation speaks to millions of hearts; and the model he has held up will, I hope, influence English character for long, and in any case which has justified that high esteem, and will justify through long years that remembrance and that high esteem which the noble Earl opposite justly said has been felt for him by all who knew him, and most deeply by those who loved him best, and which has drawn forth an affecting and, if we may use the word, gratifying tribute of sympathy and admiration from the country whose adopted son he had become.
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["Hear, hear!"] My Lords, the comments of the noble Lord were almost confined, so far as they had body or solidity in them, to the Foreign Office paragraphs of the Speech. I shall not attempt to follow him in his challenge of Mr. Chamberlain. It struck me as rather odd that that was not reserved for another place, where, perhaps, it might have been more fully and adequately met. But I observe that the noble Lord dealt in the early part of his speech mostly with the Foreign Office, as it was represented by the speeches of my right hon. friend Mr. Curzon. I think it is very possible that in the other House my speeches are being thrown at this moment in Mr. Curzon's face: and I would suggest as an alteration, for the purposes of convenience, that it would be better to quote the speeches of a man in the House in which he sits. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] I could not reduce to any tangible form the indictment which the noble Lord evidently desired to bring against Mr. Chamberlain. One objection, as I understood, was that he invited Mr. Kruger to this country and first let him know of that invitation through the columns of a newspaper.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: I said he could not have done so.
THE PRIME MINISTER: I suppose that means that he did. [Laughter.] As a matter of fact, of course, Mr. Kruger was made acquainted with the desire of Her Majesty's Government a considerable time before it was alluded to in the newspapers. ["Hear, hear!"] I do not know what Mr. Kruger's intentions are—I do not think any of us do; but there certainly has been no action shown towards him at all inconsistent with the very profound respect and appreciation which recent events, apart from all differences of opinion, have caused us to feel for that distinguished potentate. ["Hear, hear!"] I do not remember any other portion of the noble Lord's criticism on the Transvaal which it is necessary for me to deal with. I cannot, of course, clear Mr. Chamberlain from the imputation that he has been very much praised in the newspapers. [Laughter.] But I do not see how, unless we suppressed the newspapers, we could prevent that unfortunate occurrence. [Laughter.] Of course, if we knew it affected the

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feelings of the noble Lord so severely, we might have tried to induce them to dilute and diminish their appreciation. [Laughter.] But when I come to the Foreign Office matters, on which the noble Lord was more distinct, the first I must deal with is the Treaty of Siam. The noble Lord had told us we had sacrificed some very important things. Amongst others, he made out two bits of territory we had sacrificed instead of one. I think that is a geographical error on his part. There has been nothing given up but this minute portion of Mongsin, which in past times paid tribute to Burma, Siam, and China, and which therefore the French Government claimed as confidently as we. Of course we held that they were absolutely wrong.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: It is the noble Marquess that is making a geographical mistake. [Laughter.]
THE PRIME MINISTER: We will wait until we get to maps. [Laughter.] But when the noble Lord tells me that the treaty has been concluded in defiance of the wishes of the local authorities, I can only say it has been concluded in entire accordance with the recommendations and wishes of the Government of India. It was the wishes and recommendations of the Government of India that largely induced us to conclude this treaty. The danger I wish to guard against—and I hope I can do so without, indiscretion—is, I think, very obvious. However anxious the French Government may be to remain, at peace, however laudable their conduct may be, there was always a possibility, and more than a possibility, that in their relations with Siam causes of difference would arise, and if those causes of difference had matured in the conflict, and the danger had arisen of the disappearance of the kingdom of Siam, a very formidable question would have been placed before this country. I should not have thought that the noble Lord, after his experience of the difficulties attaching to the Siamese negotiations, would have been inclined to treat with contempt that apprehension which it was legitimate to fee1 with respect to the future of that kingdom. At all events whatever those apprehensions were, in my judgment they were much more serious than they appear to have been in the mind of the
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noble Lord. Whatever those apprehensions were, they are now at an end, because, by the agreement of the two Powers most interested in the matter, the integral and essential portion, and the most prosperous and fruitful portion, of the Siam kingdom is protected against all possibility of attack. I believe that has removed all chance of serious difference in the future with a great European Power, and in the present state of the world I do not think that it is otherwise than a matter of congratulation. Of course I am quite ready to admit, with my noble Friend behind me, that the treaty is not one in regard to which either Power can at all in any way triumph over the other. On the contrary, I think it is a treaty which both Powers have a right to rejoice in, because it will reserve to each all the rights and privileges to which they have any claim, and at the same time add additional security to their possession and harmonious existence in the future. ["Hear, hear!"] My Lords, the next point with which the noble Lord dealt was the question of Venezuela. I concur with him that from some points of view the mixture of the United States in this matter may conduce to results which will be satisfactory to us more rapidly than if the United States had not interfered. ["Hear, hear!"] I do think the bringing in of the Monroe doctrine was, controversially, quite unnecessary for the United States. Considering the position of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea, it was no more unnatural that the United States should take an interest in it than that we should feel an interest in Holland and Belgium. And from that point of view I think the negotiations may very well go on. I do not like to go far into the question the noble Lord has asked as to the state of the negotiations between the two countries; it is quite obvious that that is a question on which it is not desirable to dilate; but I have derived an increasing belief during the last few weeks that we shall—it may be, indeed, after long negotiation—find some settlement of the question which we shall think satisfactory, and that all danger of any conflict between two nations who have so many causes for wishing to be at peace will be entirely removed. [Cheers.] At the same time,

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I must not induce the House to think that we have as yet arrived at any agreement. The difficulty, I think, really lies upon the question of arbitration. The United States attach a more unrestricted value to that mode of adjusting a controversy than has hitherto been done in this country. The noble Lord himself stated, with great point and justice, that any proposal which, at the will of an arbitrator, might hand 40,000 British subjects over to the Republic of Venezuela could not be accepted in this country. But I believe that means may be found by the combination of negotiation and arbitration to bring matters which are not really very recondite or difficult to a settlement. The great obstacle in the way of a settlement has been the extravagant claims which Venezuela put forward when it treated the whole country as far as the Essequibo as being country liable to be claimed, and its conduct, which was not in accordance with that usually pursued among nations, when, because it could not obtain the precise arrangement which it desired, it broke off relations with us ten years ago. But for that conduct on the part of Venezuela I believe the difficulty would have been solved long ago. I quite appreciate the observation made by the noble Lord to the effect that the development of the desire to use arbitration in international disputes on both sides of the water is a matter to be looked upon with satisfaction. ["Hear, hear!"] The unrestricted use of arbitration, of arbitration not restricted as to the subject-matter and as to conditions, is what I believe it is impossible two nations can adopt; but between the extreme position of those who imagine everything can be subjected to arbitration and the former practice, which, perhaps, used arbitration too little, I fully believe a middle term may be found which will effectually diminish the chance of conflict or difference of opinion between two nations. [Cheers.] Now, as to Armenia, the noble Lord gave us a very warm and spirited denunciation, and if it had rested upon the slightest basis of fact it would have been a formidable attack. But the noble Lord read into treaties provisions which they do not contain, and he attributed to me threats and menaces which I have never uttered. I only ask that the treaties into which we
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have entered and the speeches we have made may be construed according to the ordinary laws applied to the English language; we wish them to be interpreted as any other documents in business would be. I will defy you to find in any treaty we have signed a promise to go to war with the Sultan unless he governs his territories better; I defy you to find a single statement which will bear that interpretation; I defy you to find in any speech of mine any threat that England herself would go to war with the Sultan unless he governed better. I have read over again the speeches to which the noble Lord referred. He speaks of menaces and threats, and so forth. There were warnings of what would happen if the Sultan disregarded the opinion of Europe. If you give a warning of a danger you do not say that that danger will happen within two months or within six months. I am not so good a prophet as that I can tell precisely when the warning I have uttered with respect to the Sultan will be fulfilled. I am perfectly prepared to utter again, and now from my present standpoint, all I have said in the speeches the noble Lord referred to. I do think the Sultan is running very great danger if he places himself in that position that the principal cause of his Empire being sustained is fear of the consequences that may happen if that Empire disappears. He is not covered by the common right of Europe in the way that other nations are; and if the opinion of the European Powers was altered by the events which take place under his government, nothing could save his Empire from destruction. I never said, and I do not say now, that that will happen immediately. I am inclined to think the European Powers will put off such a catastrophe as far as they can; but I am sure that, if the system of government which has gone on during the last few years is indefinitely continued, the catastrophe cannot be indefinitely delayed. When the noble Lord taunts us with not having asked for autonomy for Armenia, when he taunts us with not having imitated the chivalrous sentiments of old, what was he doing in May last, when, it was his business to take notice of these things and to make propositions to the Porte? Did he propose autonomy for Armenia?

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Did he propose any external guarantee for securing that the reforms asked for should be carried out? Did he give a hint of the application of force and of going to war with the Sultan if the demands of England were not conceded? My complaint of the policy of the noble Lord is that in May last, when he demanded reforms, in conjunction with France and Russia, he took no pains whatever to ascertain how far France and Russia were prepared to go.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: We knew quite well.
THE PRIME MINISTER: That they were not prepared to go?
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: We knew how far they were prepared to go.
THE PRIME MINISTER: If you did, your course is more inexplicable still. I ventured at Bradford to warn the Government that, if they raised this question without the power of immediately settling it by force they were running enormous risk of raising the of passions of creed and race, they were running the risk of putting it into the mind of the Turkish populace that if they could only get rid of these Christians we should have peace. The reforms were asked for as the noble Lord said he knew how far France and Russia were prepared to go; and, therefore, the reforms for a long time were not granted. The discussion went on for five months, and during that time the bitter feelings of the dominant race—so easily excited in every dominant race, and especially so in the case of Mahomedans—were excited; they felt that their supremacy was about to be overthrown, and that those whom they had governed were about to govern them; that feeling grew and strengthened, and resulted in the frightful tragedies which we have witnessed and deplore. But do not compare the question of reforms with the question of suppressing the civil war that broke out. These reforms were good reforms, but I do not think they were of very great importance, because similar reforms have been granted in Crete during the last 15 years and have produced no result. Still, as far as they went, they were good reforms, and it was desirable they should be carried out; but it was ridiculous to suppose they would suppress a civil war of their own force. Nothing could suppress a
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civil war, as I said before and I repeat, except a military occupation—a military occupation it was not in the power of England to carry out. When the noble Lord reads the papers to-morrow he will at once see that the other Powers of Europe were by no means inclined either to encourrge or to help or to tolerate a military occupation on our part. Russia has stated, in the clearest terms, that the Emperor objects and has the strongest repugnance to the use of force on the part of Russia, and an equally strong repugnance to the use of force on the part of any other Power. In order, therefore, to satisfy the demands of the noble Lord we should have had, in the first instance, to undertake a military occupation without the military power of doing so. In the second place, we should have had to push that military occupation against some 300,000 Turkish soldiers. In the third place, we should have had to meet the danger, I do not wish to define more closely, involved in the disapproval of the European Powers, The noble Lord speaks lightly of a war with the Sultan in these matters. He imagines that because we took an engagement from the Sultan, under the Cyprus Convention, that he would introduce reforms, and that because, under the Berlin Treaty, we agreed with the European Powers that we would preserve a surveillance over the reforms—he imagines that an engagement of that kind can pledge us to a desperate war in which the Christians would probably have been massacred, the Ottoman dominion would certainly have been swept away, and Europe would have been plunged in a calamitous war. Undertakings made by nations are more gravely meditated than that; they are not to be inferred by the casual interpretation of words which will not bear the meaning put upon them, but on which a meaning has been imposed by partisan or enthusiastic commentators. It is not the meaning the treaties contain if you examine them as you would examine any other business document—and no statesman has ever threatened that England would incur such a danger or was bound to do it for the cause she had undertaken. My Lords, I entirely repudiate the idea that we have abandoned the Armenians, or that the conduct of Europe will be no advantage

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to the Christians of the Turkish Empire. Such a doctrine implies that nothing but cannon and sword can have any effect, that the pressure of influence and the use of persuasion are weapons which have disappeared from the armoury of mankind. Nothing else, in my belief, but the use of such weapons was contemplated by the 61st Article of the Treaty of Berlin, and it is certainly true that the Powers of Europe, even those most inclined to physical interference, have by no means abandoned the hope that by pressure of every kind the good government of Asia Minor may be obtained. They have expressed quite recently that hope in the very clearest terms. They entertain the belief—I do not subscribe to it—that if time is given to the Sultan this improvement will be the result. I hope it may, but I will not venture to prophecy. Things have, I think, considerably improved during the last four weeks on what they were before. But depend upon it, however slow that process may be, however disappointing from time to time, it is the only process by which the object you have in view can be obtained. It is idle to threaten when you know you cannot perform. It is idle to threaten the use of warlike means when they cannot be applied. But we may be certain that if you will once remove from the eyes of the great Powers the threat you are now pursuing, and abstain from recommending a policy which will bring a cataclysm of war on Europe, that they, on their part, will give you their utmost assistance in obtaining by less bellicose means the improvement of the administration of law and justice, and the maintenance of peace and security which is what the Christians need. The great obstacle with which we have had to contend has been the belief the European Powers have entertained, in consequence of what has been said, in this country, that the destruction of the Ottoman Empire was our object. None have been willing to look without great apprehension upon that result. I hope we may induce the friends of the Armenians to consider more carefully the relations of the means they use to the end they have in view and to believe that every effort will be used by the representatives of the Great Powers, without the stimulus of violent denunciation and abuse in this country,
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and that the more such modes of controversy are abstained from the more steady will be the effort, the more likely the success, in the result, for the agents of the Powers, who are striving with as much earnestness as any here to restore peace and security to the dominions of the Sultan, to restore the well-being and welfare of the Christians, and by doing so to erect in the reform of the Ottoman Empire a bulwark against the dangers which they foresee from any destruction of present arrangements. My Lords, it is right we should try in this country to adopt one of two proceedings. Do not talk of one method and only practice the other. If the two Houses of Parliament, representing this country, have the belief that they can stake the whole of their military forces and force their way into the Black Sea, past all the obstacles that exist, and occupy the Sultan's dominions and produce an autonomous Armenia, or forcibly destroy the Kurds, or restore by any other magician's wand the peace and security which in other nations only grows up through long generations as the result of constant effort—if you believe that, for Heaven's sake do it; but if you cannot, abstain from stimulating the passions which you cannot curb, and from alarming the allies by whose assistance any good results alone can be obtained. [Cheers.]
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLgave notice that at an early date, after their Lordships had had an opportunity of reading the papers on the subject, he would direct the attention of the House to the nature and extent of our national obligations with respect to Turkey, and venture on some recommendations as to the course which we ought to pursue in consequence. But before sitting down he wished to express his surprise at some of the remarks of his noble Friend Lord Kimberley. His noble Friend described in strong language the horrors perpetrated by the Turks, but said that during these horrors they had nothing to fall hack upon except the words of the Prime Minister. The noble Earl forgot that it was 17 months since these troubles began, and that the conduct of the British Government for 11 of these months was under Lord Rosebery and only the last seven under the present Prime Minister. While these horrors were going on why did not

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Lord Rosebery express his feelings about them? He did not recollect a single speech of the noble Earl in which he tried to rouse the feelings of his country as to the atrocities in Armenia. The noble Earl had been eloquent about the beating heart of England. He doubted whether the noble Earl was a highly emotional Statesman, and whether his heart beat quick and impulsively on hearing of outrages in distant parts of the globe. For Lord Kimberley he had not only the highest personal regard but respect for his abilities and knowledge, but he denied that he, either, was an emotional Statesman. It was now more than thirty years since he (the Duke of Argyll) brought this subject before the House of Lords, and he well remembered standing absolutely alone when he advocated the doctrine the noble Lord was now eloquent about—that England, owing to her transactions as well as treaties, was responsible to a large ex tent for the good government of the Turkish Empire. Lord Kimberley then opposed him, but he rejoiced to find him now moving in line with him. He had read the Blue-book which gave an account of the atrocities in Armenia down to the close of the late Government, and he was astonished at the coldness of feeling that ran through the noble Earl's Dispatches relating to them. What was more, the noble Earl seemed to have been very careless as to securing that Concert of Europe which was an essential weapon in our hands. In December, 1894, the Russian Minister communicated to him that the Russian Government were anxious to know what, when the Commission had reported, was to be done. He could find no answer on behalf of the late Government to that intimation, and, as far as he could find, the late Government did nothing to bring Russia into line or give Russia the assurance with respect to our ultimate objects in the East which the noble Marquess had referred to, and which ought to be given if we were to expect the hearty Concert of Europe. The noble Earl could tell him if he was mistaken in his reading of the Blue-book, and he should be glad to hear it. His strong impression was that a distinct unofficial intimation was given
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that they wished to come to an understanding about remedying these evils in the East, but the Government did nothing. With regard to the plan of reform, which he believed was to a large extent drawn up by his noble Friend or in concert with other Powers, it struck him as all very good but absolutely unworkable. If they had to deal with a Government that was thoroughly honest and desired to work with them it would be a different matter; but, knowing what the Government of Turkey was, to propose such a scheme as that as a remedy for these evils seemed to him quite futile. The noble Marquess at the head of the Government had very properly referred with gratification to the loyal support given him by the Mover of the Address, which support he was glad to have, as the noble Lord was intimate with the transactions of 1856. That was very true, and he had no doubt his noble Friend, being a son of Lord Aberdeen and in his entire confidence, knew as much as a man could of these transactions. He (the Duke of Argyll) happened to be the only Member of that Government now alive in that House. He took a great interest in the whole question, and had kept alive his acquaintance with it, and he desired in a short time to bring the whole of the question as it stood before their Lordships. He wished to explain that it was his object, so far as he could, to blame nobody. There had been a great many persons, Powers, and influences concerned in bringing them into their present positions. It had not been the course of conduct of one Government or another. His noble Friend had said something which he did not think he entirely intended. Referring to the events of 1854, he had said that those were the transactions out of which all the troubles had proceeded. He could not think that that was meant which the expression would convey, because of course their present troubles proceeded from the badness of the Turkish Government. He should put on the paper a notice to this effect:—
"On an early day to call attention to the nature and extent of our national obligations towards the Christian subjects of the Sultan of Turkey as arising out of the course and policy of

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successive Governments of the Queen in European transactions from 1854 to the present time."
Address agreed to nemine dissentiente, and ordered to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES.
The Earl of Morley—appointed, nemine dissentiente, to take the Chair in all Committees of this House for this Session.
STOPPAGES IN THE STREETS.
Order to prevent, renewed.

ALIEN IMMIGRATION.
Return of the Number of Aliens that arrived from the Continent at ports in the United Kingdom, in each month of the year 1896.
Ordered to be laid before the House.—(The Earl of Dudley.)—(No. 4.]

SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC.
(1.) Correspondence on the subject of the recent disturbances in the South African Republic; (2), Further papers relating to the grievances of Her Majesty's Indian subjects in the Smith African Republic (in continuation of [C.—7911], September 1895)—presented.
House adjourned at Eight o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.