Gladstone's Indictment.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3459, 26 January 1880, Page 2

Gladstone's Indictment.

The report of Mr Gladstone's first speech at Edinburgh occupies 8 columns of the Weekly Times, and was delivered in an hour and three quarters. The following is the text of the address: — Gentlemen, I have come into this country to repeat, with your permission, the indictment against Her Majesty's Government which I have to the best of my ability endeavored to make many times elsewhere. It is a very serious indictment. It is well in these things that men Bhould be held to the words they utter, should be made to leel that they are responsible for them; and, therefore, perhaps- you will allow me to read a sentence which I embodied in the letter written in reply to your most flattering and most obliging invitation 1. My sentence was this, —"The management of the finance, the scale of expenditure, the constantly growing arrears of legislation, serious as they are, only lead up to still greater questions. I hold before you, as I have held in the House of Commons, that the faith and honour of the country hare been graTely compromised by the foreign policy of the Ministry: that by the disturbance of confidence, and lately even of peace, which they have brought about, they have prolonged and aggravated the public distress; that they have augmented the power and influence of the Russian Empire, even while estranging the feelings of the population ; that they have embarked the Crown and people in an unjust war (the Afghaj^i^l.fn|f^jfmischief, if not^of"positive danger, to 'Inciia; and that by their use of the treaty-making and war-making powers of the Crown they have abridged the just rights of Parliament, and have presented prerogative to the nation under an unconstitutional aspect, which tends to make it insecure."

Not from one phrase, not from one syllable of that indictment do I recede. (Cheers and laughter.) If upon any part of it I do not seem to hare made good the original statement, most glad shall I be to attend to the legitimate appeal of those who may think fit to challenge me on 'the point, and so bring forward the matter, alas! only too abundant, by which every ' one of them can be substantiated before the world. (Cheera.) . „ These certainly are charges of the utmost gravity; but we are met with preliminary objections, and we are told—we are incessantly told—that there is no fault in the Government; that this is all a spirit of faction on the part of the Liberal party. I need not quote; for, gentlemen, you know very well that this is the stock and standing material of invective against us —all faction. The Government is perfectly innocent, but we are determined to blacken them oat by the selfish and unjust motives by which we are prompted. Now, that charge standing, as it does stand, in the stead of argument, and being found far more convenient to our opponents than a justification of their acts upon the merits, I wish to try it. I willnot, try it by retorting imputations of evil motives. I have already said what I think of them, and to no man will I impute a want of patriotism in his public policy. (Cheers.) It is a charge continually made against us. So far as I am concerned it never shall be made against our opponents. (Cheers.) But I am going to examine very shortly this charge of the spirit of faction on the part of the Liberal party. I don't condescend to deal with it by a mere counterassertion, by a mere statement that we are innocent of it, by a mere endeavor to excite you, as probably a Tory speaker would excite you, as a thousand Tory speakers have excited- their hearers, by drawing forth their uniform cheers through assertions of that kind. I will go to facts, and ask whether the facts of the case bear out or whether they do not absolutely confute the assertion ? (Hear, hear.) Now, the great question, gentlemen, of dispute between the two parties, and the question out of which almost every other question has grown collaterally, has been what is known as the Eastern Question. Now what I want to point out to you is this: the date at which the Eastern Question and the action of the Government upon the Eastern Question began, and the date at which the action of the Liberal party as a party on the Eastern Question began. The Eastern Question—that is, its recent phase and development—began in the summer of 1875, and immediately assumed great importance. In the winter of 1875 the Powers of Eurepe endeavoured to arrange for concerted action on the Eastern Question by what is called the Andrassy Note.. They first endeavoured to arrange for concerted action by their Consuls. The British Government said they objected on principle to any interference between the Sultan and bis subjects ; nevertheless, they were willing to allow their Consuls to act provided it was done in such a way as to show that interference was not contemplated. Then came the Andras3y Note.. The Government objected to it on principle, but finally agreed to it because the Turk wished them to afiree —that is to say, the Turk, with some considerable astuteness, saw it would be better to hare in the councils of Fuvope some Power upon which he could rely to prevent these councils coming to a practical effect rather than to leave * the Continental Powers to act alone. In the spring of 1876, the Andrassy note having been frustrated in its effect, not owing to the \ Government, which finally conourred in it, but owing to circumstances in Turkey, the Powers of Europe again endeavored to arrange for concerted action, and this pro. duced what they called the Berlin Memorandum. The British Government absolutely and flatly refused to support the Berlin Memorandum. We hare now arrived, gentlemen, at the end of the Session of 1876. Now mind, the charge is that the Liberal party has been cavilling at the foreign policy of the Government in a spirit of faction. What I point out to you is this—that down to the end of the year 1876, although the Government had been adopting measures of the utmost importance, in direct contradiction to the spirit and action of the rest of the powers of Europe, there was not one word of hostile comment from the Liberal party. (Cheers.) On the blst of July, 1876, at the very end of fhe Session, there was a debate in the House of Commons. In that debate I took a part. I did censure the conduct of the Governmen in refusing the Berlin Memorandum without suggesting some alternative to maintain the concert of Europe; and Lord Beaconsfield—l am going to show you the evidence on which I speak-—Lord Beaconsfield said, in replying to me in the debate, " that the right lion, gentleman," meaningmyielf, "is tb*only person who

assailed the policy of sthe Government." Now, I ask, how was it faction in the Liberal party to remain silent during these acts, and to extend their confidence to the Government in the affairs of the Turkish Empire, even when that Government was acting in contradiction to the whole spirit, I may say, of civilized mmkind—certainly in contradiction to the united proposals of the fire Great Powers of the Continent of Europe? (Cheers.) It is far more difficult, gentlemen—far more difficult—to justify the Liberal party upon the other side. Why did we allow the East to be thrown into confusion ? Why did we allow the concert of Europe to be broken up ? Why did we allow the Berlin Memorandum to be thrown behind the fire and no other measure put in its place P Why did w« allow that fatal progress of events to advance unchecked by us so far, even after the fields of Bulgaria had flowed with blood, and horrors—known and unknown—had ascended to heaven from that country? Why did we remaii silent for such a length of time? Gentlemen, that is not all. It is quite true that there was a refusal of the great human heart in this country, not in Parliament, but outside Parliament, to acquiesce in what was going on and to maintain the ignominious silence which we had maintained on the subject of the Bulgarian massacres in August and September, 1876. There was an outburst—an involuntary outburst, for the strain could no longer be borne—from the people of this country, in every part of the country, denouncing -ihese ua«saeresr^tt^4b«kjfii_not the action of the Liberal party. (Hear, hear.) It was admitted by the Govern* inent themselves to be the expression of the country—misled, as they said, but still the expression of the country. It, is true that it was said with reference to me that any man who made use of the susceptibilities of the country for the purpose of bringing himself back to office was worse than those who had perpetrated the Bulgarian massacres. (Laughter.) But that was a remark which hit only one insignificant individual, nor was he very deeply wounded by it. (Laughter,) But the Liberal party was not, as a party, in the field. The national feeling produced its effects. It produced the Conference of Constantinople. That was 18 months after the Eastern Question had been opened. Down to the Conference the Liberal party had taken no step for the purpose of prejudicing the action of the Government, and when LordSalisbury went to the Conference at Constantinople be went—l say it without fear of contradiction—carrying with him the goodwill, carrying with him the favorable auspices, carrying with him, I will even say,, the confidence of the Liberal party as to the result and tendency of his exertions. It was not until nearly two years, during that spring of 1877, not until the Government had been busy nearly two years on the Eastern question, that the Liberal party first began, somewhat feebly, to raise its voice in the House of Commons, and to > protest against the course that had been adopted—a course, as we thought, tending to bring about war and bloodshed and disturbance that might very well have been avoided. Well, now, gentlemen, I think I have shown you that it requires some audacity to charge with faction in this matter a party that maintained such a silence for tiro years, which was even willing to acquiesce in the rejection of the Berlin Memorandum, and which heartily accompanied with its goodwill and confidence Lord Salisbury when he went to the Conference at Constantinople. (Cheers.) I do not hesitate to say this —that when Lord Salisbury went to Constantinople, I believe with a perfectly upright and honest intention, he carried with him a great deal more confidence from the Liberal party than he carried with him from some among his own colleagues. (Cheers.)