# Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy, 1738-1914/The Aggrandizement of Russia

Given April 2, 1880 in West Calder
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE
April 2, 1880
THE AGGRANDIZEMENT OF RUSSIA
Now, I have charged at various times what I think an essential count in this indictment—that intelligence had been kept back from Parliament. Intelligence necessary to full understanding and to competent discussion has been withheld from Parliament at the very time of that discussion. I have shown various instances; I might show more. But I will name now only very briefly that remarkable case of the Afghan War. We were carried into that war, gentlemen, as you will recollect, without any previous notice or preparation. No papers had been laid upon the table to enable us to judge of the state of our relations with Afghanistan. Some suspicion had arisen, and a question had been put in the House of Lords; and the answer had been that there was no change of policy, or no sensible and serious change of policy towards Afghanistan intended. At that moment there were in possession of the Government—and for twelve months after—papers of the most vital consequence—what are called the conferences at Peshawur—opening up the whole case in every one of its aspects; and the Government, with these papers in their hands, kept them back for eighteen months, until they had hurried us into this deplorable, and, ​I must say, into this guilty war. The island of Cyprus was taken; responsibility of governing Asia Minor was assumed; a quasi-tenitoiial supremacy was asserted over Syria in common with the rest of Asia Minor, which was a matter with respect to which we knew very well that the jealousies of France were sure to be aroused; but we were called upon and compelled, gentlemen, to discuss that matter, I think, in the end of July, 1878, at the celebrated epoch of 'peace with honour'—we were called upon to discuss that matter in total ignorance that France had remonstrated, that France had complained; and the Government never let drop in the debate the slightest intimation or inkling that such was the case. We had to debate, we had to divide, we had to take the judgement of Parliament, in utter ignorance of the vital fact that great offence had been given to a faithful and a powerful ally by the steps taken by the Ministry; and it was only when the papers were laid, two or three months after, by the French Government, before the French Chamber, that we became aware of the fact that these papers were presented to us. How is it possible for any House of Commons to perform its duty if it consents to be treated in such a way,—if it consents not only to exercise every patience and forbearance, which must often be the case before intelligence can be produced, but if it consents to be dragged through the mire by being set to pronounce formal judgement upon national emergencies of the highest import, and to do that without the information necessary for a judgement; and when it is believed that information has been withheld, no notice whatever is taken of the fact, and perfect satisfaction is felt by the ​members of that majority whom you are now called upon to try?
Well, that is the withholding of information, gentlemen; but there has been even worse than that—worse, I am grieved to say it. I cannot help saying it without being in a condition to trace home the charge if this was thought needful, and I am very unwilling to fasten it upon any one without that full and demonstrative evidence which the case hardly admits of; but I will say this, that news—that intelligence—has been falsified to bewilder and mislead to their own peril and detriment the people of this country. You remember, gentlemen, what happened at the outbreak of the great war between France and Germany in 1870. At that time there existed for a few days a condition of things which produced in that case excitement of expectation as to the points upon which the quarrel turned; and you remember that a telegram was sent from Berlin to Paris, and was published in Paris, or rather, if I recollect aright, it was announced by a Minister in the Chamber, stating that the King of Prussia, as he was then, had insulted the ambassador of France by turning his back upon him in a garden, where they had met, and refusing to communicate with him. The consequence was an immense exasperation in France; and the telegram, which afterwards proved to be totally and absolutely false, was a necessary instrument for working up the minds of the French people to a state in which some of them desired, and the rest were willing to tolerate, what proved to be a most disastrous war. That war never was desired by the French nation at large, but by false intelligence heat was thrown ​into the atmosphere, party feeling and national feeling to a certain extent were excited, and it became practicable to drag the whole nation into the responsibility of the war. I remember well at that time what passed through my mind. I thought how thankful we ought to be that the use of methods so perilous, and so abominable—for the word is not too strong—never could be known in our happy country. Yes, gentlemen; but since that time it has been known in our happy country. Since that time false telegrams about the entry of the Russian army into Constantinople have been sent home to disturb, and paralyse, and reverse the deliberations of Parliament, and have actually stopped these deliberations, and led experienced statesmen to withhold their action because of this intelligence, which was afterwards, and shortly afterwards, shown to be wholly without ground. Who invented that false intelligence I do not know, and I do not say. All I say is, that it was sent from Constantinople. It was telegraphed in the usual manner; it was published in the usual manner; it was available for a certain purpose. I can no more say who invented it than I can say who invented the telegram that came to Paris about the King of Prussia and the French ambassador; but the intelligence came, and it was false intelligence.
That was not the only, nor was it the most important case. You remember—I am now carrying your recollections back to the time of the outbreak of the war with Afghanistan, and if you recollect the circumstances of that outbreak, at the most critical moment we were told that the Ameer of Afghanistan had refused to receive a British ​Mission with insult and with outrage, and that insult and outrage were represented as at once enlisting our honour and reputation in the case, as making it necessary to administer immediate chastisement. I do not hesitate to express my full belief that without that statement the war with Afghanistan would not have been made, would not have been tolerated by the country; but it was difficult, considering the nature of our Indian Empire, considering how it is dependent upon opinion in Asia, and upon the repute of strength, it was difficult to interfere strongly indeed,—Parliament was not sitting—but it was difficult even by opinion out of doors strongly to protest against military measures taken in a case where the authority of the Crown had been insulted, and outrage committed upon it by the Ameer of Afghanistan. That intelligence was sent. We were never undeceived about it until we were completely committed to the war, and until our troops were in the country. The Parliament met; after long and most unjustifiable delays the papers were produced, and when the papers were produced and carefully examined, we found that there was not a shred of foundation for that outrageous statement, and that the temper and pride of the people of this country had been wrought up, and the spirit of wrath fomented and kindled in their bosoms, by intelligence that was false intelligence, and that somebody or other—somebody or other having access to high quarters, if not dwelling in them—had invented, had fabricated for the evil purpose of carrying us into bloody strife.
All these are among the acts which I am sorry to say it is my business to charge upon the majority ​of the late Parliament, and upon every member of that majority; and all these are the acts which those who are invited to vote or who intend to vote for my noble opponent—whatever may be his personal claims, all these are the acts, the responsibility of which they are now invited to take upon themselves, and the repetition of which, by giving that vote, they will directly encourage.
The next charge is the charge of broken laws. We have contended—it is impossible to trouble you with argument—but we have contended, and I think we have demonstrated, in the House of Commons, sustained by a great array of legal strength and bearing, that in making that war in Afghanistan, the Government of this country absolutely broke the laws which regulate the Government of India. I do not say they admit it; on the contrary, they deny it. But we have argued it; we believe, we think we have shown it. It is a very grave and serious question; but this much, I think, is plain, that unless our construction of that Indian Government Act, which limits the power of the Crown as to the employment of the Indian forces at the cost of the Indian revenue without the consent of Parliament—unless our construction of that Act be true, the restraining clauses of that Act are absolutely worthless, and the people who passed those restraining clauses, and who most carefully considered them at the time, must have been people entirely unequal to their business; although two persons—I won't speak of myself, who had much to do with them, but two persons who next to myself were most concerned, were the present and the late Lord Derby, neither of them persons very likely to go to work upon a subject of that kind ​without taking care that what their hand did was done effectually.
Now besides the honour, if it be an honour, of broken laws, the Government has the honour of broken treaties. When I discussed the case of broken laws, I told you fairly that the Government denied the breaking of the laws, and make their own argument to show—I suppose they think they show—that they did not break the laws. But when I pass to the next head, of the broken treaties, the case is different, especially in one of the most material points, which I will state in a few words, but clearly. The first case which we consider to be that of a distinctly broken treaty is that of sending the warships of England through the Dardanelles without the consent of the Sultan of Turkey. We believe that to be a clear breach of the Treaty of Paris. But that also, if I remember aright, was argued on both sides, and, therefore, I pass on from it, and I charge another breach of the Treaty of Paris. That famous Anglo-Turkish Convention, which gave to you the inestimable privilege of being responsible for the government of the island of Cyprus without deriving from it any possible advantage; that famous Anglo-Turkish Convention, which invested us with the right of interference, and caused us to interfere both as to the integrity and as to the independence of the Sultan by our own sole act; that Anglo-Turkish Convention was a direct and an absolute breach of the Treaty of Paris, which, bearing as it did the signature of England, as well as the rest of the Powers, declared that no one of these Powers should of themselves interfere in any matter of the integrity or independence of Turkey without the ​consent of the rest. And here I must tell you that I never heard from the Government, or any friend of the Government, the slightest attempt to defend that gross act of lawlessness, that unpardonable breach of international law, which is the highest sanction of the rights of nations and of the peace of Europe.
It is not, however, in matters of law only. We have been busy in alienating the sympathies of free peoples. The free Slavonic peoples of the East of Europe—the people of Roumania, the people of Montenegro, the people of Servia, the people of Bulgaria—each and all of these have been painfully taught in these last few years to look upon the free institutions of this country as being for them a dream, as being, perhaps, for the enjoyment of this country, but not as availing to animate a nation with a generous desire to extend to others the blessings they enjoyed themselves. In other times—it was so when Mr. Canning was the Minister of this country, when Lord Palmerston was the Minister of this country, when Lord Clarendon was the Minister of this country at the Foreign Office—it was well known that England, while regardful of her own just interests, and while measuring on every occasion her strength and her responsibility, yet was willing to use and willing to find opportunities for giving cordial aid and sympathy to freedom; and by aid and sympathy many a nation has been raised to its present position of free independence, which, without that sympathy, would probably never have attained to such a height in the order of civilization. The sympathies of free people ought to be a dear and precious object of our ambition. Ambition may be a questionable ​quality; if you give a certain meaning to the phrase, it ill comports with the Christian law. But there is one sense in which ambition will never mislead men; that is the ambition to be good, and the ambition to do good in relieving from evil those who are grievously suffering, and who have not deserved the evils they endure; that is the ambition which every British statesman ought to cherish. But, as I have said, for the last two years especially—and even for more than two years—more or less, I think, during the whole active period of the foreign policy of the Beaconsfield Administration—the sympathies of these now free peoples of the East have been constantly more and more alienated; and except, perhaps, in a single case which I am glad to cling—to the single and isolated case of Eastern Roumelia—except this case, the whole strength of England, as far as they have been conversant with it, has been exercised for the purpose of opposing their best interests.
Well, gentlemen, while free peoples have been alienated, a despotic Power has been aggrandized through our direct agency. We have more than any other Power of Europe contributed to the direct aggrandizement of Russia and to its territorial extension. And how? Not by following the counsels of the Liberal party. The counsels of the Liberal party were the concert of Europe—the authoritative declaration of the will of Europe to Turkey. Had that authoritative declaration been made, we believe that it would have been enforced without the shedding of a drop of blood. But even suppose there had been bloodshed—I am not now speaking of that, I deem it too absurd a supposition; but suppose that force had required to be ​used, that force would not have given to Russia, or to any other Power, a claim to territorial extension. We chose to cast upon her the responsibility; and she, making great exertions and great sacrifices of blood and treasure, advanced this claim to territory, the consequence of which is that she has received by that a great access of military reputation, and likewise an enlargement of her borders, which we have been the main agents in bringing about.
Now I think I anticipate your feelings when I say that although we, and all of us, say that the rights of a Power, the rights of a nation, ought not to be invaded because it happens to have the misfortune of a despotic Government, yet none of us would wish that the agency of England should be gratuitously and wantonly employed in extending the limits of that despotism, and causing it to exercise its power where that power had not before prevailed. In truth, as you know, the case is even more gross than I have supposed it, because the most important case of this extension was that in which a portion of Bessarabia was handed back to Russia. That portion of Bessarabia had been under free institutions—perfectly free representative institutions. It was handed back to Russia, and placed under despotic institutions, and it was so handed back under an arrangement made between Lord Salisbury, the Minister of England, and Count Schouvaloff, the Minister of Russia. They agreed beforehand that this should be done at the Congress at Berlin, with this reservation—Lord Salisbury said, 'Unless I convince you by my argument that you ought not to do it.' You may attach what value you please to the reservation, but I think I can illustrate without ​much difficulty the effect of that promise made beforehand. You remember, perhaps, that in the year 1871 the Russians demanded that the Treaty of Paris should be altered, and that the restriction should be removed upon their right to build ships in the Black Sea. The whole of the Powers of Europe met in London by their representatives, and they agreed to that change, and the charge, gentlemen, has been laid upon the British Government of having made that change; and not only so, but I read in one of the blue placards this morning that Mr. Gladstone removed the restriction from the Emperor of Russia. Now I repel that charge. What we did was—we considered the matter with the other Powers of Europe; we required Russia to admit that she had no power to make the change except with the consent of the other Powers. The other Powers could not deny that the change was in itself not unreasonable, and so the change was made. But I want to know what people would have said, supposing, in the middle of these deliberations, somebody had produced a Salisbury-Schouvaloff agreement. Supposing he had produced a memorandum signed by Lord Granville, the Foreign Secretary of England, and Count Brunow, the ambassador of Russia, and supposing in that memorandum Lord Granville had, before the meeting of Europe in congress, pledged himself to give this concession to Russia unless he could convince the Russians by his argument, I want to know what then would have been our responsibility? Gentlemen, I would not have been the man, under circumstances like those, to deny for one moment that virtually and practically the whole responsibility of the treaty rested upon our ​shoulders; and so I say now the responsibility for handing back free Bessarabia to despotic Russia rests upon the Cabinet that is now in power, and on the majority that is now soliciting your suffrages for re-election.
I cannot go through the whole of the matter; yet, at the same time, it is desirable that you should have it in your minds. But while we thus handed over a free representative country to despotism, we likewise handed over a liberated country to servitude. We recollect the vote for six millions was taken in order to act upon the Congress at Berlin. It was taken in order to show, as was so much boasted of at the time—to show that we were ready to support in arms what we recommended at the Congress at Berlin. And what did we recommend, and what was the great change made at the Congress of Berlin, in deference to our representations—that is to say, what was the great change purchased by your six millions? I will tell you what it was. The Treaty of San Stefano had relieved from the yoke of Turkish administration four and a half millions of people, and made them into a Bulgarian province. With regard to one and a quarter millions of those people who inhabited a country called Macedonia, we at the Treaty of Berlin, by virtue of your six millions—see how it was used to obtain 'peace with honour'!—we threw back that Macedonia from the free precinct into which it was to be introduced for self-government along with the rest of Bulgaria, and we put it back into the hands of the Sultan of Turkey, to remain in exactly the same condition in which it had been before the war.
Well, gentlemen, I won't speak of India. I have ​spoken of India elsewhere. I won't speak of various things that I might enter upon, but one thing I must mention which I have never taken the opportunity of mentioning in Scotland, and that was the manner in which those proceedings are justified. I am going now to refer to a speech of the present Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Lord Salisbury. He was meeting an allegation some opponent had made, that it was wrong to take the island of Cyprus; and he justified himself by an appeal to history for once, which is, however, a rare thing with him. But he made out his case in this way: 'Take the island of Cyprus? Of course we took the island of Cyprus. Wherever there is a great European controversy localized in some portion of the great European region, we always step in and appropriate some territory in the very heart of the place where that controversy raged.' 'Why, dear me,' he said, 'in the time of the Revolutionary War, when the Revolutionary War turned very much upon events in Italy, we appropriated Malta. At a previous time when the interests of Europe had been concentrated a great deal upon Spain, at the time of the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV, we stepped in and appropriated Gibraltar.' And this is positively advanced as a doctrine by the Secretary of State, that wherever there is a serious conflict among the European Powers or the European peoples, we are to step in, not as mediators, not as umpires, not as friends, not to perform the Christian and the truly British art of binding together in alliance those who have been foes, but to appropriate something for ourselves. This is what Ministers have done, and this is what the majority have approved. Aye, and if, instead of appropriat​ing Cyprus only, they had appropriated a great deal more—if they had taken Candia too, if they had taken whatever they could lay their hands upon—that majority, equally patient, and equally docile, and not only patient and docile, but exulting in the discreditable obedience with which it obeyed all the behests of the Administration—that majority never would have shrunk, but would have walked into the lobby as cheerfully as it did upon the occasions of which you have heard so much, and would have chuckled the next day over the glorious triumph they had obtained over factious Liberalism. I have done with these details, and I will approach my winding up, for I have kept you a long time. I have shown you—and I have shown you in a manner that our opponents will find it very difficult to grapple with, though I have stated it briefly—I have shown you what your six millions were used for; and I say without hesitation that the main purpose for which your six millions were used—the main change which was effected—was to throw a million or a million and a quarter of people inhabiting Macedonia, who were destined by the Treaty of San Stefano for freedom and self-government, back under the lawless government of Turkey.
All these things have been going on. I have touched some of them in detail. What has been the general result, what is the grand total, what is the profit, what is the upshot, what is the balance at the end? Worse than ever. When Her Majesty's Government came into office their Foreign Secretary declared that the state of our foreign relations all over the world was thoroughly and absolutely satisfactory; and what is the ​declaration of the Prime Minister now? He says this is one of the most formidable crises ever known, and that unless you keep the present Government in power he cannot answer for the peace of Europe or the destinies of the country.
That is the report solemnly made by the head of the Government upon the state of things, which is as different from the state of things he found when he came into office as is the deficiency of eight and a quarter millions that he hands over to the new Parliament, from the surplus of six millions which the former Parliament handed over to him. I cannot, I think, state the matter more fairly than that. You are—deluded I was going to say, but I could not make a greater blunder, for deluded you are not; and deluded the people of England are not, and the people of Scotland will not be, but you are nattered and inveigled by compliments paid to the existing Administration in various newspapers abroad. Is not that a fine thing? Never mind your finances; never mind your legislation, or your interests, your characters, or anything else. You have only to look into some paper ardently devoted to the Government and you will see that a paper in Vienna, a paper in Berlin, or even sometimes a paper in Paris has been saying what very fine fellows these present Ministers are, how well they understand the interests of the country, and what a pity it would be if they were to be displaced. I will give you a sound practical rule upon this subject. It is totally untrue and absurd to suppose that there is a general approval by the foreign press. I see that Lord Dalkeith is reported to have said the other day that everywhere except in Russia the press was in favour of the present Government. ​Well, I think I know a good deal of the foreign press, and I will give Lord Dalkeith this challenge—I defy him to produce Italian newspapers, that have any circulation or influence in Italy, in favour of the policy of the present Government. I defy him to produce a newspaper in the Greek tongue, representing the Greek people, either in free Greece or beyond it, that is in favour of the policy of the present Government. I defy him to produce a paper in the Slavonic language that is in favour of the policy of the present Government. Oh! you say, the Slavonic language—that means Russia. It does not mean Russia. It means in part Russia; but there are twenty, aye, and nearer thirty millions of Slavonic people outside of Russia in the east of Europe; and I doubt if you could produce a single paper in the Slavonic language in favour of the policy of the present Government. I say to him, go to the small States of Europe—go to Belgium, go to Holland, go to Denmark, go to Portugal—see what their press says. Gentlemen, I mistrust the press, and especially the official press, of foreign capitals, whether it be St. Petersburg, Vienna, or Berlin. When I see those articles I think that a large experience enables me tolerably well to understand their purpose. If they are vehemently praising the British Ministry—mind, not praising the British nation, not praising British institutions, but praising a particular British Ministry as opposed to some other possible Ministry—I know the meaning of that to be that they regard that Ministry as admirable instruments for the forwarding of their own purposes, and making the British nation, through their medium, both dupes and victims.
Now, gentlemen, I go back to the foreign policy ​of the Liberal party, and I ask, what has that done? I do not think that any party is perfect in its foreign or any other policy; but I prefer the policy of the Government of Mr. Canning, and the policy of the Government of Lord Grey, and the greater part of what was done by Lord Palmerston in foreign affairs, and by Lord Russell in foreign affairs, to that which is now recommended to you. But they did not earn any praise at the hands of the press at Vienna or Berlin. There was no man more odious, no man more detested by the Continental press of those capitals than Mr. Canning, unless, possibly, it may have been Lord Palmerston. He did not seek honour in these quarters; and seeking honour there is not a very good sign. But the praises of the Liberal party, if they are to be sung, are sung elsewhere; they are sung in Italy, which had its hearty sympathy, and its efficient though always its moral aid. They were sung in Spain, when Mr. Canning, though he was too wise to undertake the task of going single-handed to war for the purpose—when Mr. Canning firmly and resolutely protested against the French invasion of that country under the Bourbon restoration. They were sung in Greece, when he constituted himself the first champion of the Greek regeneration, which has now taken effect in the establishment of a free and a progressive country, with, I hope, a bright future before it. They were sung in Portugal, when Mr. Canning sent the troops of England to defend it against Spain. Nay, even poor Denmark, unhappy as has been its lot, does not owe the unhappiness of that lot to England, for the British Government of Lord Palmerston, in which I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, did make a formal offer to France ​that we should join together in forbidding the German Power to lay violent hands upon Denmark, and in leaving the question of Denmark's territorial rights to be settled by a process of law. We made that proposal to France, and the reason that it was not acted upon was that, most unfortunately, and, I think, most blindly, the Emperor of the French refused it.
These are the acts of the Liberal party. The Liberal party has believed that while it was the duty of England above all things to eschew an ostentatious policy, it was also the duty of England to have a tender and kindly feeling for the smaller States of Europe, because it is in the smaller States of Europe that liberty has most nourished; and it is in the smaller States of Europe that liberty is most liable to be invaded by lawless aggression. What we want in foreign policy is the substitution of what is true for what is imposing and pretentious, but unreal. We live in the age of sham. We live in the age of sham diamonds, and sham silver, and sham flour, and sham sugar, and sham butter, for even sham butter they have now invented, and dignified by the name of 'Oleo-Margarine'. But these are not the only shams to which we have been treated. We have had a great deal of sham glory, and sham courage, and sham strength. I say, let us get rid of all these shams, and fall back upon realities, the character of which is to be guided by unostentatiousness, to pretend nothing, not to thrust claims and unconstitutional claims for ascendancy and otherwise in the teeth of your neighbour, but to maintain your right and to respect the rights of others as much as your own. So much, then, for the great issue that is still before us, though I ​rejoice to think how many of our fellow subjects in England have acquitted themselves well and honourably of their part in the fray; and I rejoice—I will not say much more because here my expectations were so high—but I rejoice not less when I think how extraordinary has been the manifestation thus far of Scottish feeling in the only three contests that have taken place—in the city of Perth, in the city of Aberdeen, and in the city of Edinburgh, where we certainly owe some gratitude to the opponent for consenting to place himself in a position so ludicrous as that which he has occupied. But at the same time we are compelled to say, on general grounds of prudence and of justice, that it is a monstrous thing that communities should be disturbed with contests so absurd as these, which deserve to be censured in the old Parliamentary language as frivolous and vexatious.
One word upon your past. I have no doubt the great bulk of you are Liberals, but yet I shall be very glad if some of you are Conservatives. Are Conservatives seriously considering with the gravity which becomes the people of this country—the responsible people of this country—what course they shall take upon the coming occasion? Great things have been done in the last three days, and these things are not done in a corner. The intelligence, limited, but, I think, intelligible, has been flashed over sea and land, and has reached, long before I address you, the remotest corners of the earth. I can well conceive that it has been received in different countries with different feelings. I can believe that there are one or two Ministers of State in the world, and possibly even here and there a sovereign, who would have eaten ​this morning a heartier breakfast if the tidings conveyed by the telegraph had been reversed, and if the issue of the elections had been as triumphant for the existing Administration as it has been menacing, if not fatal, to their prospects. But this I know, among other places to which it has gone, it has passed to India—it has before this time reached the mind and the heart of many millions of your Indian fellow subjects—and I will venture to say that it has gladdened every heart among them. They have known this Government principally in connexion with the aggravation of their burdens and the limitation of their privileges. And, gentlemen, I will tell you more, that if there be in Europe any State or country which is crouching in fear at the feet of powerful neighbours with gigantic armaments, which loves, enjoys, and cherishes liberty, but which at the same time fears lest that inestimable jewel should be wrenched out of its hands by overweening force—if there be such a State, and there may be such a State in the East and in the West—then I will venture to say that in that State, from the highest to the lowest, from sovereign to subject, joy and satisfaction will have been diffused by the intelligence of these memorable days.