The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-12-09 00:00:00

have been telling you—some of them—that our route to
India is greatly o nicerned in the matter. Well, our principal
route o India now is you know through Egypt. Passeugers
go by the railway, and our ships go by the; wonderful canal
which the energy of M Leaseps and which the money of
Frenchmen made. (Applause.) I should like anybody to
to Ime how the route Rill be interfered with at all. Ido not
know exactly how Many hundred miles it is from Constanti-
nople to the mouth of the Cenal, but I should think it must
be six or seven hundred miles at least. Botht is not very
far it om Toulon to the nuuth of the Canal, from the great
French naval port; and, of course, if the Turkish people
were not a people in a state of decay, I suppose they would
put in jeopardy our route to Ladle, and it would ap-
pear as if nobody ought to live or move or have his being
anywhere within that portion of the globe who has the
smallest chence of lifting a finger or uttering a word against
anything which the Eegiesh Government may chose to do in
the Levent There is one way of securing our route to India,
and that is the way that M. Legaeps has strafed to Earope
many years ago—that is, that the canal should be in the
poeseeston of the leading Powers of Europe, and should by
ttem by solemi- treaty, be kept in first rate order and al wae
open to the ships of all nations who should choose to pass
through it. (Applauee.) Instead of England buying the
Canal with the idea of its being a route over which we had
some special right, let all the nations of Europe have their
interest In it. It would be a bond of union between them,
and it might, in fact, in time to come, be the came of a
more attict and generous and peaceable political union
among the nations of Europe than we have teen exist at any
time in the past. (Applause) Would the English fleet be
any less powerful in the Levant if the R tasians could come
that way? You know that the RllOlllll fleet can come now
from the Baltic Slued through the English Channel and into
Mediterranean Sea by the Straits of Gibraltar; but that ia a
very long route indeed, exposed to the peril of the gea. It is
much more likely that they should wish to have—and
perfecty iii my mind, just that they should—their natural
right of peerage through the Straits, and that they should be
open th the navies of ell the nations of the world. (Hear.)
There are some persons who now hear me who read news-
papers forty years ago. Carry your minds back to the
year 381(i, and you may remember that at that time a num-
ber of llatultmatic and half-designing people in this country
got no a panic about an invasion ot our northern shores
from Russia. Russia was to send a fleet from tbe Baltic
through the Sound and to invade this country, and I sup-
pose they had a design in those days of conquering Scotland
and annexing it no doubt to the Bastian Empire. (Laugh-
ter.) Toe B title is shut up for about halt the year by
frost; and what happened during the lintel= War when
the English fl-et went into the Baltic? The Russian fleet
did not go out of It because it could not ; but the Russian fleet
took shelter behind tue fortifications which had been erected
at Sweaborg and Cronetadt. They did not come out to
meet the English ships and the English ships dared not
attack them within thote formidable detentes; and yet 40
years ago we were told that we were to have an invasion
of this country by Russia, and the Government of
that day actually added, on the strength of that panic, 5 000
men teethe roll of the English Navy lAmd to they always d
men to the roll of the English Navy whenever there is the
slightest pauic. On any matter of this kind we can make
allowance for children in the dark who are afraid, hut for a
great nation like ours, without doubt, in some respects, at
this moment the moet powerful in the world—for us to be
shaken by these childish and unreasoning panics is a discredit
and a . humiliation which we have to bear unfortunately
before the honest but astonished opinions of all other nations
(Applause.) I have referred to the particular position of
Turkey, and of Constantinople upon the shores of the Bos-
phorus. feet me ask you now to look at the pecuniary position
of Russia; as a country that for its magnitude, for the breadth
and the length of it, as you see it on the maps, is more
without navigable rivers running to the sea than any other
country in the world, although all its great rivers run into
the Caspian or into the Black Sea, and at the present time
the Black Sea, as you know, is a Sea from which they are not
allowed to emerge through the Straits of the Dardanelles. It
you go to the • Baltic, you find another great sea us big, or
perhaps bigger, than the Black Sea, and the only way out
from it is through the narrow passage called the Sound—at
least, the principal way out of it, a passage where the Danes
only a few yeas ago levied a toll upon all the ships passing
through it, and the different nations agreed to pay them a
sum of three or four millions to abolish that toll and to make
the passage free. Bat the Russian, as you see, is shut out
by frost' in the Baltic nearly halt a year, and when the
ships emerge they have to come out through this narrow
passage. Well, I should like to know whether, with
that state of things, it is likely that Russia would perpetually
consent as she is blockaded by the frost in the North' to be
blockaded by England at the hands of the Turks in the South,
and that through not one portion of her vast Empire should
one of her ships be able to pass during halt a year on account
of the frost, nor any portion of the year from the South at the
command of the Governmentof this country. (Rear) The
thing seems to me intolerable and impossible, and It cannot
long be sustained. (Loud cheers.) Why, if we were in that
posttion,, what should we do? (Loud cheers and cries of
" Fight.' ) I have no doubt whatever that there would be
unanimous discovery on the part of all people in Eng-
land that we had a just claim to go through that only
passage; and though I, for one, should be very much in
favour of negotiation, I am afraid that not a small mino-
rity, perhaps a large mejority, of my countrymen (laughter),
would be determined to enforce that claim by such means
as first came to their hands. (Applause) Now, I have come
to this cnnclusion long ago, and I saye it before this meeting,
and bet Ore such as may read the proceedings of this meeting,
that the Eaetern Question as it is called, is not worth one
single firthieg to us, more than that we would be glad to see
freedom everywhere and peace everywhere. Ills of no con-
s- quencle whatever to us as a great political question, except
just as it affects the admission of Russian ships of war
through the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. It is not the
possession of Constantinople. If you have ever been at Con-
, stantinople, you would know that that is not a very formid-
able business, as it appears Constantinople is not like a city
on wheels and caravans that can be brought down to the
mouth of the Suez Canal. Constantinople is whore it has
long been, and where it will long remain. It is
not territory that can do us any harm if Ramie had any
addition to her territory. Why, there is not any intelligent
man ließessia or in Europe who does not know that every
acquisition of teiritory by the Russian Empire during the
last fifty years has greatly weakened that Empire, (Cheers.)
If we look at the map and see the advance of Russia in the
direction of the Himalaya Mountains and our possessions in -
India, kit not clear ,hat every soldier she has there is so
much a weakness to her now when she comes, as she may
unfortunately come, to have a prolonged struggle with the
Government' at Constantinople? I heretore, we have no
iotereat whatever in the question of Constantinople, none
whatever in the question of territory. It is supposed that
we have an interest in the exclusion of Russian ships of war
from the Mediterranean, and that Is the pith and kernel of
the whole thing, and the soul of the diseute which is con-
stantly disturbing the peace of this country. (Cheers.)

-
Mr. Bright then proceeded to ask whether it was
just and reasonable that we can sustain the existing
state of things; and whether, if Turkey has suffered
from these advances ot parmyaiefuL tvre.ty.
was it probable that ehe would recover from it in 20
years to come 7—After remarking on the great pro.
igress Russia had made in civilisation, Mr. Bright said
'that there were glimpses in that country of freedom
to which Ru.sia has hitherto been unaccustomed,
and it might be relied upon that while Russia is
comtantly diminishing in force Russia is constantly
advancing in civilisation; and that the time will
come when, it may be ten )ears hence or it may
be twenty years hence, we may have a war Low
and a war then, but it is written in the book of fate,
and no man can reverse it, that these Straits will u'ti-
mately and remotely be open to all nations of the
world,—After alluding to the allies of England in the
Crimean war, and their reasons for joining in the
alliance, Mr. Bright proceeded—
I seems to me we shall come to the conchn ion that we have
no interest whatever in the turmoil which has been created,
and that unless we can, in coo junction with Russia, urge upon
Tut key such reforms as are necessary, our duty is to stand aside
—(cheer. )—and to Pave the nek,hhouring nations of Turkey,
and of Russia especially, to do whatever seems possible and
whatever she may seem best to do. Ido not, as you know. -
in any case stand for ward as the defender cf these sanguinary.'
struggles which continually or at times occur among the
nations, but I know not how in some cases they are to be
avoided. There can be no arbitration unless the parties to
the dispute are willing. There can be no arbitration be-
tween such a Government as that which reigns at Constanti-
nople and that suffering people of whom we have lately
heard so much. (Hear, hear.) I only take consolation in
the fact, viewing all the tremendous scenes and tremendous
sufferings,

"That God from evil still educes good.
Sublime events are rushing to their birth.

That Tyrants by their victims are withstood.
And freedom's seed still grows though steep'd in blood."
Let us hope, let us pray, that the efforts that are being
made—efforts, I believe, that are being made as sincerely by
the Emperor of Russia as by the Government of this country
(applause)—may be crowned with success (hear, hear), and
that the sterm which has been created, which threatens to
rage around us may be put an end to, and that tranquillity
may again aneedily prevail.
After alluding to the mission of Lord Salisbury to the
various Courts' Mr. Bright remarked that if he (Lord Salis-
bury) has heard what they Pay, if he has been touting for
allies and sympathisers, I expect by this time he keoss he
has greatly failed to fiod them. If he 'will rest upon his
own sti cog sense, lie may do great good. If he acts as
the subservient representative of his Chief—(groans)--
judging his. Chit f by his own language, then I
think he may do us a very serious ill. Conferences are
not always certain to lead to peace Well, this
Conference does not mean certainly peace. I wish it did.
But if the conference is not absolutely to be relied
upon, what have we to rely upon. We have two
things that are very important to consider, and they are the
only t AO other points to which I will ask yeur attention for a
few moments. England in this matter has no ally. She had
France and Sardinia in 1164, and of course Turkey; and now
It she went to war with Turkey of course Turkey would be our
ally, but we have no other ally. Ido not see myself how E og-
land is to carry on a continental war without an ally. We have
been to France, and France says "Net ; " we have been to Italy,
and Italy says "No ;" we have been to Germany and to Austria,
stud they say " No." Our cause in their eyes is net so just or so
important, or it is not one in which they have so great an in-
terest, as to induce them to lend us their sympathy, or to give
us their Duple: rt Therefore I look upon it that boar ttng at the
Guildhall how many campaigns .we can bear before we are
exhautted, before the working men of England are in the
condition that they were durir g the great wars le past rime,
—I look upon all that sort of boasting as out •of piece.
The Prime Minister may be a great actor, but, somehow or
other, he seems to me as if he at ways played rather to the
galleries, (Appleuse and laaghter.) But we have a better
reliance than this, and th,t is on the better knowledge ot our
people. (fleet ) The policy of 1854, as I have described it, is
the policy now, the policy which would lead us into a war
on behalf of Turkey, and against the Empire of Raysia.
We have had experience, shall we preflt by it or not? (A
Voice; "Yes.") I think I once quoted in this hall or in
some politic speech a passage from the writings of an
eminent Frenchman, an historian and statesman—the late
M. Guizot—which struck me as worth remembering. lee
says A people who can understand and act upon the count ela
which Gad has given it In the past events of its histery is
fs in the most dangerous mists cf its fate. (Rear, hear.)
Well,Nare we not now full of the experience of the war of
1854? And if it were necessary I could state authorities one
after another strongly in favour of the view I am taking.
The late Lord Aberdeen was Prime Meister when that war
undereaken, and to the last hour of his life, the last
hour of his memory, icoobahly there was no one event of his
life which he so greatly tegretted. Sir James Greham, one of
tee moat capable men in that Ministry, the Fat Lord of
the Aomirality, during that war, himself in the most frank
manner said to Me, "You were entirely right, ad Vie were
ent!rely wrong." (Applause.) I might quote YOU the opiti'oas
in his later years or L ad Russell, who was a member of that
Government, and he, in writing since, has endeavoured to
show how impolitic the war was and how it might have
been avoided. I might quote Lord S;retferd do Re dchffe,
who wax Allhisier at Comtentinople at the time, and him-
self then, unless he is very mhi..h belied, filled with
enthusiasm for the Turk. You Wive read some of his
/etters, probebiy, in The Times during the last few months
Y,ur see how entirely roe gtvekup tne whole et the policy
which he supported at that time.4llo4 might take you to the
opinion of One whose opinion toe more i reil,ct upon it the
more I value it—the oninion of my lamented friend Mr.
Cobden (Rear, liter.) You know that he was at one with
me in our objection to that war, but if you want to know
how he Came to thet opinion, how he argued it, and chat e
reasoned from it, I mutt recommend you to turn back to two
atleaet of the remarkable pamphlets which he wrote and
published about 40 years ago.
Mr. Bright then read an extract from a pampliet
which Mr. Cobden published in the year 1835 entitled
"England, Ireland, and America," and he then pro-
ceeded—
I cannot point to anything in our whole political literature
that will be so healthful and so useful for them to read as
the pamphlet to which I have referred. (Apulause ) Well,
one other appeal I must no,ke to you. We have in this
country, thanks to what our forefv,hers have done, and
thee lee to tome things that we hive dote, a large measure
of freedom. There is room for it to grow and become still
larger, but it is large and we enjey it, and I trust we are
thankful for it. We are also, as I have af aetime said, in
some sense the mother of other nations. We have planted
great nations free as ourselves on the continent of North
America. 'there they have grown and bscorne great. We
have planted them in Australia, and there they are gradually
cornieg great. We are planting them in South Africa.
Our language, which has become the language of freedom
In all the world (applause), is gradually making its way
among all the educated clams in India; and the time will