Replying to Lord Newton's appeal for further papers on the
Macedonian question, Lord Lansdowne made an im- portant statement in the House of Lords on Monday. While dissociating himself from Lord Newton (and therefore from the Premier) in regarding the "balance of criminality" as in- clining on the side of the Bulgarian bands, Lord Lansdowne refused to accept the view that an extra share of responsibility attached to this country in the matter. It was, he contended, a great mistake to suppose that we had allowed the clause of the Treaty of Berlin which provided for the welfare of the Macedonian provinces to be set aside or neglected. On the contrary, the records of the Foreign Office showed a continual series of efforts to induce the other Powers to give effect to those provisions. The machinery of the European Concert having proved cumbrous and ineffective, the only practical alternative was to support the Austro-Russian scheme, which was the best they could get—Incidentally Lord Lansdowne stated that Germany had made it plain that she had no desire to take an active part in pressing that or any other scheme on Turkey.
