23 DECEMBER 1876, Page 2

Mr. Cowper-Temple, if any one, should know the view which

Lord Palmerston would have taken of the present crisis in the East, and this is what he said on the subject at an agricultural dinner on Thursday week at Romsey, after a moderate speech in defence of the Government had been delivered by Lord Henry Scott. After contrasting strongly the conduct of the Czar Nicholas in 1854 and the Czar Alexander in 1876, who, as Mr. Cowper- Temple said, "took a position exactly opposite to that of the Emperor Nicholas, and therefore should be treated in an opposite manner," he went on to say that the policy of Canning, in 1826, " was that which was needed, in preference to the policy of the Crimean war ; and he was confident, from what he knew of Lord Palmerston's opinions, that he would not now have supported a war-policy." " H it was once made clear to the Porte that it had no ally in Europe, it would then make those concessions which it ought to make, and the result of Lord Salisbury's mis- sion would be to keep the Turkish Power as guardian of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, and at the same time give to the Christian population those rights of person, property, and religion which they ought to possess." Mr. Evelyn Ashley— Lord Palmerston's latest biographer—also spoke, and took the same general line. Surely it must be evident enough that those vehement friends of the Turk who invoke the memory of Lord Palmerston to shelter Lord Beaconsfield, are taking their former leader's name in vain.