Mr. Gladstone, in reply to an address from the Baptist
churches of Worcestershire, has published a long letter on the impropriety of granting to Government a supplementary vote of £2,000,000 or more. He entirely demurs to that course. Ho denies that the precedent of 1870 bears upon the question,—first, because the pre- sent naval and military estimates exceed those of 1870 by four millions ; secondly, because the money was then necessary for the maintenance of the Belgium Treaties, which the country wished to maintain ; and thirdly, because the Government could then be trusted to pursue a pacific policy. At present an influential party leans towards a Turkish policy, and such a policy, even if dis- guised by an appeal to " British interests," will be resisted in a spirit the Government will do well not to provoke. No such vote could be taken at the present juncture without reviving in the minds of the Ottomans the unhappy expectation of English assistance. " We have virtually repudiated a noble duty," but it "is a long stride beyond this in the direction of mischief " to countenance or support " that great iniquity," the Turkish domination.
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