Mr. Gladstone followed Mr. Disraeli in a striking little speech,
delivered expressly as the sole remaining representative in that House of the British Government which engaged in the Crimean war. He declared that the Government of that day did not in the least believe that the integrity of the Turkish Empire could be maintained except upon conditions, and that one of the chief of these conditions was the con- dition that the grievances of the Christian population of the Porte should be redressed. Lord Palmerston himself admitted that the remedy of those grievances was a sine qua non of the restoration of the Turkish power, and he pressed the Porte, in the very heat of the crisis, to give the most positive pledges that this should be done. Hence Mr. Gladstone hoped that the British Government of to-day, in giving in its adhesion to the Austrian Note, did so not merely for the reasons assigned by Mr. Disraeli, but also because it felt that what was done at the time of the Crimean war was provisionally done, and that we are not merely entitled, but bound to demand the performance of the promises which were the equivalents for our former-aid. The Turkish Government had been sincere in their promises, as had the able statesmen who at various times had made similar representa- tions on behalf of the Porte to our Government here ; but if these promises had not been kept, it would no longer be the policy of Lord Palmerston to bolster up the integrity of the Turkish Em- pire without taking further guarantees for the same purpose. Mr. Gladstone's speech was a powerful stroke for the Christian popu- lations of Turkey, the more so, for the careful candour and reti- cence of its style.
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