Mr. Walter, on Friday, made a noteworthy speech in defence
of the Resolutions, or rather of the policy of coercing Turkey, which he justified by the precedent set by England and France in forcibly separating Belgium from Holland. He would have coerced Turkey, and said that Lord Salisbury was sent to Con- stantinople, like Moses to Pharaoh, to compel the oppressive ruler to let Israel go, but unlike Moses, was sent with- out the only effective argument—the ten plagues—in his hand. The Eastern Question "was not the maintenance of the Turkish Empire," but "the tree mode of dealing with the dis- membered elements of what was the Turkish Empire." That problem must at last be solved ; be believed it would be solved in our time ; and when it was solved, men would look back upon the Turkish domination in Eastern Europe "as the most miserable and disgraceful feature of the century." That is a cheering utterance, from a Member who represents to a peculiar degree the Conservative Liberalism of English county life. Mr. Goschen also made a thoughtful speech, the points of which were that Turkish belief that England would assist her had been one great cause of her misgovernment, and that the thorough dissipation of that belief would be in itself a good result of the Resolutions, and that arrangement with Russia, even if rejected now, would ultimately be inevitable. When the war was over, an arrangement must be tried, just as when the war was over we must all appeal once more to the con- certed action of Europe to regulate its results. Mr. Goschen was just towards Russia as a Power doing a work which somebody must do, but clung in a rather weak fashion to the "concert of Europe," which, with France dreading Germany, and Germany dreading a coalition, and Russia dreading interference, and Austria dreading every air that blows, is a purely imaginary instrument.
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