ENGLAND AND THE NEAR EAST.
[TO THE EDITOR 07 THE "SPICTATOR."]
common, I believe, with many of your readers, I have read with dismay the speech of Lord Salisbury to the House of Lords apparently making "the maintenance of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire" an essential part of the creed of the Conservative party. If this is so, it seems to me that not a few of the Liberal Unionist party will have to re- consider their position; and I greatly fear that it will be our duty, however reluctantly, to sever our connection with the allies to whom we have for eleven years given our loyal and cordial support. My own feeling as to the events which brought about the cleavage of 1886 is quite unchanged. I still hold, as firmly as ever, that the proposed policy of Home- rule for Ireland would have been a disastrous blunder. But there are worse things even than blunders; and for our country now, after the events of the last two years, to put forth its strength for the maintenance of the barbarous and bloodstained despotism of the Turk would be, not a blunder merely, but a national crime.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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