TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE PEACE PARTY IN PARLIAMENT.
TirE position which Mr. Gladstone took up in the debate on the conduct of the war, at once gives to the proposal of making peace with Russia on her own terms the stamp of recognized states- manship, and forms a reply to the challenge which we threw out when, on this day fortnight, we announced Mr. Gladstone's in- tention to support such a proposal in the House of Commons. It was incumbent upon Mr. Gladstone to make out a twofold case, personal and national—the personal being immeasurably subordi- nate to the national. He had to show, by what right he presented himself to give any advice at all tending to a conclusion of peace at the present stage, since, as a statesman answerable for the com- mencement of the war, as the late occupant of high office, and as a patriot, he would seem to have stood precluded from any kind of pub- lic interference between the country and the enemy of the country. But far more was it necessary that lie should make out the policy of the concession which he advised. The one obligation perhaps constrained Mr. Gladstone in fulfilling the other : the sense of his personal responsibility may have fettered his argu- ment on the larger subject ; we are therefore disposed to make allowance for any defect in his advocacy ; and it is less import- ant to pass a judgment upon Mr. Gladstone than to know the grounds upon which statesmen in Parliament take their stand when they advise a compromise with the enemy. We have those grounds described with the greatest ability and authority when Mr. Gladstone lays them down.
He confesses not simply his responsibility for commencing the war, but his present conviction that there was a just and sufficient cause of war. The demands upon Russia have been enlarged; but while he lays it down "as a general rule that a nation does not, when it draws the sword, resolve to enlarge the demands that it has made before," nevertheless he maintains the justice of the enlargement in the present case. We began, he reminds us, by protesting against the interference of Russia in the domestic govern- ment of Turkey, and against the occupation of the Principalities ; a protest that grew into the "four points." On three and a half of the four, Russia has made concessions, while on the other half- point, although rejecting the proposals of the Western Powers, Russia has made proposals of her own ; and thus the only remain- ing dispute is entirely "a question of terms." If there has been a change in the position of Russia, so has there been in the position of Mr. Gladstone : he now sees insuperable difficulties in realizing the remainder of the third point by compulsion ; for Russia cannot be crushed—the attempt would be more likely to end in the discom- fiture and ruin of the parties concerned in the prosecution of the war, than that of the empire against which it was directed; and a war of nationalities would frighten away our allies and leave us to contend alone. War for the sake of military success is "hideous, I immoral, inhuman, and anti-Christian." If the conduct of the war , has drawn upon us some kind of unmerited discredit, Mr. Glad- 1 stone says, "do not let us wipe it out by human blood," but rather "by sending abroad more correct information."
This, then, is Mr. Gladstone's position—to desist from fur- ther prosecution of the war • to accept one or other of the proposi- tions which Russia "has made known to us"; and to make good the damage to our national influence abroad through the appear- ance of weakness, "by diffusing correct information." We do not notice this point for the purpose of controversy, still less of criti- cism. The event has shown indeed that we were not entirely mis- taken in supposing that the new course in which Mr. Gladstone presents himself would subject him to the very worst construc- tion. Even his speech of explanation has been pronounced by a contemporary as going far to explain the scanty successes which attended the diplomacy of the Allies ; and it is particularly marked out as the speech of "the late Chancellor of the Exche- quer."• It is more important to notice the present position as that taken up by the leader of the Peace party in Parliament. It is but fair to say that Mr. Gladstone does not indulge in that con- amore thoroughgoing advocacy of Russia which was undertaken by another leading member of the new Peace party, in the House of Lords—Earl Grey ; but as an Ex-Minister he does give some kind of authority to the position of the aboriginal Peace men, with their pro-Russian movement.
The argument arising from the arithmetical proportion of the few points conceded by Russia is not applicable to the present state of the contest. The four points grew up out of the circum- stances; they took their order in the dispute naturally. As soon as Russia crossed the Moldo-Wallachian frontier, the first point existed de facto ; as soon as she struck the blow at Sinope, the third point took its place after the revived question of the Danube ; and any claim would have been incomplete without the addition of the fourth point, comprising the original question in dispute. In establishing these four points, which all the Allies have declared to be indivisible, the object of the Western Powers was to bar out Russia by land and by sea; the first point closing against her the land approach ; the third, besides the introduction of Turkey into the European system, barring to Russia the sea approach. Of
• "Truly Lord John Russell overthrew the Aberdeen Cabinet in time. Who will now doubt that if Mr. Gladstone's party had continued in power, the Russian proposition would have been accepted ; and, with the humilia- ting condition of renouncing stipulations which they were pledged to exact as stadispenaable, the Allies would have patched up an insecure peace ?"— .Examiner, May 26. these points Russia gave up the first and second without difficulty, and half of the third ; and she showed a disposition to settle the fourth, which indeed she would have placed first. We may almost say that she evinced a desire to secure the fourth point while placing the second half of the third point in the background— evading it if possible. What is the reason P It is, that the second half of the third point constituted really the very pith of that which the Western Powers were seeking ; and so long as Russia could evade that stringent condition, the fourth point, cleverly managed, would have reserved for her the greater part of that which she had sought to acquire. The fourth point related to the protection of the Christian subjects in Turkey. There are no other Greek sects that are in close connexion with any foreign power of Europe. Austria is Catholic, Prussia Lutheran and Catholic, France Catholic and Huguenot, England Protestant. It is Russia alone that has any relation with the Greek sects, her relation subsisting only with that sect called "Orthodox." The three points and a half would have left her with her agents in Turkey ; barred out by the landward path, no doubt, but still, by means of her navy, possessing the power of go- ing straight to Constantinople, landing an army, and dictating terms at the gate of the Sultan's palace. It is that half-point, indeed, which gives the value to the other three and a half, es- pecially to the fourth point. It was the instrument for locking up the whole barrier. The back-door and the windows of the house had- been secured, but it was made a light point to leave the latch-key of the front-door still in the hands of Russia. Having obtained so many concessions, argues Mr. Gladstone and those who go with him, it is importunate and insulting to insist upon the exaction of that half-point; though that half-point is the very master-key of all the rest.
It is, Mr. Gladstone thinks, entirely a question of terms. Now he has assisted in showing how Russia has always established every fresh encroachment upon something already gamed, and has used treaties like that of Xainardji to acquire new usurpations by an enlarged interpretation of their terms. The Czar would evidently have been willing to concede the four points if the " terms " could have been made suitable to his convenience,—that is, if they had been such as to satisfy the Western Powers on the letter of a document, leaving to him still an admission to that from which we, at the eleventh hour, saw the necessity of excluding him. But it would be a crime to waste all the blood and treasure ex- pended in a thing so "hideous" as war, and yet to abandon its object. Support Mr. Gladstone, and you commit that crime. He is now the leader of the Peace party. In any Parliamentary triumph it is usual for the leader of the party to be called upon to take the Government. If the Peace principles were to be carried in the House of Commons, they must either be a clog upon the action of the Government, or, having the usual re- sult, Mr. Gladstone must be "sent for," and we must have a Ca- binet founded on the principle of accepting the Russian proposi- tions. This is the result to which we come naturally and inevita- bly by carrying the principles of the Peace party in Parliament to their direct conclusions.
In a practical sense, apart:from abstract but conscientious im- pulses connected with Peace :doctrines and a Christian horror of war, the argument of this party seems to be, not only that we have got all that we originally demanded, and something more, comprising the bulk of the four points, but that we cannot get anything better. When we point to the past infractions of compact, they may retort upon us—and they are welcome to do so—that if Russia cannot be bound by treaty, it is use- less to haggle for any particular terms. The force of the treaty, however, will not lie in its binding power over Russia, but in its binding power for other states. All European treaties constitute enactments for the guidance of Europe; they are the laws between nations which orderly states obey, and upon which in the case of infraction those states combine to protect the general law. They are not more effectual as obligations upon the breaker, than clauses in an act of Parliament are obligations upon the good faith of the malefactor. So the treaty to be concluded by the Powers of Europe would constitute a warning for Russia, which she would confess to have received in signing the treaty ; a rule for the guidance of other states, and a compact for their combined enforcement upon a contingency arising. We would as little accept
the Russian terms, arranged for evasion, as we would al- low the thief or the swindler to sit in committee upon the bill in Parliament to arrange clauses. One argument of Mr. Glad-
stone, that Russia has already conceded in giving up the "essen- tial and revocable conditions" upon which she stood before Fe- bruary 1854, and in making propositions upon the third point,
proves that she was prepared to yield upon compulsion, even be- fore the recent success in the Crimea. We can have the treaty if we persevere : and it is worth having—not as a new guarantee of Russian faith, but as a new law of Europe to constrain Russia in future.
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