Mr. Gladstone, in his brilliant speech, insisted on the very
grave responsibility which we had incurred by the Crimean war, by depriving the Christians of Turkey of the protectorate secured to Russia, in his opinion, by the treaty of Kinarclji ; and insisted on the vast change for the worse in all the Christian provinces which has been the result of the exasperation due to the revolt in Herzegovina and Bosnia, the Servian war, and the Bulgarian massacre. He quoted the information bearing directly on this point which newspapers bring us every day, and pointed to the menace of yet worse things likely to come,—as the philo- Turks themselves assure us,—if pressure is really to be put on Turkey by Europe, and insisted on the probable dangers of the dis- tribution of arms to the Mussulman population of Turkey. To hint replied, first, Mr. Butler-Johnstone, who made a vehement pro- Turkish speech, treating Turkey as the advanced-guard of Great Britain,—an advanced-guard certainly of whom we ought to be proud, —and also Sir H. Drummond Wolff, who made a point against Mr. Gladstone's consistency, by quoting from a speech of his de- livered on February 15, 1867, praising Lord Derby for his Cretan policy which had " enforced the law of neutrality, even though at the expense of the calls of mere humanity,"—a quotation Which gave the Tories the most rapturous delight, and to which Sir H. Wolff gave point by intimating that when Mr. Gladstone delivered it, it was probable that he would almost immediately return to office, a probability which naturally affected his view of official responsibility.
