NEWS OF THE WEEK.
/THIS day week a congratulatory banquet was given to the .1 two triumphant British Plenipotentiaries by a numerous body of Conservative Peers, in the Duke of Wellington's riding- school, at Knightsbridge. The guests were about 500 in number. Lord Beaconsfield, in returning thanks for the Duke of Buccleuch's speech in his honour, said that to the Marquis of Salisbury had fallen the labouring oar in the great work of the Congress, and that to him more than to Lord Beaconsfield is to be attributed the English share in the result. He described Lord Hartington's resolution moved on Monday as "a string of con- gratulatory regrets." He defended his conduct to Greece very characteristically. She was advised, he said, to keep out of the struggle, and was wise enough to take that advice. It was pointed out to her that if the end of it had been partition of Turkey, Greece could not but have received a considerable share of the spoil ; but that if,— as theBritish Government maintained ,—partition was not to be the result, "then it was equally clear to us that when the settle- ment occurred, all those rebellious tributary Principalities which have lavished their best blood and embarrassed their finances for generations, would necessarily be but scurvily treated." And he declared that this expectation was correct. Greece had got the op- portunity of obtaining,—only with Turkey's consent however, and not from the Congress,—" a greater increase of territory than will be attained by any of the rebellious Principalities,"—which, as Lord Beaconsfield not obscurely conveyed, though Mr. Glad- stone has been bitterly reproached for saying the same thing, have been " scurvily treated" by the Congress. Lord Beaconsfield repeatedly spoke of Roumania, Servia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro with supreme contempt, as rebellious States. Indeed, if they met with " scurvy" treatment, they met only with what Lord Beacons- field at least clearly held that they had a right to expect.
