Tuesday's debate commenced with a lively speech from Lord Sandon,
who spoke of the Turkish power in Europe as now "con- centrated," and therefore probably stronger than it had ever previously been,—an unlucky expression which gave rise to Mr. Gladstone's retort that it was concentrated much as a man's physical strength is concentrated in his trunk, when all the limbs are lopped off it. Lord Sandon declared that during his many wanderings in the Valley of the Nile and over Syrian plains the cry had always been, "When are you coming?" And now, he said, England had come at last. Here there was a laugh from Members opposite who remembered the burden of Lord Beacons- field's" Contarini Fleming,"--supposed to be a psychological study of himself,—who is received everywhere with theory, "You have been long expected !" and who replies finally, "I am come at last." England, however, was to arrive in these regions "not to dis- possess the legitimate Sovereign, but to strengthen his hands." Lord Sandon does not know how impossible this is. He might as well talk of the sanitary inspector going with his medicines and foods into the realms of plague, fever, or famine, " nob to dispossess the legitimate sovereign, but to strengthen his hands."
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