a speech in which he denied that the majority of
the Ministers were dummies," as they had recently been called—that was very wrong of Mr. Bright ; they are not dummies, they are queens, rooks, knights, and bishops, quite important pieces, with Lord Beacons- field as player—denied that the Government was for war, and denied that its policy was wicked, denials which were very well received. He then admitted that Government would go to war, if it was forced to it, and repeated Mr. Hardy's idea that no treaty could be modified without the consent of all the other contracting parties. In other words, no modification of the Treaty of Paris is pos- sible, for Turkey will consent to none voluntarily, and to extort a consent is, of course, with Mr. Cross, impossible. The Govern- raent did not want war, but it wanted to protect the law Of Europe. That is obviously the new cue to be given to the party, the old shibboleth, "The interests of this vast Empire," being a little too definite. Russia can respect them, but she cannot help breaking the public law of Europe, if
every treaty inconsistent with the Treaty of Paris is a breach of it. Is it the policy of the Government to annul the war alto- gether? Or why do they consider that coercion exercised on Turkey by diplomatists in a room and coercion exercised through war are such widely different things ?
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