ede from it. I think we ought to imitate Russia in her good
deeds, and if the good deeds be few, I am sorry for it, but I am not
the less disposed on that account to imitate them when they come. I
will now tell you what I think just about Russia.

I make it one of my charges against the foreign policy of Her
Majesty's Government, that, while they have completely estranged from
this country--let us not conceal the fact--the feelings of a nation
of eighty millions, for that is the number of the subjects of the
Russian Empire--while they have contrived completely to estrange the
feelings of that nation, they have aggrandized the power of Russia.
They have aggrandized the power of Russia in two ways, which I will
state with perfect distinctness. They have augmented her territory.
Before the European Powers met at Berlin, Lord Salisbury met with
Count Schouvaloff, and Lord Salisbury agreed that, unless he could
convince Russia by his arguments in the open Congress of Berlin, he
would support the restoration to the despotic power of Russia of that
country north of the Danube which at the moment constituted a portion
of the free State of Roumania. Why, gentlemen, what had been done
by the Liberal Government, which, forsooth, attended to nothing but
pounds, shillings, and pence? The Liberal Government had driven Russia
back from the Danube. Russia, which was a Danubian Power before the
Crimean War, lost this position on the Danube by the Crimean War;
and the Tory Government, which has been incensing and inflaming you
against Russia, yet nevertheless, by binding itself beforehand to
support, when the judgement was taken, the restoration of that country
to Russia, has aggrandized the power of Russia.

It further aggrandized the power of Russia in Armenia; but I would not
dwell upon that matter if it were not for a very strange circumstance.
You know that an Armenian province was given to Russia after the
war, but about that I own to you I have very much less feeling of
objection. I have objected from the first, vehemently, and in every
form, to the granting of territory on the Danube to Russia, and
carrying back the population of a certain country from a free State to
a despotic State; but with regard to the transfer of a certain portion
of the Armenian people from the government of Turkey to the government
of Russia, I must own that I contemplate that transfer with much
greater equanimity. I have no fear myself of the territori