rounds upon which I form my judgement. They are simply these grounds:
I look at the position of Russia, the geographical position of Russia
relatively to Turkey. I look at the comparative strength of the two
Empires; I look at the importance of the Dardanelles and the Bosphoros
as an exit and a channel for the military and commercial marine of
Russia to the Mediterranean; and what I say to myself is this. If the
United Kingdom were in the same position relatively to Turkey which
Russia holds upon the map of the globe, I feel quite sure that we
should be very apt indeed both to entertain and to execute aggressive
designs upon Turkey. Gentlemen, I will go farther and will frankly
own to you that I believe if we, instead of happily inhabiting this
island, had been in the possession of the Russian territory, and in
the circumstances of the Russian people, we should most likely have
eaten up Turkey long ago. And consequently, in saying that Russia
ought to be vigilantly watched in that quarter, I am only applying to
her the rule which in parallel circumstances I feel convinced ought to
be applied, and would be justly applied, to judgements upon our own
country.

Gentlemen, there is only one other point on which I must still say a
few words to you, although there are a great many upon which I have a
great many words yet to say somewhere or other. Of all the principles,
gentlemen, of foreign policy which I have enumerated, that to which I
attach the greatest value is the principle of the equality of nations;
because, without recognizing that principle, there is no such thing
as public right, and without public international right there is no
instrument available for settling the transactions of mankind except
material force. Consequently the principle of equality among nations
lies, in my opinion, at the very basis and root of a Christian
civilization, and when that principle is compromised or abandoned,
with it must depart our hopes of tranquillity and of progress for
mankind.

I am sorry to say, gentlemen, that I feel it my absolute duty to make
this charge against the foreign policy under which we have lived for
the last two years, since the resignation of Lord Derby. It has been
a foreign policy, in my opinion, wholly, or to a perilous extent,
unregardful of public right, and it has been founded upon the basis of
a false, I think an arrogant, and a dangerous assumption,--although
I do not question its being made conscien