tiously and for what was
believed the advantage of the country,--an untrue, arrogant, and
dangerous assumption that we were entitled to assume for ourselves
some dignity, which we should also be entitled to withhold from
others, and to claim on our own part authority to do things which we
would not permit to be done by others. For example, when Russia was
going to the Congress at Berlin, we said: 'Your Treaty of San Stefano
is of no value. It is an act between you and Turkey; but the concerns
of Turkey by the Treaty of Paris are the concerns of Europe at large.
We insist upon it that the whole of your Treaty of San Stefano shall
be submitted to the Congress at Berlin, that they may judge how far to
open it in each and every one of its points, because the concerns
of Turkey are the common concerns of the Powers of Europe acting in
concert.'

Having asserted that principle to the world, what did we do? These
two things, gentlemen: secretly, without the knowledge of Parliament,
without even the forms of official procedure, Lord Salisbury met Count
Schouvaloff in London, and agreed with him upon the terms on which the
two Powers together should be bound in honour to one another to act
upon all the most important points when they came before the Congress
at Berlin. Having alleged against Russia that she should not be
allowed to settle Turkish affairs with Turkey, because they were but
two Powers, and these affairs were the common affairs of Europe, and
of European interest, we then got Count Schouvaloff into a private
room, and on the part of England and Russia, they being but two
Powers, we settled a large number of the most important of these
affairs, in utter contempt and derogation of the very principle for
which the Government had been contending for months before; for which
they had asked Parliament to grant a sum of L6,000,000; for which they
had spent that L6,000,000 in needless and mischievous armaments. That
which we would not allow Russia to do with Turkey, because we pleaded
the rights of Europe, we ourselves did with Russia, in contempt of the
rights of Europe. Nor was that all, gentlemen.

That act was done, I think, on one of the last days of May in the year
1878, and the document was published, made known to the world, made
known to the Congress at Berlin, to its infinite astonishment, unless
I am very greatly misinformed,--to its infinite astonishment.

But that was not all. Nearly at the same time we p