erformed the same
operation in another quarter. We objected to a treaty between Russia
and Turkey as having no authority, though that treaty was made in the
light of day--namely, to the Treaty of San Stefano; and what did
we do? We went not in the light of day, but in the darkness of the
night--not in the knowledge and cognizance of other Powers, all of
whom would have had the faculty and means of watching all along, and
of preparing and taking their own objections and shaping their own
policy--not in the light of day, but in the darkness of the night, we
sent the Ambassador of England in Constantinople to the Minister of
Turkey, and there he framed, even while the Congress of Berlin was
sitting to determine these matters of common interest, he framed that
which is too famous, shall I say, or rather too notorious as the
Anglo-Turkish Convention. Gentlemen, it is said, and said truly, that
truth beats fiction; that what happens in fact from time to time is
of a character so daring, so strange, that if the novelist were to
imagine it and to put it upon his pages, the whole world would reject
it from its improbability. And that is the case of the Anglo-Turkish
Convention. For who would have believed it possible that we should
assert before the world the principle that Europe only could deal with
the affairs of the Turkish Empire, and should ask Parliament for
six millions to support us in asserting that principle, should send
Ministers to Berlin who declared that unless that principle was acted
upon they would go to war with the material that Parliament had placed
in their hands, and should at the same time be concluding a separate
agreement with Turkey, under which those matters of European
jurisdiction were coolly transferred to English jurisdiction; and the
whole matter was sealed with the worthless bribe of the possession
and administration of the island of Cyprus! I said, gentlemen, the
worthless bribe of the island of Cyprus, and that is the truth. It is
worthless for our purposes, worse than worthless for our purposes--not
worthless in itself; an island of resources, an island of natural
capabilities, provided they are allowed to develop themselves in the
course of circumstances, without violent and unprincipled methods
of action. But Cyprus was not thought to be worthless by those who
accepted it as a bribe. On the contrary, you were told that it was to
secure the road to India; you were told that it was to be the s