his
case in this way: 'Take the island of Cyprus? Of course we took the
island of Cyprus. Wherever there is a great European controversy
localized in some portion of the great European region, we always step
in and appropriate some territory in the very heart of the place where
that controversy raged.' 'Why, dear me,' he said, 'in the time of the
Revolutionary War, when the Revolutionary War turned very much upon
events in Italy, we appropriated Malta. At a previous time when the
interests of Europe had been concentrated a great deal upon Spain, at
the time of the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV, we stepped in
and appropriated Gibraltar.' And this is positively advanced as a
doctrine by the Secretary of State, that wherever there is a serious
conflict among the European Powers or the European peoples, we are
to step in, not as mediators, not as umpires, not as friends, not to
perform the Christian and the truly British art of binding together in
alliance those who have been foes, but to appropriate something for
ourselves. This is what Ministers have done, and this is what the
majority have approved. Aye, and if, instead of appropriating Cyprus
only, they had appropriated a great deal more--if they had taken
Candia too, if they had taken whatever they could lay their hands
upon--that majority, equally patient, and equally docile, and not only
patient and docile, but exulting in the discreditable obedience with
which it obeyed all the behests of the Administration--that majority
never would have shrunk, but would have walked into the lobby as
cheerfully as it did upon the occasions of which you have heard so
much, and would have chuckled the next day over the glorious triumph
they had obtained over factious Liberalism. I have done with these
details, and I will approach my winding up, for I have kept you a long
time. I have shown you--and I have shown you in a manner that our
opponents will find it very difficult to grapple with, though I have
stated it briefly--I have shown you what your six millions were used
for; and I say without hesitation that the main purpose for which your
six millions were used--the main change which was effected--was to
throw a million or a million and a quarter of people inhabiting
Macedonia, who were destined by the Treaty of San Stefano for freedom
and self-government, back under the lawless government of Turkey.

All these things have been going on. I have touched some of them in
det