and effect of the foreign policy of Great Britain.102 In his Midlothian campaigns, Gladstone kept the foreign policy of the Government well in the foreground, dealing only occasionally with domestic issues like the Land Laws, Local Government, Irish Home Rule, the National Debt, etc. In this way he launched severe attacks on the Conservatives’ Eastern policy, and helped, for good or bad, to establish a new identity for the Liberal Party on the strength of the idea of foreign relations.103
IV Conclusion: The Eastern Question and the Formation of Liberal Diplomacy
The word ‘imperialism’ was invented by certain liberal-minded observers in England to stamp Disraeli’s foreign policy with popular reprobation.104 But, this invention turned to be a two-edged sword, and the weapon wounded the hand that wielded it. When the Liberal Party saw its way clear to winning the general election of 1880, a suspicion was engendered, which seriously injured the Liberal cause, that liberalism was in some sort an antithesis to imperialism, and, therefore, prejudiced against the ‘Greater’ Britain. It cost the Liberal leaders, particularly Hartington and his associates, great pains to eradicate this popular belief, as imperial enterprises and competitions had become keenly active since the Berlin
102 Dilke memoir, undated, in Stephen Gwynn and G. M. Tuckwell, op. cit., 318.
103 In an address to the electors of Midlothian in March 1880 Gladstone said: ‘Abroad [the Ministers] have strained, if they have not endangered, the prerogative by gross misuse; have weakened the Empire by needless wars, unprofitable extensions, and unwise engagements;
and have dishonored it in the eyes of Europe by filching the island of Cyprus from the Porte, under a treaty clandestinely concluded in violation of the Treaty of Paris, which formed part of the international law of Christendom. If we return from considerations of principle to material results, they have aggrandized Russia; lured Turkey on to her dismemberment, if not her ruin; replaced the Christian population of Macedonia under a debasing yoke.’ BL, Add.
MSS. 44764, f.24, Gladstone’s note “To the Electors of Midlothian”, 11 March 1880. Also cf.
The Annual Register, 1880, 35; and John Morley, op. cit., 607.
104 The Times, 11 March 1880, “The Opposition and the General Election”, 11b.
Congress in 1878. While Gladstone proposed admirably his liberal programme on foreign affairs, Hartington pledged himself, in the name of the party he headed, ‘to uphold the power of the Empire, secure the safety of our own country, and maintain its possessions.’105 Although he declared at the same time that the Liberal Party would engage in no policy of disturbance or uncalled-for annexation, but the Conservatives would also give the same assurance with as much sincerity. There was, indeed, no material difference between Hartington’s description of the future policy of the Liberal Government in foreign affairs and Northcote’s vindication of Conservative policy in the past.
The foreign policy of the Liberal Party around 1880 was actually that of Gladstone, at first in theory and then in practice. The Liberal Party’s foreign policy had been taking shape in their attacks on Disraelian imperialism and against the background of an intensifying scramble for the Ottoman Empire since 1876. As an opposition to conservatism, the Liberals followed Gladstonianism. In respect of foreign affairs, Granville’s defence was generally not concise and direct, but it was quite as uncompromising as Gladstone’s. In the Liberal election campaign in March 1880 Granville declared assertively that the Liberal Party would in the future pursue a vigorous and firm policy in foreign affairs, and secure all the ends which the Disraeli Government had attempted to achieve overseas by more appropriate measures and with greater practical success. Forster urged the same arguments in the meantime, and professed what some of his colleagues would have denounced not long ago as ‘imperialism.’ This was the gist of nearly all the Liberal speeches of the day, which indicated that a new Liberal cabinet would be most resolute in carrying out the Berlin Treaty. It is interesting to compare them with the party discourse
105 Ibid. Hartington said to his audience on 25 March 1880: ‘if the Liberal Party were in power…[they] would not stake the interests or the honour of England upon the maintenance of the integrity and independence of an unreformed Turkish government. They would not treat the condition of those people and the relations of the Turkish Government to its Christian subjects as a matter which was only of interest to Russia and to Turkey, and in which we had no call to interfere except so far as certain definite interests of our own were concerned.’ Quoted in The Annual Register, 1880, 53.
during 1877-1878 (particularly before the Salisbury circular was published), when non-intervention principle was affirmed impregnably.
After the Liberals’ victory in the election, much speculation arose as to who would be the new Prime Minister. On the resignation (21 April 1880) of Disraeli, Hartington and Granville were sent for by the Queen. Although Victoria wished to charge Hartington with forming a government,106 he advised her to summon Gladstone, for he knew that Gladstone would not accept any post in the government except premiership, and that no strong Liberal government could be formed without the support of Gladstone.107 The Queen then asked, with great reluctance, Gladstone to form a government, and warned him that he would have to bear the consequences of his previous sayings, to which he entirely assented.108 Granville, who was mostly in accordance with Gladstone on foreign affairs, became Foreign Secretary. The 1880 election proved to be a plebiscite in favour of Gladstone’s imperial thinking.
Writing to Granville in September 1878, Gladstone said, ‘Diplomacy is essentially irresponsible and I hold it to be the worst possible training for responsible, and a fortiori for despotic government.’109 However, he tried to show that the moral duty of promoting ‘justice, humanity and freedom’
was not incompatible with national interests in dealing with the Turkish question.110 In less than two years, Gladstone returned to power to redress
106 Victoria Journal, 22 April 1880, in G. E. Buckle ed., The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2nd Series, vol. III (London: John Murray, 1928), 80.
107 Granville, after a vain attempt to form a cabinet, declined the task as well.
108 BL, Add. MSS. 44764, f.50, “Audience with the Queen”, 23 April 1880.
109 PRO, PRO30/29/29A, Gladstone to Granville, 17 Sept. 1878.
110 Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. 237, “The Supplementary Estimate”, 4 Feb. 1878, Gladstone, 959.
More than three years later, Gladstone still held to this ideal solution to the Eastern Question.
He told his Midlothian constituents: ‘Beyond sea, in Europe, Asia and Africa, we have carefully and constantly striven to fulfil the expectations I may have led you to entertain.
And although all the clouds have not yet disappeared, I am thankful to say that the horizon has been greatly cleared and a progress made in the sense of liberty, justice and humanity, at least as great as in a time so limited it would have been reasonable to expect.’ Gladstone to J.
Cowan, 30 May 1881 (read to the annual general meeting of the Midlothian Liberal Association), in H. C. G. Matthew ed., The Gladstone Diaries, vol. X (Oxford: The
Disraeli’s jingoism in the East. Nevertheless, sensible of the expediency of maintaining the continuity of foreign policy, the Liberals were quick to seek for a ground of action common to both political parties in regard of the fulfilment of the Berlin Treaty. As such, the Liberal Party had built up a reputation for itself in the power politics of Europe, but by so doing it tragically debased itself as a critic of imperialism.
（責任編輯：廖宜方 校對：高慧玲 林日清）
Clarendon Press, 1990), 73.