grounds of good government by the British.84 But, the Radicals’
antagonism towards the Government in regard of the Eastern affairs was still very strong.85 Serious divisions in the Liberal Party sustained or even sharpened the popular impression that they had not an Eastern policy of their own. Deep sympathy with Russia and want of patriotism had been the charges incessantly reiterated against them.86 Therefore, although the temporary popularity that the Conservatives had won at the time of the Berlin Congress was now gradually diminishing while the Afghan trouble was striking on the other hand, the Liberal leaders did not think the time had come for a change of government.
III Mapping out a Liberal Programme:
The Liberal Party and British Policy in the East, 1879-80
The troubles in Afghanistan (the Second Afghan War, 1878-79), and later in South Africa (the Zulu War, 1879), diverted public attention from the movement of affairs in the East under the provisions of the Berlin Treaty and the Anglo-Turkish convention. But, whether these treaties were producing their supposed effects or not, it was from the beginning of 1879 a very fertile topic of discussion in the newspaper and in the speeches of leading politicians. In general, behind Gladstone’s splendour of speech there was no practical alternative policy to that of the Government,87 as the
84 Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. 243, “Address in Answer to Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech”, 5 Dec. 1878, Granville, 25; and PRO, PRO30/29/37, Granville to Victoria, 9 June 1880. Also The Edinburgh Review, vol. 148, no. 304, “England in the Levant”, 566.
85 See BL, Add. MSS. 44104, f.101, Argyll to Gladstone, 25 Nov. 1878; BL. Add. MSS. 43385, f.267, Gladstone to Bright, 15 Nov. 1878; PRO, PRO30/29/26A/2, Edward Grey to Granville, 14 Nov. 1878.
86 Victoria complained at the end of 1878 that the conduct of the Opposition on the Eastern Question for the last two years had been most unpatriotic. Victoria to Henry Ponsonby, 10 Dec. 1878, quoted in Arthur Ponsonby, Henry Ponsonby, Queen Victoria’s Private Secretary:
His Life from his Letters (London: Macmillan, 1942), 180.
87 Salisbury said in 1877 that the Liberals did not have ‘the faintest notion’ what to put in the
debates and divisions before had placed them in a position of undisputed dominance during the continuance of the Eastern trouble. However, in criticizing the Conservative Government in their execution of the Berlin Treaty, the Liberals had presented their Eastern programme in a more definite and practical manner in the course of 1879 up to the general election in 1880.
Two of the most notable attacks by Liberal leaders before the opening of Parliament in 1879 was made by Harcourt (at Oxford on 14 January) and Forster (at Bradford on 20 January), who complained of the slow progress made in the settlement of the East. That part of the Government’s Eastern policy which was most discussed when the Houses met in February was the acquisition of Cyprus. British rule in Cyprus was a tempting theme for the Liberals, for it had many peculiarities, some of which were vulnerable. The Government appeared to try to keep back information relating to Cyprus, because there was now more doubt as to the wisdom of occupying the island. Gladstone was bold enough to label Cyprus as ‘a valueless incumbrance,’ and meant to give it away.88 Harcourt and Dilke were able to
place of the Turkish Empire. And, that was still the Conservatives’ response in early 1879 to the criticisms by the Liberals on the Government’s Eastern policy. See David Steele, Lord Salisbury: A Political Biography (London: University College London Press, 1999), 126;
Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. 243, “Business of Parliament – Ministerial Statement”, 13 Feb. 1879, Granville, 1050; and Henry Ponsonby memorandum, 20 Oct. 1879, in Arthur Ponsonby, op. cit., 170. The pith of Gladstone’s “England’s Mission” in The Nineteenth Century, published in August 1878, was that the Disraeli Government had ‘set up the principles of Metternich and put down the principles of Canning.’ (p. 562) The editor of this Liberal Journal, James Knowles, was delighted with it, saying: ‘Now people will not be able to say that the Liberals have no clear chart to sail by in foreign policy.’ Richard Shannon, Gladstone: Heroic Minister, 1865-1898 (London: The Penguin Press, 1999), 224. In fact, the Liberals had gradually come to agree with the Government in many respects on the Eastern Question. As Harcourt said to the Russian Ambassador, Schouvaloff, in London in January 1879, the Liberals, like the Conservatives, should never allow Russia to occupy Constantinople or to get command of the Straits. Esher Journal, 12 Jan. 1879, in M. V. Brett ed., Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher (London: Ivor Nicholson &
Watson, 1934), vol. I, 56.
88 BL, Add. MSS. 44666, f.151, Gladstone’s note undated (1879). Gladstone challenged the assumption that the benefits of British rule would earn from the Cypriots ‘gratitude and
point out some curious consequences of British rule.89 And, Granville and Dilke demanded that the administration of Cyprus should be transferred from the Foreign Office to the Colonial Office, since, for a long or a short time, Britain must govern Cyprus as a Crown Colony. Anyway, in 1879 most of the Liberal Party already accepted the occupation of Cyprus as an accomplished fact and began to press ahead with internal reforms in the island, particularly the abolition of slavery and the enactment of racial equality.
The Berlin Treaty and the Anglo-Turkish convention laboured under some serious defects. These instruments were couched in terms so vague that differences easily arose on the interpretation of the clauses: indeed, it was apparent that some of the clauses were understood differently by the several contracting powers. Nor was anywhere stated that the Treaty of San Stefano was abrogated consequently. If the execution of the Berlin Treaty failed, Russia would possibly fall back on the previous contract, and the web of the Berlin Congress would be unraveled. In fact, another definitive treaty between Russia and Turkey on the basis of that of San Stefano had since been proposed by Russia, which would confirm some of the provisions of the former instrument that were most repugnant to Britain.
Furthermore, no distinct evidence could be found that the provisions of the Berlin Treaty would be executed; in several respects no effectual means had been provided for implementing them.90
One of the earliest declarations, constantly repeated, was that the
attachment in the form of a disposition to continue in political connection with [Britain].’
John Reddaway, Burdened with Cyprus: The British Connection (London: Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1986), 10.
89 Curiously enough, Dilke advocated strongly a railway from Constantinople to the Persian Gulf as an alternative route to India, which necessitated the control of Cyprus. He said: ‘I am favourable to the construction of the Baghdad line, and to that amount of intervention in Asiatic Turkey which is necessary to secure it; and I should contemplate a military occupation of Cyprus and Scanderoon in time of war, in order to provide for the security of our line.’ Quoted in D. E. Lee, Great Britain and the Cyprus Convention Policy of 1878 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934), 126.
90 The Edinburgh Review, vol. 148, no. 304 (Oct. 1878), “England in the Levant”, 591.
Berlin Treaty should be fulfilled in the spirit and in the letter. It was doubted soon after the close of the Berlin Congress whether the Liberals would be as well qualified to carry out all the arrangements as the Government, which was responsible for the compact.91 Most of the leading Liberals expressed in 1879 their wish for the execution of the Berlin Treaty.92 The resolution Hartington moved in July 1878 already expressed in general terms an approval of the treaty, and Granville declared several times since that he was no opponent to the treaty. Even Gladstone expressed his deep respect for the settlement as a result of the Concert of Europe. ‘I feel that the authority of the Treaty [of Berlin] is something very much higher and stronger than any argument I can use,’ he told the House of Commons in July 1879.93 Actually, the Liberal Party had carefully abstained from all proceedings and remarks calculated to hinder or prejudice the execution of the treaty. The Liberals viewed with satisfaction the progress in its execution, but they complained that what had been done within the year after the Congress was for the most part regarding the easiest portions of the treaty, such as the rectification of the frontiers of Turkey, Montenegro and Roumelia. Those portions that were more difficult of execution or open to question – e.g. the relations between Turkey and Greece – were far from accomplished.
91 The Times, 22 July 1878, 9a.
92 Granville’s attitude was typical of the leading Liberals on the subject. He said to Gladstone:
‘Although there are mistakes in the Treaty [of Berlin], I have [no] wish to disturb its execution, in the manner which will keep us free from unnecessary entanglements and which will provide best for the happiness of the populations in question.’ BL, Add. MSS. 44171, f.231, Granville to Gladstone, 4 May 1879. A fortnight later he told the House of Lords:
‘With regard to the Berlin Treaty, I may say that I am not an opponent of it. I do not wish to see it remain unexecuted. I wish to see it carried out as far as possible so as not to embarrass or entangle us, while being of the greatest advantage to the Christian populations of Eastern Europe.’ Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. 246, “Foreign Policy of Her Majesty’s Government – Observations”, 16 May 1879, Granville, 564.
93 Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. 248, “Congress of Berlin (Unfulfilled Arrangements)”, 22 July 1879, Gladstone, 1073-74. Gladstone strongly opposed severing Eastern Roumelia from Bulgaria, but, as he himself said, so profound was his respect for the Berlin settlement that during the whole period of that arrangement he had never uttered a word of criticism.
The execution of the Berlin Treaty was not discussed in Parliament until after 3 May 1879, the date by which Russia was bound to evacuate Eastern Roumelia and Bulgaria. A sharper fire of questions was maintained when it became apparent that the Russians could not complete their evacuation by this day. Presently it leaked out that the construction of the treaty held by the Government was that the evacuation should only begin on 3 May. On 5 May Salisbury in the House of Lords explained at length how the Government construed the terms of the article relating to Russia’s evacuation, and gave a general review of the progress that had been made up to that time in the execution of the Berlin Treaty. Its terms, he contended, had been in all respects scrupulously fulfilled: the principality of Bulgaria had been constituted; Eastern Roumelia had been established as a province under a Christian governor; Bosnia and Herzegovina had been occupied by Austria as was provided; the districts specified had been ceded to Montenegro; and he anticipated no difficulty in the delimitation of Serbia and Roumania. Besides, the Porte had revised the Cretan constitution in a liberal sense. It had not yet introduced reforms into Armenia, but it had sent a commission to ascertain the local needs and the local means. However, the first point on which Granville challenged an explanation was the very important one of the evacuation by the Russian troops of the occupied territories. That was the principal test of the practical execution of the treaty;
and until it was carried into effect, not a judgement of the real condition of affairs in Roumelia and Bulgaria could be formed. This question the Foreign Secretary was not able to confront directly. Harcourt repudiated afterwards Salisbury’s interpretation by reference to Salisbury’s famous circular and the terms of the Berlin Treaty. Neither could Granville agree with the ministerial construction of the treaty, but he did not want in the circumstances to press the Government to take too strict a view of the meaning of its terms. Granville had detected that the vacillation with regard to the execution of the treaty was in some degree owing to the difference of opinion between Disraeli and Salisbury on the Ottoman Empire. Granville was convinced that the Berlin Treaty would be carried out, but he complained of the enormous extent to which the Government had magnified
its advantages, instead of giving it its real and practical value.
On 16 May a double attack was made by Argyll in the Lords and Harcourt in the Commons respectively upon the manner in which the Berlin Treaty was being put in practice and upon the policy it embodied.94 Already Argyll and Harcourt had said much on this subject, and had expressed strong opinions respecting it. Argyll had published not merely pamphlets but volumes in denunciation of the Government’s policy in the East; and Harcourt had availed himself of all the opportunities to hold up to ridicule the engagements to which Britain had been pledged, and had staked his statesmanlike foresight on predictions of their futility. With the exception of Hartington, the leaders of the Liberal Party continually denounced the Berlin Treaty as impracticable in many ways, evoking sometimes an impression that they neither wished nor expected the fulfilment of the treaty. That was not the case, to be sure. In July the desire of the Liberals to help forward the execution of the Berlin Treaty took the form of a motion in the House of Commons.95 On account of the Anglo-Turkish clandestine conditional convention, the Liberals demanded that Britain should be the first among the Powers to insist on the implementation of the Berlin Treaty. So far as the chief ‘political’
stipulations of the treaty were concerned, they were being carried into effect steadily; little, indeed, was left to be desired for now. Therefore, the Liberals’ emphasis was placed on matters of ‘cultural’ importance, namely the questions of Turkish reforms and Greek frontiers.
The unfulfilled arrangements of the Berlin Treaty were brought into debate in the House of Commons on a motion for an address by Dilke on 22 July 1879.
The procrastination of the Porte in giving self-rule to all the European provinces and in conceding to Greece the rectification of frontier promised by the treaty
94 See Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. 246, “Foreign Policy of Her Majesty’s Government – Observations”, 16 May 1879, Lord Argyll, 508-36; and Ibid., “Treaty of Berlin – Execution of Articles – Question”, William Harcourt, 16 May 1879, 567-8.
95 Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. 248, “Congress of Berlin (Unfulfilled Arrangements)”, 22 July 1879, Charles Dilke, 1027. In mid-June Dilke had urged Gladstone to move. Gladstone agreed that there should be a debate on the question, but declined to be the mover. PRO, PRO30/29/29A, Gladstone to Granville, 13 June 1879.
was the main point of Opposition arguments. The Liberals strenuously demanded the Government to carry out, in co-operation with the Great Powers, the promise jointly guaranteed by Europe that all the provinces of European Turkey were to set up a parliament on the basis of election. But, on the other hand, most of the Liberal Party were much more pessimistic and much less demanding about the execution of reforms in Asiatic Turkey prescribed by the Anglo-Turkish convention, because they cared neither for the fall of the Turkish Empire nor for the keeping of Cyprus. Harcourt was by no means alone in saying: ‘To my mind, no Eastern policy is worth discussion which does not assume as its basis, and make provision for, the inevitable and proximate dissolution of the Turkish rule.’96 In view of the great difficulty in reviving the Turkish power by means of reform, the Liberals embarked on a plan for keeping the balance of power in the Balkans. To avoid the Russians from acquiring supremacy in Eastern Europe, it was thought ‘legitimate and necessary to play off Austria against [Russia],’ to the extent and in a way that would strengthen the Concert of Europe there and assist the native populations in organizing themselves.97 The delay in readjusting the Greco-Turkish boundaries recommended in the 13th Protocol of the Berlin Congress excited much indignation in philhellenic circles, to which most of the Liberals belonged. For the Liberal Party, it was impossible to consider the Eastern Question settled until the needs of Greece had been satisfied. But, it was improbable to meet the Gladstonian wish to give full effect to the Berlin Treaty,
‘not with injustice to Turkey, but in the interests of Greece.’98 In reality, the Liberals were much more radical on the issue of Greek frontiers than on that of Turkish reforms, and they were prepared to have Britain act as the protector of Greece, even at the cost of the Concert of Europe.
The constant contention of Gladstone (hence his followers) was that Turkey could be compelled, without war, to comply with what she was ordered to do, if Britain would bring about unanimous moral and diplomatic action on the part of Europe. In brief, his solution of the Eastern Question,
96 The Times, 15 Jan. 1880, 9e.
97 BL, Add. MSS. 44104, f.159, Argyll to Gladstone, 22 March 1880.
98 Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. 245, “Treaty of Berlin – Protocol 13 – Resolution”, 17 April 1879, Gladstone, 544.
in all its branches, was the moral coercion of Turkey by the European Concert. This was the Liberal programme in the East: simple but tough.
After the end of 1878 the Conservative Government was gradually losing its popularity because of – among other things – its foreign difficulties.99 Meanwhile the Liberal Party was gaining strength as a result of its campaign to change British position overseas. Salisbury complained in August 1879 of the obstruction of the Government’s domestic programme by Liberal eloquence on foreign policy.100 By this time the foreign policy of the Liberals, in contrast to that of the Conservatives, became recognizable and began to appeal. At the end of the year Gladstone enumerated in his third Midlothian speech six principles with respect to foreign policy, which were soon to direct the diplomacy of a new Liberal government. He meant to foster the strength of the British Empire by just laws and by economy (rather than the naked force), to seek to preserve the world’s peace, to strive to cultivate and maintain the principle of the Concert of Europe, to avoid needless and entangling engagements, to see that British foreign policy should be ‘inspired’ by such love of freedom as had marked the prominent Whig leaders Canning, Palmerston and Russell, and to acknowledge the equal rights of all nations.101 Gladstone later defined his own understanding of ‘the special commission under which the Government had taken office’ in 1880 to be to reconstruct the whole spirit
99 The Government had won two seats since the last general election, while the Liberal Party had won ten since the Eastern Question had been before the public. Gladstone wrote to Granville in November 1878: ‘My belief has been pretty firm since the Anglo-Turkish convention that the Tory Party is traveling towards a great smash… I had no wonder at seeing you in their place before a twelvemonth.’ PRO, PRO30/29/29A, Gladstone to Granville, 2 Nov. 1878; and BL, Add. MSS. 44171, f.194, Granville to Gladstone, 18 Sept. 1878.
100 Salisbury’s speech to the London and Westminster Workingmen’s Constitutional Association, 4 Aug. 1879. The Times, 5 Aug. 1879, 4e.
101 W. E. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches, 1879 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1971), 115-17. Also cf. BL, Add. MSS. 44666, f.98, Gladstone’s note “Foreign Policy:
Right Principles”, undated; W. E. Gladstone, Third Midlothian Campaign: Political Speeches (Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, undated), 40; and John Morley, op. cit., 595.
and effect of the foreign policy of Great Britain.102 In his Midlothian
and effect of the foreign policy of Great Britain.102 In his Midlothian