Chapter IV: On the Prosecution of the Russian War (2)

I wish the noble Lord could blot out from his recollection, for a little time, William III, and all the remembrance of what has been called by the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) 'the Dutch conquest,' which is supposed to have enthroned the Whig aristocracy in this country. I would ask the noble Lord to do this for to-night--for an hour--for five minutes. There is a country called the United States of America. Only on Tuesday night the very remarkable circumstance occurred--and I think the House will be of opinion that it is one worth notice--of two of those distinguished men being present and listening to the debates in this House who have occupied the position of President of the United States; a position, I venture to say, not lower in honour and dignity than that of any crowned monarch on the surface of the globe. The United States is precisely the country which is running with us the race of power and of greatness. Its population will, I believe, at the next census exceed the population of the United Kingdom; in its manufactures and general industry it is by far the most formidable rival that the great manufacturers of this country now have to contend with; it has, I suppose, ten steamers for one steamer of this country; its magnificent steamships have crossed the Atlantic in a shorter time than the steamships of this country; the finest vessels which are at this moment performing the voyage between England and the Australian colonies have been built in the United States; therefore, in shipbuilding industry the United States not only compete with, but in some respects even excel, this country. Look at our present position and that of the United States.

May I entreat the attention of this House, for I am not declaiming, I am not making a party attack, I am treating of that which, in my mind, is of vital importance to every family in the kingdom. This year the Chancellor of the Exchequer told you that he must have a sum of 86,000,000_l_. in order to carry on the various departments of your Government, and to defray your vast military expenditure. The United States has at this moment in her Treasury enough, I think, to pay off all her debt. Deduct the whole amount of the expenses of the Government of the United States, not only of the general Government, but also of the thirty independent sovereign States, from the 86,000,000_l_. we are spending, and you will find that at least 70,000,000_l_. will be left, which is, therefore, the sum of taxation that we are paying this year more than the people of the United States.

Some hon. Gentlemen know what it is to run a horse that has been weighted. I heard, the other day, of a horse that won every race in which it started, up to a certain period when it was for the first time weighted. It then lost the race, and it is reported in the annals of the turf that it never won a race afterwards. If that be the case with regard to a horse, it is much more true with regard to a nation. When a nation has gone a step backwards it is difficult to restore it to its position; if another nation has passed it in the race, it is almost impossible for it to regain the ground it has lost. I now speak particularly to hon. Members opposite, for there are, perhaps, more Gentlemen upon that than upon this side of the House in the happy position of owners of vast, productive, beautiful, and, I hope, unencumbered estates in the various parts of the kingdom. We are now about ten days' voyage from the United States, and within ten years we shall probably communicate with that country by telegraph as quickly as we now do with the Crimea. I hope it will be for a much better object. The people of the United States are our people, and there are few families in England which have not friends and relatives connected with or settled in that country. The inducements for men to remain at home and their attachment to the place of their birth are necessarily to some extent weakened by the facility with which they can now travel almost round the world in a few weeks.

Do you believe that when the capital of the greatest banking-house in Lombard street can be transferred to the United States on a small piece of paper in one post, that the imposition of 70,000,000_l_. of taxation over and above the taxation of an equal population in the United States will not have the effect of transferring capital from this country to the United States, and, if capital, then trade, population, and all that forms the bone and sinew of this great Empire? I ask hon. Members to remember what fell on a previous evening from the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Works. The right hon. Gentleman talked of the war lasting, perhaps, six years with our resources undiminished. Now, nothing is easier than for a Cornish Baronet, possessing I am afraid to say how many thousands a year, a Member of a Cabinet, or for all those who are surrounded with every comfort, to look with the utmost complacency upon the calamities which may befall others not so fortunately situated as themselves. Six years of this war, and our resources undiminished! Why, Sir, six years of this war, at an annual expenditure of 70,000,000_l_., give 420,000,000_l_. to the side of the United States as against the condition of the people of this country.

Am I, then, talking of trifles? Am I talking to sane men, that it is necessary to bring forward facts like these? I am amazed, when the newspaper press, when public speakers, when Gentlemen on both sides of this House are so ready to listen and to speak upon questions relating to Turkey, to Servia, or to Schamyl, that I cannot get the House of Commons to consider a question so great as the expenditure of 420,000,000_l_., and when we have to consider if we shall trust that vast issue in the hands of the noble Lords and right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury bench.

I have stated that I have no confidence in the Government, and I will now tell the House another reason for that want of confidence. My hon. Friend the Member for the West Riding, on a previous occasion, treated the right hon. President of the Board of Works very summarily; but I wish to call the attention of the House to what was said by the right hon. Gentleman in 1850, in the debate which then took place upon the foreign policy of the noble Lord now his chief. On that occasion the right hon. Gentleman told the House that the foreign policy of the noble Lord now at the head of the Government had made us hated by every party in every nation in Europe; he said that the noble Lord had excited the disaffected to revolt, and, having brought upon them the vengeance of the Governments under which they lived, had then betrayed them. I do not say that this is true, but I state it upon the authority of a Minister now in the Cabinet of the noble Lord; but, whether true or not, I cannot have confidence in the right hon. Gentleman when sitting in a Cabinet to carry out the foreign policy of the noble Lord.

I will take the case of another Minister, and I do not think that when he speaks he will call my observations undeserved. A most distinguished Member of the Government--the Chancellor of the Exchequer--has been twice elected within a very short period, once before and once since his acceptance of office,--I must say that I do not like to see these changes, when a man one night sits on one bench and another night on another,--on the 8th of February, 1855, the right hon. Gentleman, addressing his constituents at Radnor, said:--

'I am not prepared to give my vote in favour of any change in our
policy which would attempt to make England a first-rate military
Power. It seems to me that it would be little short of madness to
attempt any such gigantic undertaking. It is our true wisdom to
limit ourselves to that amount of military force which shall
enable us to defend our own shores, and to protect our great
dependencies abroad. If we can completely defend our own coasts,
it appears to me that the objects of our national policy have
been fulfilled.'

And then, as if he had in view the language of the noble Lord at the head of the Government and that of his colleague the Member for London, he proceeded to say,--

'I wish to see a cessation of that inordinate and senseless
desire which has been sometimes expressed of late, almost
usurping the functions of Providence, that we should go to almost
all parts of the world to redress wrong and to see that right is
done.'

I say that the right hon. Gentleman had the language of his colleagues in view, and when he speaks he will no doubt admit that such was the case. For what did the noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies say when he addressed the baillies and the enthusiastic citizens of Greenock? He said,--

'It is likewise to be considered, and I trust we shall none of us
forget it, that this country holds an important position among
the nations of the world--that not once, but many times, she has
stood forward to resist oppression, to maintain the independence
of weaker nations, to preserve to the general family of nations
that freedom, that power of governing themselves, of which others
have sought to deprive them. I trust that character will not be
forgotten, will not be abandoned by a people which is now
stronger in means, which is more populous and more wealthy than
it ever has been at any former period. This then, you will agree
with me, is not the period to abandon any of those duties towards
the world, towards the whole of mankind, which Great Britain has
hitherto performed.'

Now let us see what the right hon. Gentleman said, after having accepted the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman made a speech, and it was just after the death of the late Emperor of Russia, and, in referring to the new Emperor, he said,--

'If, however, it should please this mighty Potentate to continue
in the course of aggression upon which his father had entered,
and if our reasonable hopes of a more pacific policy should be
disappointed, then let him know that in England he will find a
country prepared to maintain its own rights and the rights of
other nations.'

Observe, 'the rights of other nations;' and he goes on,--

'A country which, although its army has been placed in a perilous
position, and has had to undergo the rigours of a Russian winter,
has its resources unimpaired, has its revenue flourishing, has
its trade substantially undiminished, has its spirit unbroken,
and will be prepared, in case of necessity, to vindicate its own
honour, and to maintain the rights and liberties of Europe.'

I wish the House to observe what a complete change there is in the language of the right hon. Gentleman upon these two occasions. Either of the two opinions which he expressed may be right, but both of them cannot be so, and I confess that when I find that a Gentleman says one thing one day, and a month later, when he comes into office, the exact opposite, I do not think that I can be expected to have that confidence in him as to be willing to entrust him with the vast issues depending on the war.

I will now refer to a colleague of the right hon. Gentleman--one who has also distinguished himself--I mean the First Lord of the Admiralty. That right hon. Gentleman (Sir C. Wood) has said nothing upon the subject of the war, and I have felt that he must entertain great doubts as to its policy; but, not very long ago, he also addressed his constituents, and indulged in very hostile and insulting language towards 'our great and magnanimous ally;' but he, too, has changed his mind; and not long ago he went down by express train to Folkestone or Dover--I forget which--to meet in the most friendly, and probably in the most humble manner, the very potentate whom he had formerly abused.

If I have disposed of these Gentlemen and shown why I can have no confidence in them, are there any better reasons why I should have confidence in those two noble Lords who were the active and restless spirits in the Cabinet which the noble Lord the Member for London overthrew? I regard those noble Lords as responsible for the policy of this war. I am bound to suppose that they acted in accordance with their conscientious convictions; but, still, the fact of their having embarked in that policy is no reason why I should have confidence in them. But, are those two noble Lords men in whom the House and country ought to place implicit confidence? What of late could be more remarkable than the caprices of the noble Lord the Member for London? When that noble Lord was in the Government of Lord Aberdeen he went to Greenock, I think to Bedford, and certainly to Bristol--and, in fact, he took every opportunity which offered itself of bringing himself before the public; and, with his power of speech, his long experience, and eminent character, did his utmost to stimulate the feelings of the people to a policy which I believe to be destructive, and which I think the majority of this House in calm moments does not believe to have been the wisest which could have been pursued. It certainly appears to me to be unjustifiable that, while Lord Aberdeen was honestly endeavouring to bring the negotiations to a peaceful conclusion, the noble Lord was taking a course which rendered statesmanship valueless in conducting the foreign policy of the nation. The noble Lord, however, at last brought his conduct to a climax. The hon. and learned Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) came forward as a little David with sling and stone--weapons which he did not even use, but at the sight of which the Whig Goliath went howling and vanquished to the back benches.

I am afraid, Sir, to trust myself to speak of the conduct of the noble Lord on that occasion. I presume that we shall have to wait for the advent of that Somersetshire historian, whose coming the noble Lord expects, before we know whether his conduct on that occasion was, what some persons still call it, treachery to his chief, or whether it arose from that description of moral cowardice which in every man is the death of all true statesmanship. But in the year 1853 the noble Lord the Member for London gave me a strong reason why I should feel no confidence in his present chief. The House will remember that he then ejected the present First Minister under whom he now serves from the Cabinet of which he himself was then the head, and in the explanation which he made to the House, he told us that men like Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne, men of age, of authority, and experience, had been able in some degree to control his noble Friend, but, that he being younger than the noble Lord, and having been a shorter time on the political stage, had found it difficult to control him. The description which the noble Lord might give of his colleague is a little like that which we occasionally see given of a runaway horse--that he got the bit between his teeth, and there was no holding him.

The noble Lord the Member for London was the captain of the State vessel, and the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton was the mate. But how is it now? The noble Lord the Member for the City of London has accepted the position of mate in the most perilous times, in the most tempestuous weather, and he goes to sea with no chart on a most dangerous and interminable voyage, and with the very reckless captain whom he would not trust as mate. Sir, the noble Lord the Member for London has made a defence of his conduct at the Conferences at Vienna. I am willing to give him credit that he did then honestly intend peace; but I do think that when he goes again, and on such a journey, he will do well to leave some of his historic knowledge behind him. They were indeed historic fancies. There is nothing to me so out of place as the comparison which the noble Lord made between the limitation of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea and the destruction of Dunkirk, or between the condition of the Black Sea and that of the lakes of North America. The noble Lord can never have heard of the Falls of Niagara. If there were Falls like them between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean the cases would be somewhat similar, for the Russian fleet in the Black Sea would not then be exposed to the assaults of the vast navies of England or France. When I allude to this subject, I am reminded of that Welshman whom Shakspeare immortalised, who found some analogy between a river in Macedon and a river in Monmouth. He knew the name of the river in Monmouth, and he did not know the name of the river in Macedon, but he insisted upon the analogy between them because there were salmon in both.

Well, Sir, I now come to the noble Lord at the head of the Government. I do not complain that he is at the head of the Government. The noble Lord the Member for the City of London had thrown everything into such inextricable and unlooked-for confusion that any one next door to him must necessarily occupy the place. But I cannot have confidence in the noble Viscount, because I cannot but recollect that in 1850 he received the condemnation of his foreign policy in the other House of Parliament; and in a speech which I shall never forget, the last and one of the best ever delivered by the greatest statesman of the time, he received a similar condemnation, and the noble Viscount only escaped condemnation by a direct vote of this House by the energetic defence of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, and by the stress laid upon many Members on this side of the House. But only six weeks after this the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) presented to the noble Viscount a letter from his Sovereign, which I cannot but think must have cost him much pain, and to which I will not refer further, except to say that I do not know how it is possible, if the contents of that letter were true, that either the noble Lord or the House can be called upon to place implicit confidence in the noble Lord the leader of the Government.

I have observed the noble Viscount's conduct ever since I have had the honour of a seat in this House, and the noble Viscount will excuse me if I state the reason why I have often opposed him. The reason is, that the noble Viscount treats all these questions, and the House itself, with such a want of seriousness that it has appeared to me that he has no serious, or sufficiently serious, conviction of the important business that so constantly comes before this House. I regard the noble Viscount as a man who has experience, but who with experience has not gained wisdom--as a man who has age, but who, with age, has not the gravity of age, and who, now occupying the highest seat of power, has--and I say it with pain--not appeared influenced by a due sense of the responsibility that belongs to that elevated position.

We are now in the hands of these two noble Lords. They are the authors of the war. It lies between them that peace was not made at Vienna upon some proper terms. And whatever disasters may be in store for this country or for Europe, they will lie at the doors of these noble Lords. Their influence in the Cabinet must be supreme; their influence in this House is necessarily great; and their influence with the country is greater than that of any other two statesmen now upon the stage of political life in England. They have carried on the war. They have, however, not yet crippled Russia, although it is generally admitted that they have almost destroyed Turkey. They have not yet saved Europe in its independence and civilization,--they have only succeeded in convulsing it. They have not added to the honour and renown of England, but they have placed the honour and renown of this country in peril. The country has been, I am afraid, the sport of their ancient rivalry, and I should be very sorry if it should be the victim of the policy which they have so long advocated.

There is only one other point upon which I will trouble the House, if it will give me its attention. These Ministers--the right hon. Member for Southwark, the Commissioner of the Board of Works, especially, and evidently the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I am afraid many other Members of this House--seem to think little of taxes. Some Members of this House seem to have no patience with me if I speak of the cost of the war; but I am obliged to ask its attention to this point. I recollect reading in the life of Necker, that an aristocratic lady came to him when he was Finance Minister of Louis XVI, and asked him to give her 1,000 crowns from the public treasury--not an unusual demand in those days. Necker refused to give the money. The lady started with astonishment--she had an eye to the vast funds of the State, and she asked, 'What can 1,000 crowns be to the King?' Necker's answer was, 'Madam! 1,000 crowns are the taxes of a whole village!'

I ask hon. Gentlemen what are the taxes of a whole village, and what they mean? They mean bareness of furniture, of clothing, and of the table in many a cottage in Lancashire, in Suffolk, and in Dorsetshire. They mean an absence of medical attendance for a sick wife, an absence of the school pence of three or four little children--hopeless toil to the father of a family, penury through his life, a cheerless old age, and, if I may quote the language of a poet of humble life, at last--'the little bell tolled hastily for the pauper's funeral.' That is what taxes mean. The hon. Member for Dorsetshire spoke the other night in a manner rather flippant and hardly respectful to some of us on this question. But the labourers of Dorsetshire as well as the weavers and spinners of Lancashire are toiling, and must toil harder, longer, and with smaller remuneration for every single 100_l_. that you extract in taxes from the people in excess of what is necessary for the just requirements of the Exchequer of the country. I hope I may be permitted to treat the question on this ground, and I ask the House to recollect that when you strike down the children in the cottage you attack also the children in the palace. If you darken the lives and destroy the hopes of the humble dwellers of the country, you also darken the prospects of those children the offspring of your Queen, in whom are bound up so much of the interests and so much of the hopes of the people of this country. If I defend, therefore, the interests of the people on this point, I do not the less defend the permanence of the dignity of the Crown.

We on this bench are not willing to place ourselves alongside of noble Lords who are for carrying on this war with no definite object and for an indefinite period, but are ready to take our chance of the verdict of posterity whether they or we more deserve the character of statesmen in the course we have taken on this question. The House must know that the people are misled and bewildered, and that if every man in this House, who doubts the policy that is being pursued, would boldly say so in this House and out of it, it would not be in the power of the press to mislead the people as it has done for the last twelve months. If they are thus misled and bewildered, is it not the duty of this House to speak with the voice of authority in this hour of peril? We are the depositaries of the power and the guardians of the interests of a great nation and of an ancient monarchy. Why should we not fully measure our responsibility? Why should we not disregard the small-minded ambition that struggles for place? and why should we not, by a faithful, just, and earnest policy, restore, as I believe we may, tranquillity to Europe and prosperity to the country so dear to us?

* * * * *

LETTER OF JOHN BRIGHT TO ABSALOM WATKIN ON THE RUSSIAN WAR

[This letter was originally published with notes containing extracts from those authorities which confirmed the writer's views. The text of these notes has been omitted, but the references have been retained. It has been thought desirable to reprint this letter, as explaining the policy which Mr. Bright thought it his duty to recommend--a policy which was as wise and just as it was unfortunately unpopular.--J. E. T. R.]

[Mr. Absalom Watkin, of Manchester, having invited Mr. Bright to a meeting about to be held in that city on behalf of the Patriotic Fund, and having stated that in his opinion the present war was justified by the authority of _Vattel_, Mr. Bright replied in the subjoined letter.]

I think, on further consideration, you will perceive that the meeting on Thursday next would be a most improper occasion for a discussion as to the justice of the war. Just or unjust, the war is a fact, and the men whose lives are miserably thrown away in it have clearly a claim upon the country, and especially upon those who, by the expression of opinions favourable to the war, have made themselves responsible for it. I cannot, therefore, for a moment appear to discourage the liberality of those who believe the war to be just, and whose utmost generosity, in my opinion, will make but a wretched return for the ruin they have brought upon hundreds of families.

With regard to the war itself, I am not surprised at the difference between your opinion and mine, if you decide a question of this nature by an appeal to _Vattel_. The 'law of nations' is not my law, and at best it is a code full of confusion and contradictions, having its foundation on custom, and not on a higher morality; and on custom which has always been determined by the will of the strongest. It may be a question of some interest whether the first crusade was in accordance with the law and principles of _Vattel_; but whether the first crusade was just, and whether the policy of the crusades was a wise policy, is a totally different question. I have no doubt that the American war was a just war according to the principles laid down by writers on the 'law of nations,' and yet no man in his senses in this country will now say that the policy of George III. towards the American colonies was a wise policy, or that war a righteous war. The French war, too, was doubtless just according to the same authorities; for there were fears and anticipated dangers to be combatted, and law and order to be sustained in Europe; and yet few intelligent men now believe the French war to have been either necessary or just. You must excuse me if I refuse altogether to pin my faith upon _Vattel_. There have been writers on international law who have attempted to show that private assassination and the poisoning of wells were justifiable in war: and perhaps it would be difficult to demonstrate wherein these horrors differ from some of the practices which are now in vogue. I will not ask you to mould your opinion on these points by such writers, nor shall I submit my judgment to that of _Vattel_.

The question of this present war is in two parts--first, was it necessary for us to interfere by arms in a dispute between the Russians and the Turks; and secondly, having determined to interfere, under certain circumstances, why was not the whole question terminated when Russia accepted the Vienna note? The seat of war is three thousand miles away from us. We had not been attacked--not even insulted in any way. Two independent Governments had a dispute, and we thrust ourselves into the quarrel. That there was some ground for the dispute is admitted by the four Powers in the proposition of the Vienna note. [Footnote: Colonel Rose to Lord John Russell, March 7, 1853--Blue Book, part i. p. 87. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe to the Earl of Clarendon., April 9 and May 22, 1853--Ibid, part i. pp. 127 and 235. Lord John Russell to Sir G. H. Seymour, February 9, 1853--Eastern Papers, part v. p. 8. Earl of Clarendon to Sir G. H. Seymour, April 5, 1853--Ibid, part v. p. 22. Lord Carlisle's Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters, p. 181.] But for the English Minister at Constantinople and the Cabinet at home the dispute would have settled itself, and the last note of Prince Menchikoff would have been accepted, and no human being can point out any material difference between that note and the Vienna note, afterwards agreed upon and recommended by the Governments of England, France, Austria and Prussia. But our Government would not allow the dispute to be settled. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe held private interviews with the Sultan--did his utmost to alarm him--insisted on his rejection of all terms of accommodation with Russia, and promised him the armed assistance of England if war should arise. [Footnote: Lord Stratford to the Earl of Clarendon, May 19, 1853. See, however, a despatch of May 10--Blue Book, part i. p. 213.]

The Turks rejected the Russian note, and the Russians crossed the Pruth, occupying the Principalities as a 'material guarantee.' I do not defend this act of Russia: it has always appeared to me impolitic and immoral; but I think it likely it could be well defended out of _Vattel_, and it is at least as justifiable as the conduct of Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston in 1850, when they sent ten or twelve ships of war to the Piraeus, menacing the town with a bombardment if the dishonest pecuniary claims made by Don Pacifico were not at once satisfied. [Footnote: Count Nesselrode to Baron Brunnow, February, 1850.]

But the passage of the Pruth was declared by England and France and Turkey not to be a _casus belli_. Negotiations were commenced at Vienna, and the celebrated Vienna note was drawn up. This note had its origin in Paris [Footnote: Earl of Westmorland to Lord Clarendon, July 25, 1853--Blue Book, part ii. p. 19.], was agreed to by the Conference at Vienna, ratified and approved by the Cabinets of Paris and London [Footnote: Earl of Clarendon to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, August 2, 1853--Blue Book, part ii. p. 27. Lord Cowley to Lord Clarendon, August 4, 1853--Ibid, part ii. p. 37.], and pronounced by all these authorities to be such as would satisfy the honour of Russia, and at the same time be compatible with the 'independence and integrity' of Turkey and the honour of the Sultan. Russia accepted this note at once [Footnote: Sir G. H. Seymour to the Earl of Clarendon, August 5, 1853--Blue Book, part ii. p. 43. Count Nesselrode, August 6, 1853--Ibid, part ii. p. 46.],-- accepted it, I believe, by telegraph, even before the precise words of it had been received in St. Petersburgh [Footnote: Sir G. H. Seymour to Lord Clarendon, August 12, 1853--Blue Book, part ii. p. 50. Count Nesselrode to Baron Meyendorff, September 7, 1853--Ibid, part ii. p. 101.]. Everybody thought the question now settled; a Cabinet Minister assured me we should never hear another word about it; 'the whole thing is at an end,' he said, and so it appeared for a moment. But the Turk refused the note which had been drawn up by his own arbitrators, and which Russia had accepted [Footnote: Lord Stratford de Redcliffe to the Earl of Clarendon, August 13, 1853--Blue Book, part iv. p. 69. Lord Stratford to the Earl of Clarendon, August 14, 1853--Ibid, part ii. p. 71.]. And what did the Ministers say then, and what did their organ, the _Times_, say? They said it was merely a difference about words; it was a pity the Turk made any difficulty, but it would soon be settled [Footnote: Lord Cowley to Lord Clarendon, from Paris, September 2, 1853-- Blue Book, part iv. p. 87. Lord Clarendon to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, September 10, 1853--Ibid, part iv. p. 95. The _Times_, September 17, 1853.]. But it was not settled, and why not? It is said that the Russian Government put an improper construction on the Vienna note. But it is unfortunate for those who say this, that the Turk placed precisely the same construction upon it; and further, it is upon record that the French Government advised the Russian Government to accept it, on the ground that 'its general sense differed in nothing from the sense of the proposition of Prince Menchikoff.' [Footnote: Earl of Clarendon to the Earl of Westmoreland, July 25, 1853--Blue Book, part ii. p. 1. Count Nesselrode's Memorandum of March 2, 1854, in the _Journal des Debats_.] It is, however, easy to see why the Russian Government should, when the Turks refused the award of their own arbitrators, re- state its original claim, that it might not be damaged by whatever concession it had made in accepting the award; and this is evidently the explanation of the document issued by Count Nesselrode, and about which so much has been said. But, after this, the Emperor of Russia spoke to Lord Westmoreland on the subject at Olmutz, and expressed his readiness to accept the Vienna note, with any clause which the Conference might add to it, explaining and restricting its meaning; [Footnote: Lord Westmoreland to Lord Clarendon, September 28, 1853--Blue Book, part ii. p. 129. Lord Cowley to Lord Clarendon, October 4, 1853--Ibid, part ii. p. 131. Lord Clarendon to Lord Cowley, October 7, 1853--Ibid, part ii. p. 140. Lord Clarendon to Lord A. Loftus--Ibid, part ii. p. 132.] and he urged that this should be done at once, as he was anxious that his troops should re-cross the Pruth before winter. [Footnote: Earl of Westmoreland, September 14, 1853--Blue Book, part ii. p. 106.] It was in this very week that the Turks summoned a grand council, and, contrary to the advice of England and France, determined on a declaration of war. [Footnote: Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, September 26, 1853--Blue Book, part ii. p. 130. M. Drouyn de Lhuys to Count Walewski, October 4, 1853-- Ibid, part ii. p. 136.]

Now, observe the course taken by our Government. They agreed to the Vienna note; not fewer than five Members of this Cabinet have filled the office of Foreign Secretary, and therefore may be supposed capable of comprehending its meaning: it was a note drawn up by the friends of Turkey, and by arbitrators self-constituted on behalf of Turkey; they urged its acceptance on the Russian Government, and the Russian Government accepted it; there was then a dispute about its precise meaning, and Russia agreed, and even proposed that the arbitrators at Vienna should amend it, by explaining it, and limiting its meaning, so that no question of its intention should henceforth exist. But, the Turks having rejected it, our Government turned round, and declared the Vienna note, their own note, entirely inadmissible, and defended the conduct of the Turks in having rejected it. The Turks declared war, against the advice of the English and French Governments [Footnote: Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, September 20, 1853--Blue Book, part ii. pp. 149, 151. Lord Clarendon, October 24, 1853--Ibid, part ii. p. 131. Lord Stratford, November 17, 1853--Ibid, part ii. pp. 271, 281. Lord Stratford--Ibid, part ii. p. 288. Lord Clarendon to Lord Stratford, November 8, 1853--Ibid, part ii. p. 219.]--so, at least, it appears from the Blue Books; but the moment war was declared by Turkey, our Government openly applauded it. England, then, was committed to the war. She had promised armed assistance to Turkey--a country without government [Footnote: Lord Clarendon to Lord Stratford--Blue Book, part i. pp. 81, 82. Lord Stratford to M. E. Pisani, June 22, 1853--Ibid, part i. p. 383. The same to the same, July 4--Ibid, part i. pp. 383, 384.], and whose administration was at the mercy of contending factions; and incapable of fixing a policy for herself, she allowed herself to be dragged on by the current of events at Constantinople. She 'drifted,' as Lord Clarendon said, exactly describing his own position, into the war, apparently without rudder and without compass.

The whole policy of our Government in this matter is marked with an imbecility perhaps without example. I will not say they intended a war from the first, though there are not wanting many evidences that war was the object of at least a section of the Cabinet. A distinguished Member of the House of Commons said to a friend of mine, immediately after the accession of the present Government to office, 'You have a war Ministry, and you will have a war.' But I leave this question to point out the disgraceful feebleness of the Cabinet, if I am to absolve them from the guilt of having sought occasion for war. They promised the Turk armed assistance on conditions, or without conditions. They, in concert with France, Austria, and Prussia, took the original dispute out of the hands of Russia and Turkey, and formed themselves into a court of arbitration in the interests of Turkey; they made an award, which they declared to be safe and honourable for both parties; this award was accepted by Russia and rejected by Turkey; and they then turned round upon their own award, declared it to be 'totally inadmissible,' and made war upon the very country whose Government, at their suggestion and urgent recommendation, had frankly accepted it. At this moment England is engaged in a murderous warfare with Russia, although the Russian Government accepted her own terms of peace, and has been willing to accept them in the sense of England's own interpretation of them ever since they were offered; and at the same time England is allied with Turkey, whose Government rejected the award of England, and who entered into the war in opposition to the advice of England. Surely, when the Vienna note was accepted by Russia, the Turks should have been prevented from going to war, or should have been allowed to go to war at their own risk.

I have said nothing here of the fact that all these troubles have sprung out of the demands made by France upon the Turkish Government, and urged in language more insulting than any which has been shown to have been used by Prince Menchikoff [Footnote: Col. Rose to the Earl of Malmesbury, November 20, 1852--Blue Book, part i. p. 49. Lord J. Russell to Lord Cowley, January 28, 1853--Ibid, part i. p. 67.]. I have said nothing of the diplomatic war which has been raging for many years past in Constantinople, and in which England has been behind no other Power in attempting to subject the Porte to foreign influences [Footnote: Blue Book--Correspondence respecting the Condition of Protestants in Turkey, 1841-51, pp. 5-8.] I have said nothing of the abundant evidence there is that we are not only at war with Russia, but with all the Christian population of the Turkish Empire, and that we are building up our Eastern policy on a false foundation--namely, on the perpetual maintenance of the most immoral and filthy of all despotisms over one of the fairest portions of the earth which it has desolated, and over a population it has degraded but has not been able to destroy. I have said nothing of the wretched delusion that we are fighting for civilization in supporting the Turk against the Russian and against the subject Christian population of Turkey. I have said nothing about our pretended sacrifices for freedom in this war, in which our great and now dominant ally is a monarch who, last in Europe, struck down a free constitution, and dispersed by military violence a national Representative Assembly.

My doctrine would have been non-intervention in this case. The danger of the Russian power was a phantom [Footnote: 'There never has been a great State whose power for external aggression has been more overrated than Russia. She may be impregnable within her own boundaries, BUT SHE IS NEARLY POWERLESS FOR ANY PURPOSE OF OFFENCE.'--_Lord Palmerston, in the House of Commons_, 1853.]; the necessity of permanently upholding the Mahometan rule in Europe is an absurdity. Our love for civilization, when we subject the Greeks and Christians to the Turks, is a sham; and our sacrifices for freedom, when working out the behests of the Emperor of the French and coaxing Austria to help us, is a pitiful imposture. The evils of non-intervention were remote and vague, and could neither be weighed nor described in any accurate terms. The good we can judge something of already, by estimating the cost of a contrary policy. And what is that cost? War in the north and south of Europe, threatening to involve every country of Europe. Many, perhaps fifty millions sterling, in the course of expenditure by this country alone, to be raised from the taxes of a people whose extrication from ignorance and poverty can only be hoped for from the continuance of peace. The disturbance of trade throughout the world, the derangement of monetary affairs, and difficulties and ruin to thousands of families. Another year of high prices of food, notwithstanding a full harvest in England, chiefly because war interferes with imports, and we have declared our principal foreign food-growers to be our enemies. The loss of human life to an enormous extent. Many thousands of our own countrymen have already perished of pestilence and in the field; and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of English families will be plunged into sorrow, as a part of the penalty to be paid for the folly of the nation and its rulers.

When the time comes for the 'inquisition for blood,' who shall answer for these things? You have read the tidings from the Crimea; you have, perhaps, shuddered at the slaughter; you remember the terrific picture,-- I speak not of the battle, and the charge, and the tumultuous excitement of the conflict, but of the field after the battle--Russians, in their frenzy or their terror, shooting Englishmen who would have offered them water to quench their agony of thirst; Englishmen, in crowds, rifling the pockets of the men they had slain or wounded, taking their few shillings or roubles, and discovering among the plunder of the stiffening corpses images of the 'Virgin and the Child.' You have read this, and your imagination has followed the fearful details. This is war,--every crime which human nature can commit or imagine, every horror it can perpetrate or suffer; and this it is which our Christian Government recklessly plunges into, and which so many of our countrymen at this moment think it patriotic to applaud! You must excuse me if I cannot go with you. I will have no part in this terrible crime. My hands shall be unstained with the blood which is being shed. The necessity of maintaining themselves in office may influence an administration; delusions may mislead a people; _Vattel_ may afford you a law and a defence; but no respect for men who form a Government, no regard I have for 'going with the stream,' and no fear of being deemed wanting in patriotism, shall influence me in favour of a policy which, in my conscience, I believe to be as criminal before God as it is destructive of the true interest of my country.

I have only to ask you to forgive me for writing so long a letter. You have forced it from me, and I would not have written it did I not so much appreciate your sincerity and your good intentions towards me.

Believe me to be, very sincerely yours,

JOHN BRIGHT.

October 29.