The Liberal Tradition

3. FOREIGN POLICY

76. W. E. GLADSTONE: Speech in the House of Commons, 7 May 1877

Sir, there is before us not one controversy, but two. There is the controversy between Russia and Turkey; there is the controversy between Turkey and her revolted subjects. I think the Government and their supporters out-of-doors in the Press are committing a great error in this—that it is the first of these two controversies—that between Russia and Turkey, which, after all, is only symptomatic—to which they address their minds. In my opinion, the other is the deeper and more important. The other is a controversy which can have no issue but one, and I do not hesitate to say that the cause of the revolted subjects of Turkey against their oppressors is as holy a cause as ever animated the breast, or as ever stirred the hand of man. Sir, what part are we to play in regard to it? . . .

Sir, there were other days, when England was the hope of freedom. Wherever in the world a high aspiration was entertained, or a noble blow was struck, it was to England that the eyes of the oppressed were always turned—to this favourite, this darling home of so much privilege and so much happiness, where the people that had built up a noble edifice for themselves would, it was well known, be ready to do what in them lay to secure the benefit of the same inestimable boon for others. You talk to me of the established tradition and policy in regard to Turkey. I appeal to an established tradition, older, wiser, nobler far—a tradition not which disregards British interests, but which teaches you to seek the promotion of those interests in obeying the dictates of honour and of justice. And, Sir, what is to be the end of this? Are we to dress up the fantastic ideas some people entertain about this policy, and that policy in the garb of British interests, and then, with a new and base idolatry, to fall down and worship them? Or are we to look, not at the sentiment, but at the hard facts of the case, which Lord Derby told us fifteen years ago—namely, that it is the populations of those countries that will ultimately possess them—that will ultimately determine their abiding condition? It is to this fact, this law, that we should look.

Gladstone’s Speeches, ed. A. Tilney Bassett (1916), pp. 582-3.

77. W. E. GLADSTONE: Speech in the House of Commons, 30 July 1878

The doctrine of the Government is that something was to be done. But something was done. The Sultan was already under obligations to Europe to execute reforms in Asiatic Turkey by the Treaty of 1856. If we wished to give effect to that obligation, why did not we invoke the authority of Europe? Is it not higher and stronger than ours? Do we mean to set up our own authority as greater than that of Europe? Do you think that we have a monopoly of humanity? Has our conduct, with regard to Turkey, been such as to show that the care of the subject-populations has been our interest alone, or has been more studiously propagated by us than by other Powers of Christendom? Do you think that intervention in the Sultan’s affairs is prejudicial and unwise when it is attempted by others, but beneficent and wise when done by you single-handed? Now, suppose that the Sultan had made an agreement with Russia, to do, in a certain portion of his territory, that which he has agreed with you to do in far the larger part of it. Suppose a Russian Minister had said—‘We are going to reform the Judicature, the police, the finances, the Civil Service of Turkey, and stop the progress of corruption in Constantinople.’ Would you have commended Russia for taking that course? Would you have allowed Russia to take that course? No, nor yet to do a tenth part of what you have done. You would have inflamed the country and called out your Reserves, and adopted your military measures. Sir, the whole tendency of what Her Majesty’s Government has done is to establish one law for others, and another for themselves. . . .

[After discussing the methods by which the Government had secured Cyprus from the Turkish Government, Mr. Gladstone concluded:]

This to my mind, Sir, is a most serious matter. I think we have lost greatly by the conclusion of this [Cyprus] Convention; I think we have lost very greatly indeed the sympathy and respect of the nations of Europe. I do not expect or believe that we shall fall into that sort of contempt which follows upon weakness. I think it to be one of the most threadbare of all the weapons of Party warfare when we hear, as we sometimes hear, on the accession of a new Government, that before its accession the Government had been despised all over the world, and that now, on the contrary, she has risen in the general estimation, and holds her proper place in the Councils of Nations. This England of ours is not so poor and so weak a thing as to depend upon the reputation of this or that Administration; and the world knows pretty well of what stuff she is made. I am not quite sure, however, that the world has the same clear and strong conviction with respect to the standard of our moral action as it has with respect to the standard of our material strength. Now, I am desirous that the standard of our material strength shall be highly and justly estimated by the other nations of Christendom; but I believe it to be of still more vital consequence that we should stand high in their estimation as the lovers of truth, of honour, and of openness in all our proceedings, as those who know how to cast aside the motives of a narrow selfishness, and give scope to considerations of broad and lofty principle. I value our insular position, but I dread the day when we shall be reduced to a moral insularity. I desire that sympathy should be cherished with every country, be its name what it may; and I fear that the conclusion of this Convention will be injurious to the action of that sympathy. The proceedings have all along been associated with a profession as to certain British interests, which although I believe them to be perfectly fictitious and imaginary, have yet been pursued with as much zeal and eagerness, as if they had been the most vital realities in the world. This setting up of our interests, out of place, in an exaggerated form, beyond their proper sphere, and not merely the setting up of such interests, but the mode in which they have been pursued has greatly diminished, not, as I have said, the regard for our material strength, but the estimation of our moral standard of action, and consequently our moral position in the world. If that be so, Sir, with respect to Foreign countries, with respect to Parliament, I believe the case to be graver still.

Ibid. pp. 536-7 and 549-50.

78. W. E. GLADSTONE: Speech at the Foresters’ Hall, Dalkeith, 26 November 1879

[This speech and Nos. 79 and 80 were all delivered during Gladstone’s Midlothian election campaign of 1879-80.]

Go from South Africa to the mountains of Central Asia. Go into the lofty hills of Afghanistan, as they were last winter, and what do we there see? I fear a yet sadder sight than was to be seen in the land of the Zulus. . . . You have seen during last winter from time to time that from such and such a village attacks had been made upon the British forces, and that in consequence the village had been burned. Have you ever reflected on the meaning of those words? . . . Those hill tribes had committed no real offence against us. We, in the pursuit of our political objects, chose to establish military positions in their country. If they resisted, would not you have done the same? And when, going forth from their villages they had resisted, what you find is this, that those who went forth were slain, and that the village was burned. Again, I say, have you considered the meaning of these words? The meaning of the burning of the village is, that the women and the children were driven forth to perish in the snows of winter. Is not that a terrible supposition? Is not that a fact which . . . rouses in you a sentiment of horror and grief, to think that the name of England, under no political necessity, but for a war as frivolous as ever was waged in the history of man, should be associated with consequences such as these? . . .

Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God as can be your own. Remember that He who has united you together as human beings in the same flesh and blood has bound you by the law of mutual love; that that mutual love is not limited by the shores of this island, is not limited by the boundaries of Christian civilisation; that it passes over the whole surface of the earth, and embraces the meanest along with the greatest in its unmeasured scope.

Political Speeches in Scotland, November and December 1879 by W. E. Gladstone (Rev. edn., Edinburgh, 1880), pp. 91-4.

79. W. E. GLADSTONE: Speech at Penicuik, 25 March 1880

It is said by Admiral Martin, and very truly, that there is no doubt, under the British Government, the material condition of the inhabitants of Cyprus will be decidedly improved. I have no doubt of that whatever; but experience shows us that mankind are not governed solely by what relates to their material condition. . . . We became in 1815 protectors—Gt. Britain acquired the protectorate of the Ionian Islands. We did much good in these islands. We improved the roads; we improved the police; we promoted equal laws; we favoured religious toleration. We did many things that were right, but yet the people said to us: ‘This may be all very well; but we are Greeks and we want to be united to the people of our own blood.’ And therefore, instead of gratitude and attachment, a condition of things most disgraceful and painful arose in the Ionian Islands; and in the Ionian Islands this shameful power of banishing men without trial, for any cause approved by the head of the British Government, was unfortunately, to our great disgrace, very long in use. It was abandoned a short time before we gave up the Protectorate, but what I want to point out to you is, that these national affinities inspire feelings which are part of our nature, which are a good and an honourable part of our nature—that it is natural, legitimate and right for people of a given race to be associated with their brethren of that race. . . .

Now the bulk of the people of Cyprus are Greeks—and rely upon it that if matters continue as they are, Greek sympathies, with the opening and extending emancipation of the East of Europe—Greek sympathies will prevail in the island; and instead of earning, even by the benefits you may confer on them, gratitude and attachment in the form of a disposition to continue in political connection with you, the more you improve their condition the quicker will be the development of this strong sentiment of nationality, and the more earnest the desire of the Greeks of Cyprus to be united with the free Greeks of the rest of the world. . . .

I asked you what you thought of the quality of mercy. . . . General Roberts has sent home an account of the Afghans whom he has executed, and I find among these Afghans that some were executed for the offence of inciting their fellow-countrymen to resist; they are not merely slain in action, but they are executed for that offence. I am not going to censure General Roberts. Such is the necessity of his position that I will not take into my hands the office of judging him. But I say, is not this monstrous, that we should place ourselves in such a position that when the Afghan discharges the first duty of a patriot—namely to endeavour to bring his countrymen to resist the foreign invader—that is to be treated as a sin, and is to be visited, not merely by the chances of war, but by an ignominious death, even after resistance has ceased?

I know not, I cannot answer for the interior of other men’s minds, but I have striven and will strive to lay these things before you as I see them, and I will close by saying, what was the profession with which the Government entered this war? They said that they wished to have an Afghanistan independent, strong and friendly. As to the independence of Afghanistan, Afghanistan has forfeited, by treaty extorted by necessity from its ruler, all independence; for the whole of its foreign relations are given over into the hands of England. As to its strength, it was a country, it was a nation, it was a unity: it is now a chaos. One sovereign has been driven out of it, to perish by disease and anxiety: another sovereign is a prisoner in our hands; and there is no ruler from one end of the land to the other that can call it his own. So much for the strength of Afghanistan that you said you desired; so much for the independence of Afghanistan that the Ministers said they would secure. As to the friendliness of Afghanistan, carry away with you from this room, this night, the recollection of the burning words of General Roberts, that every Afghan regards with natural hatred the foreign invader of his native land.

Ibid. pp. 287-96.

80. W. E. GLADSTONE: Speech at Loanhead, 22 March 1880

[In this speech Gladstone sets out the policy which he believes ought to have been followed in the Eastern Crisis of 1875-8.]

The Powers of Europe in the course of 1876 had shown a great and general desire to meet the necessities of the case in the East, to stop the excesses and abuses which had led to the rebellions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to take effectual securities against the repetition of those horrors which have covered with everlasting infamy the name of the Turks in Bulgaria. . . . Now, what I presumed at that time to teach was this, that what is called autonomy—self-government, practical self-government—ought to be given to those provinces. . . . The Sultan might have remained as the head of the Empire containing these provinces. He might have received from them by arrangement, effected under the sanction of Europe, most liberal contributions towards the expenses of his Government; but the essential part of it was this, that the people should have, not the management of the affairs of the Turkish Empire, but the management of their own local affairs. . . .

Local self-government was what was asked for these provinces. It was not the first time it had been conferred in the Turkish Empire. What were called the Danubian Principalities and, again, the Principality of Servia, had earned this privilege for themselves, and had prospered, thriven under it—given no trouble to Europe, had become the seat of contentment and tranquillity simply by the granting of this concession. We contended that if Europe—united Europe—told Turkey you must act up to this point; you must give to Bulgaria, to Bosnia, to Herzegovina what you have given to Servia, what you have given to Roumania, that the Turk would have done it. . . . And never were the means of peaceful and bloodless coercion so fully and indisputably in the hands of any Power, as were then in the hands of the European Powers applicable against Turkey, had Turkey been obstinately determined to persist.

Turkey would undoubtedly have lost the power of appointing pashas and governors and policemen in those three provinces. Instead of perpetuating danger, bloodshed, disquiet and disgrace, she would have had peaceful relations with them. Ceasing to suffer from her, they would have ceased to entertain hostile sentiments to her, and, in fact, although giving up a portion of the despotic power which she might abuse, she would have retained all that was valuable to her, and would have made the populations of those provinces feel that to be under the Sultan was to give them a kind of shelter for the growth of their local and practical liberties. . . . What would have been the consequence of that policy as far as Russia was concerned? Simply this, that Russia would have acted as one of the six Powers of Europe; that, great as would have been the boon conceded to the populations of the three provinces, they would have received that boon from the hands of the Powers without distinction. Whatever gratitude they felt, whatever sentiments of dependence might be in them, would have been a sentiment directing itself towards those six Powers alike. Russia, as Russia, would have gained nothing by the transaction; Turkey, as Turkey, would have avoided the terrible loss she has incurred.

Now, let us recollect what happened. This policy which I have described was discarded with contempt as a visionary scheme invented by the enemies of Turkey, and so the ‘friends of Turkey’ got the upper hand, and what did the ‘friends of Turkey’ do? They stood by and they encouraged her by side-long representations given by our ambassadors in Constantinople, encouraged her to rush into that terrible war with Russia. The friends of Turkey, as they called themselves, had the upper hand, and what have they done for her, what are the proofs of friendship they have left her? Why, they have left her mangled and mutilated, invaded on every side, with the Powers of Europe now all entitled to interfere in the concerns of Turkey. They have left her deprived of all those three provinces that I have described—that is to say, deprived of what would have been taken from her under the other policy. Seven millions of people in Roumania, and in Servia, and in Montenegro, over whom she claimed sovereignty, are completely separated from her. That is one of the results the friends of Turkey brought about for her. . .

But I have still to draw your attention to the other subject—the aggrandizement of Russia. Now, recollect that if the Powers in 1876 had acted together, and had together obtained from Turkey certain boons for the inhabitants of those three provinces, by which the concessions of Turkey would have been limited, the boon would have been given by the six Powers of Europe, not by one of them in particular. But that concert of Europe was broken up, and Russia found herself in the condition of considering whether she should make solitary war upon Turkey or not. It is not for me to decide whether Russia was right or wrong in making that war. I wish to point out to you that by the result of that war Russia has obtained a great aggrandizement. . . . In the first place, she has so completely conquered the military power of Turkey that it is hardly possible, in the nature of things, that Turkey should ever make another serious military struggle against her. In the second place, Russia has obtained military fame by that war, the amount of which no man can reasonably undervalue. . . . But that was not all. We have also given her territory. Russia has got territory now that she did not possess in 1876—territory which has brought her again to the bank of the Danube—it having from the first been one of the main objects of the Crimean War to drive her back from the bank of the Danube. . . .

I ask, to whom is due that aggrandizement? I ask, is it due to the men who in 1876 wanted to settle this Turkish question without giving to Russia any opportunity of acquiring upon any pretence one inch of territory; or is it due to the men who rejected that settlement? . . . The port of Batoum in the Black Sea, the fortress of Kars in Armenia, other fortresses in Armenia and a considerable portion of Armenia were in the same manner secured to Russia as the results of this war, which we left to Russia the opportunity to make because we refused to act in concert with the rest of the Powers of Europe in telling Turkey what she must do. . . .

Now in my opinion it is quite right that we should regard Russia in the East and toward the Black Sea with jealousy; because I am quite sure that if England were in that position we should have great inclination to extend ourselves southwards; therefore I think it possible that the Russians may have a similar disposition. Now I am myself deeply anxious to check that extension by legitimate means—not by violence, but by legitimate means. In my opinion, there is one means of checking it which is legitimate, and which is effectual: and that is, to grant to the inhabitants of these provinces what the Roumanians and the Servians have now got, and what I admit Bulgaria has now got practically—power of self-government; under which, instead of holding life, liberty, property and everything that is valuable upon earth at the mercy of a lawless superior, they might have the means of securing for themselves the blessing of law and order, and passing their lives in peaceful industry. If you do that, that is the true way to exclude Russia. If you give those people freedom and the benefits of freedom—the peace, the order, the prosperity that follow upon freedom—that is the way to make a barrier against despotism. Fortresses may be levelled to the ground; treaties may be trodden under foot—the true barrier against despotism is in the human heart and in the human mind. Give to people that inestimable boon of the reasonable liberties which will enable them to secure the main purposes of life, then you may trust them to defend those liberties; and in those people you will have a far more effectual ally against the aggressive tendencies of Russia, of Austria, or of anybody else, than in all the treaties and all the fortresses of the world. But what have we done? We left those people to their fate. After the horrors that were enacted in Bulgaria, we allowed the Bulgarians to understand that we were willing to write on their behalf any number of idle remonstrances, but that to use the peremptory language which united Europe was justified in using was a course we could not join in, and on the contrary, that we disapproved of it. That being so, we left to Russia the place of the deliverer. Russia stepped into that place, and by stepping into it, achieved, at great cost to herself, the deliverance of those provinces; and, you cannot conceal it from yourselves, she has won the affections of those provinces. The name of our free country has become odious in those provinces. . . . And then those who have done it are not ashamed to cast upon their opponents, whose policy would entirely have prevented it, the charge of aggrandizing the Russians. . . .

(The Prince Consort wrote) in 1860, at a time when great uneasiness had been excited with respect to France on account of her plans for the annexation of Savoy: ‘I cannot, however, say that any other Power is trusted, or that they mutually trust each other; and this will continue to be the case so long as no common accord is established, and that is only to be achieved under the guidance and fostering care of England.’ Those words of the Prince Consort are, in my judgment, most true and most wise words. Their substance consists in these two principles—first of all, that our main hope for putting down disturbances, aggrandizements and selfish schemes in Europe depends upon maintaining the ‘common accord’ or what is commonly called the concert of Europe; and, secondly, that the high office of bringing Europe into concert, and keeping Europe in concert, is an office specially pointed out for our country to perform. But why is it pointed out for our country to perform—why is it that we should hope so far to disarm jealousy, so far to inspire confidence into the general mind of Europe, as to induce the inhabitants and Governments of the various European countries to accord to us a kind of moral leadership? Why are they to accord to us that advantage? Gentlemen, they never will accord to us that advantage until they see that we are free from selfish aims in Europe—including the Mediterranean. . . . The happy conditions in which we live as an island, large enough for power, but safe from territorial contact with those States, and therefore under no fear of suffering mischief from them, and tempted by no hopes to do them mischief—that happy condition, so long as we are believed to be disinterested in Europe, secures for us the noblest part that any Power was ever called upon to play. . . . But how can that part be performed by a Power which pursues selfish aims in the dark? . . . These are selfish aims, and the Power that entertains and prosecutes these aims must forever renounce and forswear all hope of rising to the noble function that the Prince Consort pointed out—the bringing about the ‘common accord’ of Europe, embodying in one organ the voice of civilised mankind in the actings and fostering care of England.

Ibid. pp. 210-22.

81. W. E. GLADSTONE: England’s Mission (The Nineteenth Century, September 1878)

The honour to which recent British policy is entitled is this: that from the beginning of the Congress to the end, the representatives of England, instead of taking the side of freedom, emancipation and national progress, took . . . the side of servitude, of reaction and of barbarism. With a zeal worthy of a better cause, they laboured to reduce the limits within which the populations of European Turkey are to be masters of their own destinies; to keep as much as they could of direct Turkish rule; and to enfeeble as much as they could the limitations upon that rule. Nor was this only to restrain or counterwork the influence of Russia. For, upon the record, they have done more than any other Power to assist Russia in despoiling Roumania of her Bessarabian territory; and they have worked energetically against Greece, which represented the only living anti-Russian force in the Levant. . . . The honour which the Government have earned for us at Berlin, is that of having used the name and influence, and even, by their preparations, the military power of England, to set up the principles of Metternich, and to put down the principles of Canning. We, who have helped Belgium, Spain, and Portugal to be free, we who led the way in the establishment of free Greece, and gave no mean support to the liberation and union of Italy, have at Berlin wrought actively to limit everywhere the area of self-government, and to save from the wreck as much as possible of a domination which has contributed more than any other that ever existed to the misery, the debasement, and the extermination of mankind. . . .

For a vigorous, that is to say, a narrow, restless, blustering, and self-asserting foreign policy, no Ministry has ever been punished in this country. . . . A vigorous foreign policy exhibits all the advantages of a good and available political speculation. First, by forcing upon the public mind a stronger excitement, it produces a comparative indifference to the humdrum detail of legislation, and effectually covers all domestic shortcomings. . . . Secondly, instead of asserting that on the views of a party, a vigorous foreign policy asserts what are presumptively claims and interests of the nation, and thus sheds a halo round its acts. Thirdly, in thus appealing to the self-love and pride of the community, it is pretty certain to carry its influence and driving power for a time beyond the circle of its sworn followers, and to enlist the support of all those good citizens who, from the shilling gallery and elsewhere, enthusiastically applaud the lines—

‘Methought upon one pair of English legs Did march three Frenchmen.’

But last, and best of all, as they are contending, forsooth, on behalf of the greatness of England, it follows that they are enabled at once to place all opponents in the category of contenders for its littleness. All those who will not be put off by their devices . . . are at once condemned . . . as men who prefer their party to their country, as friends of the foreigner, and as conspirators against the greatness of the Empire. . . .

Territorial aggrandisement, backed by military display, is the cheval de bataille of the Administration. Empire is greatness; leagues of land are empire; your safety is measured by the fear you strike into other nations; trade follows the flag; he that doubts is an enemy to his country. . . .

It is very disagreeable for an Englishman to hint to Englishmen that the self-love and pride which all condemn in individuals, have often lured nations to their ruin or their loss; that they are apt to entail a great deal of meanness, as well as a great deal of violence; that they begin with a forfeiture of respect abroad, and end even in the loss of self-respect; that their effect is to destroy all sobriety in the estimation of human affairs, and to generate a temperament of excitability which errs alternately on the side of arrogance, and of womanish and unworthy fears. For the performance of this disagreeable duty, we are entitled to look to the Queen’s Government, which ought in foreign affairs invariably to play the part of moderator. . . . The doctrines of national self-restraint, of the equal obligations of States to public law, and of their equal rights to fair construction as to words and deeds, have [however] been left to unofficial persons. The Government, not uniformly nor consistently, but in the main and on the whole, have opened up and relied on an illegitimate source of power, which never wholly fails: they had appealed, under the prostituted name of patriotism, to exaggerated fears, to imaginary interests, and to the acquisitiveness of a race which has surpassed every other known to history in the faculty of appropriating to itself vast spaces of the earth, and establishing its supremacy over men of every race and language. Now I hold that to stimulate these tendencies, to overlook the proportion between our resources and our obligations, and above all to claim anything more than equality of rights in the moral and political intercourse of the world, is not the way to make England great, but to make it both morally and materially little.

The Nineteenth Century, September 1878.