If he did, he had no doubt whatever that the right hon. gentleman would find himself defeated in his object by an overwhelming majority.

Mr. Bright strengthened the debate by one of his striking speeches. Why should England, he asked, risk a war against a mighty Power without one ally except perhaps that ruined, miserable, and prostrate one, if it could be called such, the Sultan of Turkey? Why should England think of drawing her sword at a time when the great belligerents who for the last few months were engaged in a most horrible and bloody war were replacing their swords in their scabbards? He contended that there was nothing in the reported terms of peace to excite and alarm us, and pointed to the threatening appearances of our relations with South Africa, and in the north-west provinces of India, as a warning against our wantonly and unnecessarily plunging ourselves into hostilities with Russia, one of the greatest empires of the globe.

For four more nights the debate continued, to come to an abrupt and singular end. Sir Wilfrid Lawson, one of the wittiest of the members of the House, was the first to introduce there the burden of a music-hall song which had made much talk outside, and had brought into politics a class-name which promised to live, and to be the first new descriptive party epithet since the days of "Whig" and "Tory":—

"We don't want to fight; but, by Jingo,' if we do,

We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too."

Mr. Trevelyan commented with vigour on the martial deeds of the Tories in a City meeting of the previous day, and the compliments with which the Postmaster-General had received the account of some unruly proceedings in which Turkish banners were displayed and the member for Bristol (Mr. S. Morley) was rudely treated, and said that, if the Government really approved these tactics, they deserved to be regarded as the leaders of the war party. He also commented severely on Lord Beaconsfield's attempt at the opening of Parliament to make it appear that his Cabinet was really united, though it was only united on the formula of "conditional neutrality," and not on the interpretation to be given to that formula; and he maintained that it had been the custom of all great statesmen in making such statements to think rather of the meaning they would convey to their audience than of merely verbal accuracy. Later in the year, this last comment might have acquired new force from some circumstances which came to light in connection with recent Indian policy. Sir Robert Peel made an attack upon Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Lowe laughed at the two months' "vote of credit and the confidence trick," and hoped that a sense of the ridiculous would laugh the proposal out of the House. "The Prime Minister," he said, "when he speaks, takes pains to show that his opinion is at variance with that of the majority of the people. He did it a year and a half

ago in the celebrated speech about a second and a third campaign. This year his tone implied disbelief in the word of the Emperor, and was in the highest degree unbecoming. I would suggest a simple remedy. Muzzle your Prime Minister. If you cannot do that, let it be at least understood that he does not represent the opinions of the Government. Take the people of England into your confidence. Do not look at the matter in such a stiff, stately, and buckram manner as you do. Take the people of England into your counsel; think their thoughts; use their language; make yourselves their leader; go with them in the course they wish. They wish for freedom, for liberation from misery and suffering, to a large class of people. If you show that, instead of being hostile to, you are in favour of that view, then you may indeed do what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said-you may go into the Congress with united England behind you, and speak with a weight that you would not have even if you got a vote to spend 100,000,000l."

The Foreign Under-Secretary, Mr. Bourke, pleaded for an "outward and visible sign" of the strength of the country before entering the Conference, and maintained that the vote would render war less probable. Mr. Goschen sharply criticised the Government, and charged them with doing all they could to excite the suspicions of Russia: and Sir Michael Hicks Beach defended his colleagues from the post of Lord Carnarvon, whom he had succeeded at the Colonial Office. Mr. Gladstone, who had a few days before delivered an eloquent speech at Oxford, commenced by promising that, as the value of the debate from the conclusion of the armistice (just announced) was now prospective, he would refrain from arraigning the past policy of the Government, and, allowing bygones to be bygones, would confine himself first to showing how the vote could not possibly give the Government the strength of an undivided nation, and secondly to inquiring how that union might be accomplished. Noticing first Sir Robert Peel's attack on his Oxford speech, he declared that he regretted deeply having been compelled to play such a prominent extra-Parliamentary part, and that he had never from first to last impugned anybody's motives, although not a single speech had been made in which the worst motives were not attributed to him. Passing, then, the objections to the vote, he insisted that it had no connection with the Queen's Speech, as it was not intended to vindicate our neutrality-the conditions of which, by the way, nobody had violated but ourselves. He denied that it would strengthen the hands of the Government, or that it was needed for any endangered distinct British interests, and, with ordinary military estimates of 26,000,000l., we surely were already on a footing of equality with other Powers. The vote was unreal, inasmuch as it could not possibly be spent before the end of the financial year; and while dealing with this point Mr. Gladstone mentioned that the Crimean War had been going on for three months before any of the extraordinary votes came into expenditure. He objected also to the

mode in which it was proposed to raise the money, and said if the Government really desired to make an impression on Europe it should have laid on a few taxes, and not merely added a few millions to the National Debt. It was entirely unprecedented also, for, as he showed, the vote of 1870 was unlike it in every particular; and it was a complete violation of the constitutional rule that no burden should be placed on the people without its necessity being proved. Finally, he urged that to usher in a Conference with the clash of arms would destroy its peaceful character; and maintained that, so far from giving strength to the Government, it could have no other effect but to divide the nation. Nevertheless, Mr. Gladstone was anxious above all things that the Government should go into the Conference with the strength of a united nation at its back, and he proceeded to dwell on the various points to be discussed in Conference on which the Opposition would gladly support the Government. For instance, if Russia put in any claim which would interfere with the perfect freedom of the Danube, by demanding a cession of Roumanian territory, it ought to be resisted. The claims of the subject races to freedom and good government should be supported; and he was of opinion that it would be no hardship to impose a considerable tribute on Bulgaria, which had been content to rely on the efforts of others for her liberty. Great Britain ought to act, too, as the champion of the Hellenic Provinces; and, with regard to the Straits, he hoped that the Government would be content to act in concert with Europe. But he should lament if the Government went into conference as the representative of a divided nation, and, with the view of restoring unity and concord, he suggested that the vote should be postponed for a time, with liberty to renew it if the Government think fit, and that an address should be presented to her Majesty from both Houses expressing their readiness to support her Government in bringing about a permanent peace at the Conference, recognizing the promise which the Government had given to obtain good terms for Turkey, but expressing a hope that the influence of the country would be used to obtain liberty and good government for the Christian subjects of the Porte. By adopting this intermediate term, while the country would discharge its duty to the cause of justice and liberty, domestic differences would be healed and the hands of the Government strengthened.

Mr. Hardy commenced by a vigorous and loudly applauded denunciation of the misrepresentation of the Ministerial policy, and commented sarcastically on the inconsistency of Mr. Gladstone, who a few days ago at Oxford declared it to be his mission. to counteract the Prime Minister's purposes, and was now ready to vote confidence in him. He characterised the amendment as a deliberate attempt to stop the supplies asked for by the Ministers on their responsibility, a course never taken before by an Opposition which was confessedly not prepared to take office. The vote was asked for as a preliminary and precautionary measure, and

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though it was impossible to say that it would not influence the preliminary negotiations, it was for the defence of British interests; for, over and over again the Government had declared that as long as Turkish interests alone were touched, nothing would induce them to intervene. It might not be spent, but it was important to be in readiness, and the House must bear in mind that in these times wars were short and sharp. Replying to Mr. Gladstone, he pointed out that before the Constantinople Conference Russia had mobilized her forces; and as to the expenditure on the Crimean War, he remarked that when our troops were landed in the Crimean War, they were destitute of a Commissariat and everything which binds an army together. Without following Mr. Gladstone into a discussion of the questions to be settled at the Conference, which at the present moment he thought imprudent, he claimed for the Government the credit of having always been anxious to secure good government for the Christian subjects of the Porte, and they believed that to be necessary for a permanent peace. But it was impossible to predict what might be the views of the different Powers on these points, or what might be the wishes of peoples. With regard to Mr. Gladstone's suggestion, he remarked that the Government were not mere children in politics, to be content with a hollow and unreal concord, and they did not ask for a mere paper vote" of confidence. They asked for this vote as the Government of England, on their responsibility, believing that in asking for it they were going the right way to get peace, and they asked for it as a mark of confidence which, after the misrepresentations of the last twelve months, they felt that Parliament ought either to accord them, or replace them by another Ministry. In the course of his speech Mr. Hardy created much laughter by quoting some lines of Moore on Mr. Gladstone's opinions of Lord Beaconsfield:

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Keep him always reversed in your thoughts night and day,
Like an Irish barometer turned the wrong way.

If he's up, you may swear that foul weather is nigh;

If he's down, you may look for a bit of blue sky.
Never mind what debaters or journalists say,

Only ask what he thinks, and then think t'other way.

Is he all for the Turks? Then at once take the whole
Russian Empire (Czar, Cossacks, and all) to your soul.
In short, whatsoever he talks, thinks, or is,

Be your thoughts, words, and essence the contrast of his.

Mr. Childers examined with minuteness the financial precedents against this novel vote, and, in answering him, Colonel Stanley delivered the most temperate speech upon his side. He denied that Mr. Childers's precedents bore out his assertion that a vote of credit of this kind had never been asked except for war purposes, and explained the technical and departmental reasons for putting the vote in its present form, quoting the authority of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sidney Herbert and others for the course which had been pursued by the Government. Replying to the

assertion that the vote was unreal and a sham, he was loudly cheered in maintaining that the mode of providing for the Crimean war was a precedent to be honoured in the breach rather than the observance, and asserted that the vote of 1870, which proposed to defend Belgium with a supplementary estimate of 2,000,000l., was much more of a sham than this vote. He denied that it was a menace, though he did not disguise that it was intended for preparation, and, from his experience at the War Office, he impressed on the House the extreme inexpediency of being obliged to act in a hurry. The Government desire that the settlement should be of such a kind as not to leave materials for further disturbances, and he condemned emphatically any sympathy with Turkish misrule, or any desire to thwart the aspirations of the Christian races. At present it was impossible to pronounce any opinion on the vague bases of peace, and the Government, being assured that its policy was supported by the country, could not consent to depart from it merely to save the susceptibilities of the Opposition.

Sir William Harcourt, in one of the most effective speeches of the debate, was very amusing about Mr. Hardy, who had shown the volcanic force, he said, of Cotopaxi and Chimborazo in full flame. What the Opposition wanted to know, however, was that the policy of the Government in the Conference would be directed to replacing the Treaty of Vienna by one based not on dynastic arrangements or diplomatic convenience, but on the just principle of nationalities, with which Prince Bismarck had been able to work such wonders. Nevertheless, the Solicitor-General (Sir Hardinge Giffard) did not gratify Sir William Harcourt with any such pledge. On the contrary, he assailed Russia with at least as much bitterness as any member of the Government, except only Mr. Cross, and implied that what we wanted was physical force enough to counteract the evil designs of the great Russian invader. Such was the universal burden of the Government argument.

While the debate was being thus prolonged, the apprehension of a collision with Russia was increasing. The news arrived that an armistice had been signed, and that the delay had been caused by the effort of the Turkish Ministers to avoid assent to the autonomy of Bulgaria. But on Thursday, February 7, the excitement was great. The papers of the morning were full of rumours. The Daily News published a remarkable telegram from its correspondent at Adrianople. This gentleman had had an interview with Server Pasha, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, on January 28, and had been charged to inform the British public that he "abandoned the English alliance," and had become "more Russian than the Russians." "I accept," said Server Fasha, "the Russian policy and alliance." We "have been deceived (trompé).” "I have the documents which will prove it." Another member of the Turkish Embassy confirmed all Server Pasha said, but requested that his name should be concealed, adding that although