It has appeared to me desirable that the views of
those who have been opposed to the foreign policy of the Government
since 1876 should be stated in a manner more systematic than that in
which it has been possible to state them in speeches, or in
pamphlets, or in the periodical literature of the day.
The Eastern Question has stirred
more deeply the feelings of the country than any other question of
our time. It was only natural, and it was only right, that this
should be so. Five-and-twenty years ago, when that question
engrossed public attention, there was comparatively little
difference of opinion. This arose principally from the fact that
Russia was then so clearly in the wrong that little or nothing could
be said in her defence. But in a -secondary degree it arose from the
peculiar position of political parties. Lord Aberdeen
was at the head of the
Administration. He- had deserted the Conservative party; and,
carrying with him most of his officers, had made a hated coalition
with Whigs and Radicals. Consequently the Tories were hostile, and
were naturally disposed to assail him where he was supposed to be
most easily assailable. In the then temper of the nation, his weak
point was his well-known love of peace. Although if the-
Conservative party had been in power, Lord Aberdeen would have
unquestionably been- either their own Prime Minister, or their own
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, they instinctively perceived
that the reputation he had acquired in their service in former years
was precisely the reputation which now made him most open to attack.
Accordingly, the- whole tendency of the Opposition was to point him
out as an object of national suspicion, and to urge on the
Government to war. The result was tjiat when the imperious character
of the Emperor Nicholas led him to reject every reasonable
compromise, and when the Cabinets of London and of Paris came to the
conclusion that they could yield no farther, the country was not
only practically unanimous, but was.even hotly enthusiastic in
support of a war which had become inevitable.
In 1876 everything was
different—nothing was the same. The Eastern Question was raised by
native insurrections in the Provinces, of Turkey, excited and
justified by the gross, misgovernment of the Porte. The whole
Eastern Question, therefore, as it was then raised, resolved itself
into this—how the abuses and vices of Turkish Administration were to
be dealt with by the Powers which had supported Turkey in the
Crimean War, and by those other Powers, embracing all the principal
Governments of Europe, which had ultimately signed the Treaties of
1856 ?
This question necessarily involves
some of the most fundamental principles of morality and of;politics.
As a consequence, it has come to engage also the fiercest party
spirit. At first it had no such connexion. Men spoke on behalf of
humanity, and of nothing else. The earliest meeting expressive of
"indignation" against the Turks had Lord Shaftesbury as its
President, and was attended by men of all political parties. It was
not then known what the action of the Cabinet had been, if, indeed,
they had taken any action at all. Very soon, however, it began to
appear that, although full of indignation themselves, the Government
somehow did not like others to express it. Then it came to be
perceived what the explanation was. It was that all this "
sentiment" looked in the direction of abandoning Turkey, whereas it
was still, on account of " British interests," as much as ever the
business of England to support her.
The moment this doctrine came to
be detected as governing the policy of the Cabinet, there could be
no compromise on the side of those who condemned it. It was a
question, in the first place, of right and wrong. It was a question,
in the second place, of the great follies which are always involved
in a course of selfishness and injustice. On the other hand, this
aspect of the question rallied to the side of the Government a
powerful contingent. There is an important school, ably represented
in the Press, whq regard with nothing short of loathing the very
mention of morality as affecting politics. They dislike, if possible
still more vehemently, the smallest tinge of sympathy with the
Christian races in the East, or the slightest symptom of the belief
that the decay of Turkey has any connexion whatever with the
Teachings and the Example of the Arabian Prophet. What has religion
to do with politics, or with the rise and fall of nations ? Nothing
whatever? It is mere fanaticism to think it has. The decrepitude now
visibly affecting every Moslem Government in the world is an effect
without a cause. As for morality, it is equally irrelevant.
Politicians who think of it are no statesmen. Immediate
self-interest is the only rule by which nations can guide their
course.
Sometimes plausible attempts were
made to rest the policy pursued, if not positively, at least
negatively, upon higher and better arguments. When as yet the
Government had no other thought than that of resisting the popular
impulse to coerce the Turks—when as yet it was the summit of their
ambition to be allowed to do nothing—it was possible for them to say
something which was at least inoffensive. Of this kind was the well-
known speech of Lord Cranbrook (then Mr. Gathorne Hardy), that "we
had no commission from heaven to go about the world redressing human
wrongs." The cheers with which this plea is said to have been
received indicated how welcome it was to uneasy consciences. Of Lord
Cranbrook’s perfect sincerity when he used it, I fiave no doubt. Of
all our public speakers there is, perhaps, no other whose sincerity
is more obvious. But the sincerity with which an orator may use
arguments of this kind does not necessarily imply that the inspiring
motive of his opinions is visible on the surface. Even at that stage
of the Eastern Question it was quite plain that the active sympathy
of the Cabinet was with the Government of the Porte. When they were
talking about " a commission" from heaven, which they had not got,
they were really thinking about another commission—not certainly
from heaven—which they thought they had got. And that commission was
to support the Turks. Public feeling would not allow them to do as
much as they desired. But if I rightly understand an allusion to
this time, made not long ago by the Prime Minister, he regrets that
he had not greater courage, and that he had not sooner swept away
Lord Derby and all his works.
When currents of feeling and of
opinion cutting so deep as these have been the prevailing currents
in tfie Eastern Question, it is not surprising that political
excitement has run very- high. And yet I have never been able to
connect the question with party politics properly so called?" Of
course every question becomes a party question when an existing
Government is attacked. But the Eastern Question has no bearing upon
domestic politics. It is true, indeed, that there is a tendency
among Liberals to sympathise more or less actively with
insurrections in support of popular liberties. There is, perhaps,
also a corresponding tendency among Conservatives to sympathise with
Governments against insurgents, however bad those Governments may
be. But, beyond this, there is no natural connexion between
Conservatism and a low morality in politics. On the contrary, I
should be disposed to say that the natural connexion is the other
way. The Utilitarian theory of Morals is generally regarded with
antipathy by Tories, and has, in point of fact, been specially
associated with the prophets and apostles of Radicalism, Yet in the
Eastern Question we have had this theory applied in the coarsest
form by Tory Secretaries of State, by Chancellors, and by
Representatives of the old English Universities—where the doctrines
of an " Independent Morality" have hitherto found an illustrious
home. Indeed, I am wronging the Utilitarian theory of Morals, as it
has latterly been purged and corrected by its most distinguished
teachers, when I connect it with the flagrant caricatures presented
in the speeches and writings of those who have supported the policy
of the Government in the Eastern Question. The doctrines they
proclaimed are doctrines which Jeremy Bentham would have considered
coarse, and which the higher instincts of John Stuart Mill would
have repudiated with indignation and disgust.
On the other*hand, I differ very
much from a section of the Liberal party which, if not very large,
has been quite prominent enough to give a perceptible flavour to the
whole.3 I refer to those who think, and who have
said—very much in the terms, although not in the spirit, of Lord
Cranbrook’s speech—that we' had nothing to do in the matter. Their
sympathies, indeed, were on the right side. They would never have
suffered the diplomatic influence of England to be exerted, as it
has been exerted, against the cause of freedom in the East. Such
influence as they could have exerted through diplomacy • would have
been exerted with wisdom and with justice. But I venture to think
that they have shown an inadequate sense of the duties and
responsibilities devolving upon us, not only as one of the Great
Powers, but as the one of all the Great Powers which, rightly or
wrongly, did most materially contribute to the pre-existing
arrangement in the East of Europe. We could not shake off that
responsibility; and as it was in the highest degree improbable that
Turkey would have submitted to any mere efforts of diplomacy
unbacked by force, I hold that it was the duty of England to join
the other Powers in acting upon the moral obligations they had
incurred in the Treaty of 1856. The uncertain sound given upon this
subject at the beginning of the contest was a fatal mistake. John
Bull is a creature highly militant. He has not, indeed, that
restless vanity which, before the last war, made Frenchmen feel that
they had been insulted if anything was settled in any corner of
Europe without their leave. But, on the other hand, Englishmen do
not like to be told that they ought to content themselves with
looking after stocks and cotton. They feel that they have duties as
well as rights and interests in the politics of the East of Europe,
and if their energies are not employed in a right direction, they
will be very apt to employ them in a wrong one. The noisy nonsense
which is now so rampant on the subject of what is called
"Imperialism" seems in part, at least, to be a reaction due to this
cause.
In the following work I have
sketched the history o^ the Eastern Question almost entirely from
Official Documents. I have endeavoured throughout to make it quite
clear as to what is stated as fact,—what is direct quotation,—what
is my own representation of the effect of documents not quoted in
extenso,—what is inference,— and what is comment. I cannot hope
that among materials extending over several thousand pages I have
made no mistakes. But at least I can say that I have taken great
pains to be accurate.
Looking at the manner in which
witnesses adverse to the Government have been treated- when they
have produced evidence of the truth, I think it possible that some
objection may be taken to the use I have made in the following pages
of Lord Mayo’s letters to me when I was Secretary of State. I do not
myself feel that any explanation on this matter is required, since
the passages I have quoted are all of an essentially public
character. But there are some points connected with this subject to
which I am very glad to have an opportunity of directing public
attention.
In the Afghan branch of the
Eastern Question it has been deemed important by the Government to
make out, if they could, tfrat Sherement have attached to
it,—because it was their duty to think mainly, not of what that
unfortunate Prince may or may not have been willing to do at a
former time under unknown circumstances and conditions,—but of what
he had a right to object to under the actual engagements made with
him by the representatives of the Crown in India. Nevertheless, the
Government have shown a very great anxiety to prove that the Ameer
had been willing to admit British officers as Residents in his
Kingdom ; and this is so far well—inasmuch as it shows some
consciousness that they had no right to force the measure upon him
if he were not willing. In the whole of their dealings with
Afghanistan, this is the only homage they have paid to virtue. But
their method of proceeding has been singular. The only two witnesses
of any value on whose evidence they have relied, have been Colonel
Burne, who was Lord Mayo’s Private Secretary, and Captain*Grey, who
was Persian Interpreter at the Umballa Conferences in 1869. Colonel
Burne’s evidence is given in the " Afghan Correspondence" (1.1878,
No. 36, Enclosure 5, page 174). Of Colonel Burne’s perfect good
faith there can be no shadow of a doubt. But several circumstances
are to be observed in respect to his testimony. In the first place,
he is now at the head of the Foreign Department of the India Office,
and concerned in all the policy towards Shere Ali which has led to
the Afghan war. In the second place, he writes nine years after the
events of which he speaks, and wholly, so far as appears, from
personal recollection. In the third place, he speaks with
extraordinary confidence, considering that other officers of the
Government who were present at all the Conferences positively deny
the accuracy of his impressions. In the fourth place, a portion of
what he says in respect of Lord Mayo’s opinions, appears to me to be
distinctly at variance with the evidence of Lord Mayo’s own letters
to myself. In the fifth and last place, it is to be observed that
the whole of his evidence is founded on the knowledge he acquired as
Private Secretary of Lord Mayo, " in his full confidence," and
carrying in his mind that Viceroy’s private conversations.
Now I am far from saying or
implying that the Government had no right to use the information
derivable from this source. But I do say that in a matter of the
highest importance, involving the honour of the Crown, and the peace
of India, they were bound to take every means in their power to test
and to verify the personal recollections of Colonel Burne. To use
evidence of this kind as a means of ascertaining truth, is one
thing:—to use it as a means of justifying foregone conclusions, is a
very different thing. The two methods of handling such evidence are
very distinct. We know, on the evidence of Mr. Seton Karr, who was
Foreign Secretary to the Government of India at the Umballa
Conferences, who was present at them all, and who must have been in
constant personal communication both with Lord Mayo and all other
principal persons there, that his evidence was never asked by the
Government, and that this evidence, if it had been asked for, would
have been given against that of Colonel Burne. I venture to add,
that the Government, knowing that I was Secretary of State during
the whole of Lord Mayo’s Viceroyalty, and in possessiQn of all his
letters, might have applied to me for access to them. The whole of
them, without reserve, would have been at the disposal of the
Government. But if the Government were at liberty to use, and to
found important action upon, the private information of
Lord Mayo’s Private Secretary,
speaking of Lord Mayo’s private conversations, much more must I be
at liberty to correct that evidence by Lord Mayo’s own written
testimony, conveyed in the most authentic of all forms—letters
written at the time.
As regards the purport and the
value of Captain Grey’s evidence, I have analysed it at the proper
place, in the following work. But there is one circumstance in
connexion with that evidence which is another illustration of the
rash and inconsiderate use which the Government has been making of
testimony of this kind. Captain Grey, from his position of Persian
Interpreter at Umballa, was necessarily in frequent and confidential
communication with Noor Mohammed Khan, the favourite Minister and
friend of Shere Ali. Now, Noor Mohammed being evidently a very able
man, and comparatively well acquainted with Europeans, was naturally
much considered by all officers of the Indian Government as the best
source of information on the policy of the Afghan State, and -on the
personal feelings and desires of his master. In the course of
confidential conversations, wholly private and unofficial, such a
Minister is induced to say many things which he would only say in
perfect reliance that they would be considered as confidential in
the strictest sense of that word. • In fact, Noor Mohammed did
frequently give information to our Officers and Agents, which it
would have been the highest breach of confidence on their part to
repeat in such a manner as to render it possible that the sayings of
his Minister should get round to the Ameer. Yet this is the very
breach of confidence which, in heated pursuit of their object, the
Government appear to have committed in regard to the evidence of
Captain Grey. At the Peshawur Conference, shortly before his death,
among the other just complaints which Noor Mohammed had to make
against the conduct of Lord Lytton and of his Government, this was
one—that the letter from Captain Grey of October 13th, 1876, quoting
Noor Mohammed as having been willing to advise or consent to the
reception of British officers as Residents in Afghanistan, had been
sent to him under circumstances which brought it before the Cabul
Durbar. "It was laid before the Durbar,’’said Noor Mohammed to his
friend, Dr. Bellew, on the 28th of January, 1877, " and I was at
once pointed out as the encourager of the Government in this design.
It was as much as an order for my death."* Of the unjustifiable
character of this letter, in other* respects, I have spoken in the
text. I refer here only to the breach of confidence involved in its
quotations of the most private conversations of the Minister of the
Ameer.
There was another circumstance
connected with the Afghan question which has, in my opinion, imposed
it upon me absolutely as a public duty, that I should explain Lord
Mayo’s engagements at U mballa, as he explained them to me. That
circumstance is that one of the most serious misrepresentations made
on behalf of the Government on this subject has been founded on a
single passage in one of his private letters to me, which Lord Mayo
has himself quoted in a public Despatch. The case is rather a
curious one, and deserves special notice.
It will be seen that the first
public Despatch of April 3rd, i869,t in which Lord Mayo reported the
proceedings at Umballa, is a very meagre one. The more detailed
despatch which followed on the ist of July/''" was drawn forth from
him by my Despatch of the 14th of May,+ in which I had stated the
objections which the Cabinet felt to one passage in his letter to
the Ameer. In that second Despatch, a much fuller account is given.
But one of the principal paragraphs (No. 22)4 namely, that in which
the Viceroy summed up the result of his negotiations, expressly
refers to, and quotes the summing- up with which he had in the
meantime supplied me in a private letter.
In that private letter Lord Mayo
had classified the main points of the final arrangement on the
principle of giving one list of the proposals which had been decided
in the negative, and another list of the proposals which had been
decided in the affirmative. It is, of course, an incident of all
classifications of this kind—or, indeed, of any kind—that they place
together things which are congruous only in some one or two
particulars,’ and may be quite incongruous in every other. This
inconvenience was somewhat increased, in the present case, by the
heading or title which he attached to the two lists. The proposals
which had been negatived were called " What the Ameer is not to
have." The proposals which had been affirmed were called "What the
Ameer is to have."
It was inevitable that on this
principle of classification Lord Mayo should include in the same
list, things which the Ameer was " not to have" as a boon, and
things which he was "not to have" as a burden. The benefits which he
had hoped for, but which had been refused him, and the demands on
our side from which he was to be relieved—all came naturally and
necessarily under the same category. In this way, quite naturally
and quite consistently, Lord Mayo included in the things the Ameer
was " not to have," all of the following miscellaneous items : (i)
no Treaty, (2) no fixed subsidy, (3) no European troops, officers,
or Residents, (4) no domestic pledges. Some of these are things
which he wanted to get; others, are things which he particularly
wanted to avoid. He wanted to have an unconditional Treaty,
offensive and defensive. He wanted to have a fixed subsidy. He
wanted to have a dynastic guarantee. He would have liked sometimes
to get the loan of English officers to drill his troops, or to
construct his forts—provided they retired the fnoment they had done
this work for him. On the other hand, officers "resident" in his
country as Political Agents of the British Government were his
abhorrence. Yet all these things are classified by Lord Mayo, quite
correctly, as equally belonging to the list of proposals which had
been considered, or thought of, and had been decided in the
negative.
Advantage has been taken of this
by some supporters of the Government, and apparently by the Under
Secretary of State for India, in the late debates in the House of
Commons, to argue that all the items in this list were equally
things which the Ameer wanted " to havethus representing Shere Ali
as consumed by a desire to have British officers as Residents in his
cities. This is by no means an unnatural mistake for any one to make
who had no independent knowledge of the subject, and who derived all
he knew of it from reading by itself the particular paragraph of
Lord Mayo’s Despatch to which I have referred. But it seems to me to
be a mistake wholly inexcusable on the part of any official of the
Indian Department, because not even the personal recollections of
Colonel Burne and of Captain Grey go the length of representing the
Ameer ’as desirous of having British officers resident as Political
Agents in his cities. The utmost length to which their evidence
goes, even if it were wholly uncontradicted, is that Shere Ali would
have submitted to the residence of British officers in certain
cities, as the price of benefits which he could not otherwise
secure.
But unjustified as this contention
is, even on the unsupported testimony of these two officers, and
unjustified also even on the 22nd paragraph of Lord Mayo’s Despatch
of July ist, it is at once refuted by Lord Mayo’s letter to me,
quoted in the text, of the 3rd of June, 1869. That letter was
expressly written to warn me against misapprehensions prevalent on
the subject of his engagements with the Ameer. In this letter there
is no possibility of mistake. The list he gives is a list of the "
pledges given by him" to the Ameer. The first pledge was that of
non-interference in his affairs. The second pledge was that "we
would support his independence." The third pledge was "that we would
not force European officers, or Residents, upon him, against his
wish."
This is the pledge, given on the
honour of the Crown, *which has been violated by the present
Government. They have attempted to force Resident Officers upon the
Ameer against his will, by threats of our displeasure, and by
threats—still more discreditable—that if he did not comply, we
should hold ourselves free from all the verbal and written
engagements of Lord Lawrence, of Lord Mayo, and of Lord N orthbrook.
It had been my intention to close
this work with the Treaty of Berlin. A purely Indian War would not
naturally have fallen within its scope. But the Afghan War of 1878
was not an Indian War in its origin. The cost and the burden of it
are to be thrown on the people of India, although that cost is the
price of a divided Bulgaria, and of a "real military frontier" for a
phantom Turkey. It is a mere sequel of the policy of the Government
on the Turkish Question in Europe and in Asia. I have, therefore,
been compelled to deal with it. In doing so, I have been compelled
to deal with transactions which, as it seems to me, can only be read
with a sdnse of humiliation by every man who values the honour of
his country. If this be so, no "overwhelming majorities" in
Parliament, and no successful campaigns against half-barbarous
tribes, can compensate the country for the guilt into which it has
been led, or protect the Government from the censure of posterity.