Note 75 — WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS; DELIVERED AT WEST CALDER, NOVEMBER 27, 1879.

Note 75, p. 337.—The “needless and mischievous armaments” were the calling out of the Reserves, and the bringing to Malta of the Indian army. Mr. Gladstone’s adjectives can only mean that in his opinion the Berlin Treaty was not desirable, since without the military movements the treaty would have been impossible. The statement of the orator as to the agreement between Salisbury and Schouvaloff is not quite correct. There was no pretence to making a treaty or settling any question whatever, but simply an understanding as to what England demanded, and what she desired to submit to a Congress. After this conference, which Mr. Gladstone criticises with so much severity, Count Schouvaloff went to St. Petersburg, pausing at Berlin for an interview with Prince Bismarck. At St. Petersburg he appears to have convinced the Czar that nothing short of a submission of the question at issue to a General Congress would satisfy England. Soon after the Count’s return to London, the Prussian Government invited the powers to a Congress at Berlin; and Russia not only accepted the invitation, but agreed to submit to the powers, all the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano. During the whole of these negotiations English public opinion was wrought up to the most intense excitement and anxiety. The course of the government was assailed and defended with the utmost vigor, everybody supposing, meanwhile, that peace or war between the two great nations hung upon the issue. In the “Ann. Reg. for 1878,” all the official papers are given, and on pp. 40–64 is to be found an abstract of the discussions in Parliament.