Note 78 — WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS; DELIVERED AT WEST CALDER, NOVEMBER 27, 1879.

Note 78, p. 344.—With this position Lord Beaconsfield would probably have heartily agreed. He might even have asked Mr. Gladstone, “Was it not to prevent just such aggrandizement as you condemn that we objected to the Treaty of San Stefano, and insisted upon a Congress?” More than that, he might have asked: “How do you reconcile your plea for the independence of the smaller states with your denunciation of the Congress of Berlin, brought about by ‘needless and mischievous armaments,’ by which alone the independence of Turkey could be saved?” To these questions Mr. Gladstone would probably have replied: “Yes; but you ought to have accomplished all this by preventing the war between Russia and Turkey in the beginning.” How Mr. Gladstone thought this might have been done and ought to have been done he pointed out in the first of the Mid-Lothian speeches, delivered at Edinburgh.