Minister that the reforms are to be carried out in communication with the Sultan, and with his concurrence. Can any of your Lordships, knowing what the Government of Turkey is, and remembering the history of the last twenty years, really suppose that there is a probability of the Turkish Government voluntarily reforming the administration of the Asiatic provinces in accordance with our advice?

What reforms are necessary to put this country into a decent state? The first thing to be done is to revise the assessment of the land, and to try to set up some persons having an interest in the land between the occupiers and the Government. Then you must have a well-organised and well-paid police, honest officers, and courts of justice which can be relied upon. Is it possible to get all this in Turkey? Where is the necessary money to come from-where are the resources? Is it probable that these reforms will be made with the consent of the Turkish Government? and if not, in what position shall we be placed? In the same position as we have been placed with regard to some of the protected States of India. We shall keep up the Turkish Government, protecting it from external attack; and when we find the people badly governed, have we no remedy to apply? That is a state of things which neither Parliament nor the country would tolerate. Notwithstanding what has been said to-night —that there is no partition of Turkey-it seems to me, if this Convention is carried out, that we run very great risk of being forced in the end to annex, or at least to administer, the whole of Asiatic Turkey. What will be the result of that? We shall be told that is rather a desirable thing; that what we have done in India can be done in Asiatic Turkey; that we have magnificent officers in India who will be able to administer the country, and that if we should be forced to annex it, it will add to the strength of the Empire. That is not my opinion. It is a very different thing to acquire

gradually such an empire as we have obtained in India, and to have thrown on our hands, all at once, a country as large as half of Europe, which we shall have to raise from the state which I have endeavoured to describe into a condition of

prosperity. Moreover, Asiatic Turkey is essentially a Mahomedan country. Is it likely that ten millions of Mahomedans will be long content to be governed by British officers and under British rule? Will our position be secure without the presence of a large force of British troops? And will not the necessity of providing such a force be a strain upon England and a weakness to India? The noble Marquis thinks that in consequence of the Russians possessing Kars the Mahomedan population of Asia Minor will be content to gravitate towards Russian rule. I do not believe it. Mahomedanism is a religion which chafes under foreign rule, especially the rule of a nation whose religion is not Mahomedan. A really religious Mahomedan cannot be content with other than Mahomedan rule. I maintain that the administration of Asiatic Turkey, which under certain circumstances must result from this Convention, will be not a strength, but a weakness, to the Empire.

The considerations which I have urged upon your Lordships respecting the civil administration of Turkey in Asia will shew my opinion of the difficulties which we may at some time or another have to encounter if this Convention be carried into effect. At the same time, they may to some extent satisfy your Lordships that there is no probability that Russia will ever become a danger to us, if she should be really desirous of extending her dominions in Asiatic Turkey; for she would have to encounter precisely the same difficulties that I have endeavoured to describe.

I entreat Her Majesty's Government, both with regard to the military arrangements to be made in consequence of this Convention, and with regard to the arrangements for the

civil reforms to which they have pledged themselves, to act with great caution, and not to commit themselves to any further measures until they see how far the Turkish Government are willing to meet their views, and how far their policy can be carried into practical effect.

My Lords, there is no one of your Lordships who has been so recently and so intimately connected with Her Majesty's Indian Empire as I have. No one can feel more anxiety for the welfare of that Empire, or a firmer determination to assist in protecting it from all dangers; but I am convinced that the policy of Her Majesty's Government on which the Convention with the Porte of the 4th of June has been entered upon, was prompted by exaggerated apprehensions of the danger to India from the acquisition of a portion of Turkish Armenia by Russia; and, further, I think that the Convention itself, so far from being likely to have the effect, contemplated by the Prime Minister, of maintaining our Indian Empire and preserving its peace, is certain to bring us into considerable difficulties, and may become a serious danger to the interests of that Empire which it is the desire of Her Majesty's Government to protect.

MR. COWEN ON THE EASTERN QUESTION,

&c. &c.

"I am not a weathercock that is blown about by every wind of doctrine. I am not a political chameleon who changes his colour according to the colour of the parties addressing him. I have fixed and defined political principles, and have ever advocated them consistently."-Election Address, January 8th,

1874.

NON-INTERVENTION.

"It has been the policy of our Tory opponents to interfere in all foreign squabbles; but now a better and a wiser course was being taken by the leading statesmen. They were now becoming impressed with the fact that they had nothing to do with the internal affairs of any nation, but had enough to do to manage their own internal concerns."-January 6th, 1874.

"If they acted on that principle of interference once, they knew not where it might land them. It might appear hard and unheroic, but it was his belief that the right course was to have nothing to do with the internal affairs of Turkey."-January 30th, 1877.