States would be recognized; because, if it be true that they have created armies, navies, and a people, we are bound by every principle of policy and of public law to recognize their political existence. There appeared to me to be a great inconsistency in that declaration. I thought that a course of conduct was then recommended by the Government which nothing had occurred in the interval to justify. It is most inconvenient that, upon a subject of such importance, and upon which the Government appeared from the first to have taken up a correct and dignified position, the Government should have exhibited such contradictory conduct, and such conflicting opinions, and that during the autumn they should have felt it their duty to communicate this vacillation of purpose, and this inconsistency of judgment to the whole nation. At the commencement almost of the struggle we were told by one minister, who, above all, ought to be best informed on these topics, what, in the opinion of the Government, were the motives of this civil war. We were told that on the part of the North there was a desire to establish dominion, and on the part of the South to achieve independence. It may have been discreet, perhaps, on the part of the Government to make that public declaration of their opinion; but what are we to say of the subsequent definitions of this contest which have also been supplied by the Government? It is only a fortnight since one of the Cabinet ministers told us that the whole cause of this war was the existence of slavery, and he vigorously denounced that pestilent institution. What agreement is there, then, between the President of the Board of Trade and the Foreign Minister, who ought to be the greatest authority on matters of this character? What are we to say when one day we find an eminent member of the Cabinet recommending the recognition of Southern independence, and the next day another equally important colleague telling us that none of the conditions on which independence should be recognized, exist in the South? These varying opinions are so prevalent among the members of the Government that only a day or two ago one of them, not yet admitted to the Cabinet, but whose lips are steeped in the gravity of the Privy Council, told us that in the opinion of the Government the Lord of Hosts was on the side of the Southern States.' I think it very much to be regretted that the Government did not adhere to that reserve which distinguished them last session upon this great subject, and that it is much to be deprecated that, unless a change has taken place in their policy, there should not have been more silence during the recess as to their individual opinions." Another topic, upon which Mr. Disraeli entered somewhat more fully than it had been dealt with elsewhere, was that of the operations of our military force in China. He desired to have some information as to what was going on in that quarter, and as to the employment of British troops between the Emperor of China and his rebellious subjects. He wanted to know whether this was a policy which the House approved of. If we were to support the Emperor against the Taepings, we might be involved in another Chinese war, and with such a policy there could be no reduction of the expenditure. The House had been promised special papers relating to the affairs of Denmark, Italy, and Greece. On the latter subject especially he thought much information might be required from Ministers, especially in regard to the policy pursued by Earl Russell towards Turkey. Against the proposed surrender of the Ionian Islands to Greece Mr. Disraeli argued with great vehemence, contending that the view of those who regarded the right of this country over those islands as being merely a protectorate, was entirely fallacious. "This," he said, "is very dangerous ground to take; and I most earnestly recommend the House to pause before they accept representations of this kind. The treaties of 1815 entrusted the Ionian Isles to England about in the same manner that they entrusted Paris to the French people. Both parties possessed what was entrusted to them. We possessed the Ionian Isles before the treaties of 1815, and it becomes us to consider how we possessed them. We possessed them by conquest; and the question immediately arises why were they conquered? You do not conquer places out of mere wantonness or for amusement. The Ionian Isles were conquered, because the great men, to whom was entrusted the duty of guarding British interests and maintaining British power in those waters, represented most earnestly to the English Government that they could not accomplish their behests as long as these insular harbours were in possession of our powerful rival and enemy. It is, or it should be, well known, that the occupation of the Ionian Isles by the French was part of the secret negotiations of Tilsit, and it was only in consequence of an arrangement with Russia, before war was declared between that power and England, that French troops were landed from Russian ships on these islands, where the injurious influence exercised by them during the war upon British shipping and British interests was so great, that no less a man than Lord Collingwood impressed upon the British Government that it was absolutely necessary that these harbours should be in our possession. And they were in our possession. Corfu was not seized in a military sense; but six of these islands, including Cephalonia, which was described by Sir C. Napier-no mean authority on this subject-as possessing the most considerable harbour in the Mediterranean, had been conquered, and had been five years in the possession of England at the time of the peace. And why was not Corfu in our possession? Why, Corfu was a thorn in our side. We had not succeeded in taking Corfu, but we had strictly blockaded it, and when Napoleon suddenly fell, the French surrendered it to England by a military convention. It was in every sense military surrender; and, therefore, when the Congress of Vienna a had to deliberate upon the settlement of Europe, we were in military possession of these islands, which we had in fact conquered and occupied, because in the possession of our enemy we had found them most injurious to our power and our interests." Mr. Disraeli proceeded to contend that the gift of these islands to Greece would have a mischievous influence upon that power, whom it would stimulate to seek a further extension of territory, and to make aggressions upon the Turkish power, and thus disturb the peace of the world. In this respect it would be a strong instance of that policy which the present Government had on recent occasions most strongly reprobated. As to the conditions by which it was said the proposed cession was to be limited, Mr. Disraeli denied that any adequate security could be obtained for the observance of those conditions. He hoped that Her Majesty's Government were not about to adopt the wild notions which had of late been promulgated, which were hostile to the very principle of the British Empire. Mr. Disraeli plainly stated his own views as to the motives by which statesmen should be guided in regard to the acquisition and the retention of territory. "Professors and rhetoricians find a system for every contingency and a principle for every chance; but you are not going, I hope, to leave the destinies. of the British Empire to prigs and pedants. The statesmen who construct, and the warriors who achieve, are only influenced by the instinct of power, and animated by the love of country. Those are the feelings and those the methods which form empires. There may be grave questions as to the best mode of obtaining wealth-some may be in favour of protection of domestic and colonial interests, some of unrestricted competition, or some of what I am quite surprised have now become so modish-commercial treaties and reciprocal arrangements for the advantage of commercial exchange-propositions which used to be scouted in this House; but there can be no question either in or out of this House that the best mode of preserving wealth is power. A country, and especially a maritime country, must get possession of the strong places of the world if it wishes to contribute to its power. I cannot say that I have yet heard any argument that appears to justify the course Her Majesty's Government have hitherto pursued, or the expectations they have held out to the Greek Islands." He concluded by expressing a hope that as the arrangement in question appeared to be not yet matured, circumstances might arise which would prevent it from being carried into effect. The same argument against the cession of the Ionian Islands was urged with much earnestness by Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald, and by some other speakers in this debate. But they received an effective answer from members on the other side, and especially from Lord Palmerston, who clearly distinguished the case in question from the alleged historical parallels cited by his opponents"Mr. Disraeli had said that the Ionian Islands were, by the treaty of 1815, placed under the British Crown in the same way as Paris was placed under France. The right hon. gentleman is not a man who speaks in this House without knowing what he is saying. He knows the value of words and the nature of things; but I was astonished at his making an assertion of that kind. Compare it to Piedmont and to the Prussian Rhenish provinces! Why he himself stated that which negatived that general assertion. The Ionian Islands were, as he said, six of them, occupied militarily by a British force at the time of the termination of the war, and Corfu surrendered at the downfall of Napoleon. But their fate was determined, like the fate of many of the countries of Europe, by the treaties concluded in 1815; and to those treaties, and especially to the treaty in regard to the Ionian Islands, Great Britain. was a party. Well, what did that treaty do? Did that treaty say that the Ionian Islands were to be what the right hon. gentleman stated-a British territory, and to belong to the British Crown as one of its possessions? Quite the contrary. It stated that the Septinsular Republic was to be a separate and independent State, but, as a separate and independent State, was to be placed under the protection of the British Crown. But it is no part of the dominions of the British Crown. The Queen is not Sovereign of the Ionian Islands. Our treaties do not include or bind the Ionian Islands. When a treaty of commerce is made, there must be a separate act on the part of the Ionian Islands to give them the benefit of that treaty. They have a separate Legislature of their own; we do not make laws for them. They are to all intents and purposes, literally and legally, a separate State, forming no part of the British territory or dominions, but under the protection of England, by virtue of the treaty concluded between England and the other great Powers of Europe. Therefore, all the argument of the right hon. gentleman, founded on the supposition that Corfu and the other Ionian Islands were to England what Paris is to France, is, if he will allow me to repeat his own words, a 'perfect absurdity,' and has no bearing whatever on the question which the House may have to consider with reference to these islands. It is not now the time to discuss the policy of making that cession under the circumstances contemplated by the paragraph in the Queen's Speech. My own opinion is that it would be a wise measure. I think it would be a generous measure. think it is due to that Ionian State, which was placed under our protection for its own benefit and not for our advantage. We were bound to do the best for it. I believe we have done the best for it hitherto by maintaining the protectorate; but I think, if Greece is established under an enlightened Sovereign, who will develope her internal prosperity and maintain her external peace, that it will be for the benefit of those islands to be united with their fellow-countrymen. I think, too, that it is an example which may not be lost upon other countries. There are other questions pending in the world, in Europe especially, with regard to which an example of generous disinterestedness on the part of Great I Britain, for the benefit of those whose fate has been committed to her charge, may not be without result, and I trust it may be imitated hereafter." Adverting to Mr. Disraeli's strictures on our operations in China, Lord Palmerston defended the course that had been pursued. He argued that our policy in China had always been to protect our trade and commerce there, and it had succeeded in turning an enemy into a friend. He justified, also, Earl Russell's proceedings relative to Denmark. With regard to Italy, Rome, and the Pope, Lord Palmerston explained the circumstances under which the offer was made by Mr. Odo Russell to the Pope of an asylum at Malta. The fact was that the matter originated with the Pope, who sent for Mr. Russell and asked him whether, in the event of his being compelled to leave Rome, he would be received and protected in England. Sir G. Bowyer gave a different version of the communication between the Pope and Mr. Odo Russell in regard to the offer of an asylum to His Holiness at Malta. He denounced with much warmth the political changes that had taken place in Italy, and insisted that the Romans knew that they were better off than their neighbours of the Italian unity. "The British Government had produced, through their influence, a state of things in Italy which was not liberty but enslavement, and they would be cursed eternally for it. When, he should like to know, was Italy great? Was it in the days of her unity? It was rather in the days of the Medicis (cries of 'Borgia!') Would hon. members, because there happened to be one bad man, ignore the glories of Florence, Venice, and Genoa, and the great artists and poets which Italy, though not united, produced? The greatness of Italy, he for one should maintain, was due not to unity, but to the national development and the municipal liberty fostered by individual States. He would go further and say that the unity which would be the result of placing the whole country under the iron heel of Piedmont, would turn out to be to Italy not a blessing but a curse. The noble lord at the head of the Government seemed to imagine that the Roman people were entirely opposed to the authority of the Pope, but in that opinion he was grievously mistaken, and if the French garrison were withdrawn from Rome to-morrow, and the Piedmontese prevented from taking possession of it by military force, the rule of the Pope would, he felt assured, be as safe as that of Queen Victoria was in England. Indeed, the sole reason why it was expedient to keep a French garrison in Rome was, because she had at her gates a piratical Government which knew no respect for law." Mr. Hennessey likewise denounced in strong terms the conduct which the British Government had pursued towards the Papal power. The same hon. Member also called attention to the unhappy condition of Poland, for which, he said, Great Britain was |