Minister for Foreign Affairs in this country and the Emperor of Russia himself—­I say I cannot think that, while that arrangement formed a principal part of the treaty, the arrangement which left one small portion, ‘a mere atom,’ as the allied Powers called it, free and independent, was an immaterial, or an insignificant part of it.  It cannot but appear, I think, however small the territory—­however small the population of that state—­that yet the treaty formed, first between the three Powers and then by all the Powers who were the concurring parties in the Treaty of Vienna, meant that freedom and independence should leave to Poland—­should leave to some part of the Polish nation—­a separate existence; and that, giving up much, admitting much, to the Emperor of Russia, it was still consecrated, as a principle, that some part of the Polish nation should retain an independent and separate existence.  For this reason, therefore, I consider the existence of Cracow as a state, having been thus secured by general treaty—­whatever the complaints the three Powers had made that Cracow was the focus of disturbances; that revolutionary intrigues there found a centre and a means of organization; that there arose from that small state insurrection against the three surrounding Powers; that it was impossible to preserve those Powers from this insurrection:  that if these reasons were good and valid—­if they were felt to be strong—­they should have been stated to England and to France; that England and France should have been invited to a congress, or some species of conference, in which their consent should have been asked to put an end to a state of things which those Powers declared to be intolerable, and which they could no longer permit with safety to themselves.  So much, I think, is clear from the papers which record the general transaction of the Treaty of Vienna; and so much also, I think, is clear from the passage which my noble friend opposite (Lord Sandon) has read from the statement of the Prussian Minister of Foreign Affairs, in which he, in words, admits that if the arrangement of the Treaty of Vienna were to be altered and set aside, agreement and concurrence with England and France would previously have been necessary.  In the next place, with regard to the reasons which are given by the three Great Powers, and which are stated more especially by Prince Metternich, on the part of the Court of Austria, those reasons appear to me insufficient for the violent proceeding which has taken place.  I cannot myself imagine that there could not have been precautions taken, which, however they limited the action of the free and independent state of Cracow, would yet have been a security that its name and its independence would have been maintained; while all danger from refugees, from its being made a place where strangers from all parts of the Continent came and planned conspiracy, might have been encountered and prevented.  It does seem to me most extraordinary that, with this