although treaties are concealed from us nowadays as long as and as often as is possible, the Treaty of Berlin is an open instrument.  We can consult it for ourselves; and when we consult the Treaty of Berlin, we find it states that Batoum shall be essentially a commercial port, but not that it shall be only a commercial port.  Why, gentlemen, Leith is essentially a commercial port, but there is nothing to prevent the people of this country, if in their wisdom or their folly they should think fit, from constituting Leith as a great naval arsenal or fortification; and there is nothing to prevent the Emperor of Russia, while leaving to Batoum a character that shall be essentially commercial, from joining with that another character that is not in the slightest degree excluded by the treaty, and making it as much as he pleases a port of military defence.  Therefore I challenge the assertion of Lord Salisbury; and as Lord Salisbury is fond of writing letters to The Times to bring the Duke of Argyll to book, he perhaps will be kind enough to write another letter to The Times, and tell in what clause of the Treaty of Berlin he finds it written that the port of Batoum shall be only a commercial port.  For the present, I simply leave it on record that he has misrepresented the Treaty of Berlin.

With respect to Russia,—­I take two views of the position of Russia.  The position of Russia in Central Asia I believe to be one that has in the main been forced upon her against her will.  She has been compelled—­and this is the impartial opinion of the world—­she has been compelled to extend her frontier southward in Central Asia by causes in some degree analogous to, but certainly more stringent and imperative than, the causes which have commonly led us to extend, in a far more important manner, our frontier in India; and I think it, gentlemen, much to the credit of the late Government, much to the honour of Lord Clarendon and Lord Granville, that, when we were in office, we made a covenant with Russia, in which Russia bound herself to exercise no influence or interference whatever in Afghanistan; we, on the other hand, making known our desire that Afghanistan should continue free and independent.  Both the Powers acted with uniform strictness and fidelity upon this engagement until the day when we were removed from office.  But Russia, gentlemen, has another position—­her position in respect to Turkey; and here it is that I have complained of the Government for aggrandizing the power of Russia; it is on this point that I most complain.

The policy of Her Majesty’s Government was a policy of repelling and repudiating the Slavonic populations of Turkey in Europe, and of declining to make England the advocate for their interests.  Nay, more, she became in their view the advocate of the interests opposed to theirs.  Indeed, she was rather the decided advocate of Turkey; and now Turkey is full of loud complaints—­and complaints, I must