of the world, and with a future—­a commanding future?  Austria herself has lost provinces—­more provinces even than Turkey, perhaps; even England has lost provinces—­the most precious possessions—­the loss of which every Englishman must deplore to this moment.  We lost them from bad government.  Had the principles which now obtain between the metropolis and her dependencies prevailed then, we should not, perhaps, have lost those provinces, and the power of this Empire would have been proportionally increased.  It is perfectly true that the Sultan of Turkey has lost provinces; it is true that his armies have been defeated; it is true that his enemy is even now at his gates; but all that has happened to other Powers.  But a sovereign who has not yet forfeited his capital, whose capital has not been occupied by his enemy—­and that capital one of the strongest in the world—­who has armies and fleets at his disposal, and who still rules over 20,000,000 of inhabitants, cannot be described as a Power whose Dominions have been partitioned.  My Lords, it has been said that no limit has been fixed to the occupation of Bosnia by Austria.  Well, I think that was a very wise step.  The moment you limit an occupation you deprive it of half its virtue.  All those opposed to the principles which occupation was devised to foster and strengthen feel that they have only to hold their breath and wait a certain time, and the opportunity for their interference would again present itself.  Therefore, I cannot agree with the objection which is made to the arrangement with regard to the occupation of Bosnia by Austria on the question of its duration.

My Lords, there is a point on which I feel it now my duty to trouble your Lordships, and that is the question of Greece.  A severe charge has been made against the Congress, and particularly against the English Plenipotentiaries, for not having sufficiently attended to the interests and claims of Greece.  My Lords, I think you will find, on reflection, that that charge is utterly unfounded.  The English Government were the first that expressed the desire that Greece should be heard at the Congress.  But, while they expressed that desire, they communicated confidentially to Greece that it must on no account associate that desire on the part of the Government with any engagement for the redistribution of territory.  That was repeated, and not merely once repeated.  The Greek inhabitants, apart from the kingdom of Greece, are a considerable element in the Turkish Empire, and it is of the greatest importance that their interests should be sedulously attended to.  One of the many evils of that large Slav State—­the Bulgaria of the San Stefano treaty—­was, that it would have absorbed, and made utterly to disappear from the earth, a considerable Greek population.  At the Congress the Greeks were heard, and they were heard by representatives of considerable eloquence and ability; but it was quite clear, the moment they put their case before the Congress, that they had