But if the
bases are capable of development, so I take it for granted that the
meaning of negotiation is not the offering of an _ultimatum_, but
the word involves to every man's sense the probability of concession--
butter, it may be--but concession of one sort or another.
I will not go through all the Four Points, because the attention of the
House ought really to be centred upon the third article and the matters
connected with it. The House must remember that this article involves
two most important subjects--first, the territorial guarantee, which if
it were sufficiently secured would be everything the House and the
country required from the war--namely, that the territories of Turkey
shall never be molested, so long as the treaty shall continue, by any of
the great Powers who are parties to such treaty; and, secondly, that the
preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea shall cease. Now, the
territorial guarantee was granted without difficulty. [An hon. Member:
'No.'] Well, no difficulty was made about the territorial guarantee but
this:--Prince Gortchakoff said, very wisely, that he would not enter
into an absolute pledge to go to war in case of any infraction of the
treaty, and the noble Lord who said 'No' will find, when he has examined
the question a little more closely, that it does not make the slightest
difference as to the actual results of a treaty whether a Power
guarantees in the mode proposed by Russia, or in the manner proposed by
the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, because, when an
infraction of a treaty occurs, the power of judging whether any of the
Governments who are parties to such treaty should go to war or not, is
left with each individual Government.
Pages:
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732