was
extremely doubtful. The language of the Manchester speech is cloudy, but
what it comes to is this. It recognises the duty of maintaining the
integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire. Independence, however,
in this case, says Mr. Gladstone, designates a sovereignty full of
anomaly, of misery, of difficulty, and it has been subject every few
years since we were born to European discussion and interference; we
cannot forget the political solecism of Mahometans exercising despotic
rule over twelve millions of our fellow Christians; into the questions
growing out of this political solecism we are not now entering; what we
see to-day is something different; it is the necessity for regulating
the distribution of power in Europe; the absorption of power by one of
the great potentates of Europe, which would follow the fall of the
Ottoman rule, would be dangerous to the peace of the world, and it is
the duty of England, at whatever cost, to set itself against such a
result.

This was Mr. Gladstone's first public entry upon one of the most
passionate of all the objects of his concern for forty years to come. He
hears the desolate cry, then but faint, for the succour of the oppressed
Christians. He looks to European interference to terminate the hateful
solecism. He resists the interference single-handed of the northern
invader. It was intolerable that Russia should be allowed to work her
will upon Turkey as an outlawed state.[300] In other words, the
partition of Turkey was not to follow the partition of Poland. What we
shortly call the Crimean war was to Mr. Gladstone the vindication of the
public law of Europe against a wanton disturber. This was a
characteristic example of his insistent search for a broad sentiment and
a comprehensive moral principle. The principle in its present
application had not really much life in it; the formula was narrow, as
other invasions of public law within the next dozen years were to show.
But the clear-cut issues of history only disclose themselves in the long
result of Time. It was the diplomatic labyrinth of the passing hour
through which the statesmen of the coalition had to thread their way.
The disastrous end was what Mr. Disraeli christened the coalition war.

'The first year of the coalition government,' Lord Aberdeen wrote to Mr.
Gladstone, 'was eminently prosperous, and this was chiefly owing to your
own personal exertions, and to the boldness, ability, and success of
your