Correspondence of William White_ (1902), pp. 99-100.]

For at this time tidings of the massacres at Batak and elsewhere began
to be fully known. Despite the efforts of Ministers to discredit them,
they aroused growing excitement; and when the whole truth was known, a
storm of indignation swept over the country as over the whole of Europe.
Efforts were made by the Turcophil Press to represent the new trend of
popular feeling as a mere party move and an insidious attempt of the
Liberal Opposition to exploit humanitarian sentiment; but this charge
will not bear examination. Mr. Gladstone had retired from the Liberal
Leadership early in 1875 and was deeply occupied in literary work; and
Lords Granville and Hartington, on whom devolved the duty of leading the
Opposition, had been very sparing of criticisms on the foreign policy of
the Cabinet. They, as well as Mr. Gladstone, had merely stated that the
Government, on refusing to join in the Berlin Memorandum, ought to have
formulated an alternative policy. We now know that Mr. Gladstone left
his literary work doubtfully and reluctantly[105].

[Footnote 105: J. Morley, _Life of Gladstone_, vol. ii. pp. 548-549.]

Now, however, the events in Bulgaria shed a ghastly light on the whole
situation, and showed the consequences of giving the "moral support" of
Britain to the Turks. The whole question ceased to rest on the high and
dry levels of diplomacy, and became one of life or death for many
thousands of men and women. The conscience of the country was touched to
the quick by the thought that the presence of the British Mediterranean
fleet at Besika Bay was giving the same encouragement to the Turks as it
had done before the Crimean War, and that, too, when they had belied the
promises so solemnly given in 1856, and were now proved to be guilty of
unspeakable barbarities. In such a case, the British nation would have
been disgraced had it not demanded that no further alliance should be
formed. It was equally the duty of the leaders of the Opposition to
voice what was undoubtedly the national sentiment. To have kept silence
would have been to stultify our Parliamentary institutions. The parrot
cry that British interests were endangered by Russia's supposed designs
on Turkey, was met by the unanswerable reply that, if those designs
existed, the best way to check them was to maintain the European
Concert, and especially to keep in close touch with Austria, seeing that
that Power h