Karl Marx 
The War Debate in Parliament 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr. 4055, 17. April 1854 

The War Debate in Parliament. 

From Our Own Correspondent. 

London, Tuesday, April 4, 1854. 

A singularity of English tragedy, so repulsive to French feelings that Voltaire 
used to call Shakspere a drunken savage, is its peculiar mixture of the 
sublime and the base, the terrible and the ridiculous, the heroic and the 
burlesque. But nowhere does Shakspere devolve upon the Clown the task 
of speaking the prologue of aheroic drama. This invention was reserved for 
the Coalition Ministry. Mylord Aberdeen has performed, if notthe English 
Clown, at least the Italian Pantaloon. All great historical movements appear, 
to the superficial observer, finally to subside into the farce, or at least the 
common-place. But to commence with this is a feature peculiar alone to the 
tragedy entitled, War with Russia, the prologue of which was recited on 
Friday evening in both Houses of Parliament, where the Ministry's address 
in answer to her Majesty's message was simultaneously discussed and 
unanimously adopted, to be handed over to the Queen yesterday afternoon, 
sitting upon her throne in Buckingham Palace. The proceedings inthe House 
of Lords may be very briefly delineated. Lord Clarendon made the Ministe- 
rial, and Lord Derby the Opposition statement of the case. The one spoke 
as the man in office, and the other like the man out of it. Lord Aberdeen, 
the noble Earl at the head of the Government, the "acrimonious" confident 
of the Czar, the "dear, good, and excellent" Aberdeen of Louis Philippe, the 
"estimable gentleman" of Pio IX although concluding his sermon with his 
usual whinings for peace, caused, during the principal part of his per- 
formance, their lordships to be convulsed with laughter, by declaring war 
not on Russia, but on The Press, a London weekly periodical. Lord Malmes- 
bury retorted on the noble Earl; Lord Brougham, that "old, foolish woman," 
as he was styled by William Cobbett, discovered that the contest on which 

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they were engaged was no "easy" one; Earl Grey who, inhis Christian spirit, 
had contrived to make the British Colonies the most miserable abodes of the 
world, reminded the British people that the tone and temper in which the 
war was referred to, the feeling of animosity evinced against the Czar and 
his Cossacks, was not the spirit in which a Christian nation ought to enter 
upon war. The Earl of Hardwicke was of opinion that England was weakin 
the means she possessed for dealing with the Russian navy; thatthey ought 
notto have a less force in the Baltic than 20 sail of the line, well armed and 
well manned, with disciplined crews, and not begin, as they had done, with 
a mob of newly raised men, a mob in a line-of-battle ship during an action 
being the worst of all mobs. The Marquis of Lansdowne vindicated the 
Government, and expressed a hope as to the shortness and ultimate success 
of the war, because (and this is a characteristic mark of the noble lord's 
powers of conception) "it was no dynastic war, such a war involving the 
largest consequences, and which it was the most difficultto putanendto." 

After this agreeable conversazione in which everybody had given his 
sentiment, the address was agreed to nemine contraddente. 

All the new information to be gathered from this conversazione is limited 
to some official declarations on the part of Lord Clarendon, and the history 
of the secret memorandum of 1844. 

Lord Clarendon stated that "atpresent the agreement with France consists 
simply of an exchange of notes containing arrangements with respect to 

military operations." Consequently there exists, at this moment, no treaty 
between England-and France. In reference to Austria and Prussia he stated 
that the former would maintain an armed neutrality, and the other a neutral 
neutrality; but that "with such a war as is now about to be waged upon the 
frontiers of both countries, it would be impossible for either power to pre- 
serve a neutrality." Finally he declared that the peace to be brought about 
by the impending’ war, would only be a glorious peace "if they did secure 
.equal rights and immunities for the Christian subjects of Turkey." 

Now we know that the Sheik-el-Islam has already been deposed for having 
refused to sanction by a fetva the treaty granting this equalization of rights; 
that the greatestexcitement exists on the part of the old Turkish population 
at Constantinople; and by a telegraphic dispatch received to-day we learn 
that the Czar has declared to Prussia that he is willing to withdraw his troops 
from the Principalities if the Western Powers should succeed in imposing 
such a treaty upon the Porte. All he wants is to break the Osman rule. If the 
Western Powers propose to do it in his stead, he, of course, is not the madman 
to wage war with them. 

Now to the history of the secret memorandum, which I collect from the 
speeches of Derby, Aberdeen, Malmesbury and Granville. The memorandum 

The War Debate in Parliament 

was "intended to be a provisional, conditional and secret arrangement be- 
tween Russia, Austria and England, to make certain arrangements with 
respect to Turkey, which France, without any consent on her part, was to 

be obliged to concur in." This memorandum, thus described in the words 
of Lord Malmesbury, was the result of private conferences between the 
Czar, the Earl of Aberdeen, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. It 
was by the advice of Aberdeen that the Czar addressed himself to the Duke 
and to Sir Robert Peel. It remains a matter of controversy between Lord 
Aberdeen and his opponents, whether the memorandum was drawn up by 
Count Nesselrode, on the return of the Czar to St. Petersburg subsequently 
to his visit to England in 1844, or whether it was drawn up by the English 
Ministers themselves as a record of the communications made by the 
Emperor. 
The connection of the Earl of Aberdeen with this document was dis- 
tinguished from that of amere Minister with an official document as proved, 
according to the statement of Malmesbury, by another paper not laid before 
the House. The document was considered of the greatest importance, and 
such as might not be communicated to the other powers, notwithstanding 
Aberdeen's assurance that he had communicated the "substance" to France. 
The Czar, at all events, was not aware of such acommunication having been 
made. The document was sanctioned and approved by the Duke of Wel- 
lington and Sir Robert Peel. It was not brought under the cognizance and 
consideration of the Peel Cabinet, of which Lord Derby was at that time a 
member. It remained not with the ordinary papers of the Foreign Office, but 
in the private custody of each successive Secretary of State, with no copy 
of it whatever in the Foreign Office. When Lord Derby acceded to office, 
he knew nothing of it, although himself a member of the Peel Cabinet in 1844. 
When the Earl of Aberdeen left office, he handed it over in a box to Lord 
Palmerston, who handed the box of Pandora over to his successor, Earl 
Granville, who, as he states himself, at the request of Baron Brunnow, the 
Russian Embassador, handed it over to the Earl of Malmesbury on his 
accession to the Foreign Office. But, in the meantime, there appears to have 
been an alteration, or rather a falsification in the original indorsement of the 
document, since the Earl of Granville sent it to the Earl of Malmesbury with 
a note stating that it was a memorandum drawn up by Baron Brunnow, as 
the result of the conferences between the Emperor of Russia, Sir Robert Peel 
and Lord Aberdeen, the name of the Duke of Wellington not being mentioned 
at all. No other motive can be supposed for this false allegation but the 
anxiety to conceal the importance of the memorandum by describing it as 
a mere annotation of the Embassador, instead of an official document issued 
from the Chancellory at St. Petersburg. 

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Such was the importance Russia attached to this document that 48 hours 
after Lord Malmesbury had been in office, Baron Brunnow came and asked 
him whether he had read it; but Malmesbury had not then done so, it being 
not forwarded to him till a few days after. Baron Brunnow urged on him the 
necessity of reading this document, which he stated constituted the key of 
all conferences with Russia. From that moment, however, he never men- 
tioned the document again to the Derbyites, apparently judging the Tory 
Administration too powerless or too transitory for carrying out the Russian 
policy. In December, 1852, the Derby Government went out, and shortly after 
the intelligence of the formation of the Coalition reaching St. Petersburg, on 
Jan. 11, the Czar again opened this question—a sufficient evidence this that 
he thought the cabinet of all the talents ready to act on the basis of this 
memorandum. 

Here, then, we have the most compromising revelations made in the House 
of Lords by the most irreversible witnesses, all of them having been Prime 
or Foreign Ministers of Great Britain. An "eventual engagement"—the ex- 
pression used in the memorandum—is secretly entered into with Russia by 
an English Foreign Minister, not only without the sanction of Parliament, 
but behind the backs of his own colleagues, two of them only having been 
initiated into the mystery. The paper is for ten years withheld from the For- 
eign Office and kept inclandestine custody by each successive Foreign Mini- 
ster. Whenever a ministry disappears from the scene, the Russian Embassa- 
dor appears in Downing-st. and intimates to the new-comer that he had to 
look closely at the bond, the secret bond, entered into not between the 
nation as legally represented, but between some Cabinet-Minister and the 
Czar, and to act according to the line of conduct prescribed in a Russian 
memorandum drawn up in the Chancellory of St. Petersburg. 

If this be not an open infraction of the Constitution, if not a conspiracy 
and high treason, if not collusion with Russia, we are at a loss to understand 
the meaning of these terms. 

Atthe same time we understand from these revelations why the criminals, 
perfectly secure, are allowed to remain at the helm of the State, at the very 
epoch of an ostensible war with Russia, with whom they are convicted to 
have permanently conspired, and why the Parliamentary opposition is amere 
sham, intended to annoy but not to impeach them. All Foreign Ministers, and 
consequently all the successive Administrations since 1844 are accomplices, 
each of them becoming so from the moment he neglected to accuse his 
predecessor and quietly accepted the mysterious box. By the mere af- 
fectation of secrecy each of them became guilty. Each of them became a 
party to the conspiracy by concealing it from Parliament. By law the con- 
cealer of stolen goods is as criminal as the thief. Any legal proceeding, 

The War Debate in Parliament 

therefore, would ruin not only the Coalition, but their rivals also, and not 
only these Ministers, but the Parliamentary parties they represent, and not 
only those parties, but the governing classes of England. 

I may remark, en passant, that the only speech delivered in the House of 
Lords worth mentioning is that of the Earl of Derby; but his criticism of the 
memorandum and the secret correspondence— and I may say the same with 
respect to the debate in the Commons—contains nothing thatI have not stated 
before in the full analysis I gave you of that fatal memorandum and that 
extraordinary correspondence. 

"The power of declaring war is a prerogative of the Crown, a real pre- 
rogative; and if Her Majesty summons her Parliament, and informs them that 
she has found it necessary to engage herself in war, itis not an occasion when 
the Commons enter onthe policy or impolicy of the war. Itis their duty, under 
such circumstances, to rally round the throne, and to take a proper, sub- 

sequent and constitutional occasion of commenting on the policy which may 
have led to the war." So said Mr. Disraeli in the sitting of the Commons, and 
so said all the Commoners, and yet The Times fills seventeen columns with 
their comments on that policy. Why was this? Even because it was not the 
"occasion," because their talk would remain resultless. But we must except 
Mr. Layard, who stated plainly: "If it should be the feeling of the House, 
after what he should state to them, that the conduct of the Ministers should 
force the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry, he should not shrink from 
the duty thus imposed upon him, and would be ready to ask the Ministers 
to fix an early day on whichthe matter might be brought forward." You will 
comprehend now the reason why The Times begins to doubt the justice of 
the Assyrian discoveries of Mr. Layard. 

Lord J.Russell, who introduced the address in the House of Commons, 
distinguished himself from Lord Clarendon only by his intonation of the 
words integrity, liberty, independence, civilization, whereby he secured the 
cheers of his more common audience. 

Mr. Layard, who rose to reply to him committed two great blunders, which 
disfigured his otherwise remarkable speech. In the first place, he sought to 
establish the existence of opposite elements in the Coalition, the Russian 
element and the English element, the Aberdeen fraction and the Palmerston 
fraction, these two fractions possessing no other distinction than their lan- 
guage and their modes of subserviency to Russia. The one is a partisan of 
Russia, because he does not understand her, and the other although he 
understands her. The former is, therefore, an open partisan, and the other 
a secret agent. The former, therefore, serves gratuitously, and the latter is 
paid. The former is less dangerous because placed in open antagonism to the 
feelings of the English people; the latter is fatal, because he makes himself 

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pass for the incarnation of the national animosity against Russia. With 
Mr. Layard we must presume that it is ignorance of the man whom he places 
in opposition to Aberdeen. For Mr. Disraeli, who employed the same con- 
trast, there is no such excuse. No man knows Lord Palmerston better than 
that chief of the Opposition, who declared already in 1844, that no foreign 
policy of any Minister had ever been so fatal to British interests as that of 
the noble Lord. The second blunder committed by Mr. Layard was his argu- 
ment that The Times was the direct organ of the Aberdeen party because 
the secret and confidential correspondence, two or three days after arrival, 
furnished materials for its leading articles, which endeavored to bring the 
country to consent to the nefarious transaction intended at St. Petersburg, 
especially its articles during February and March of last year. Layard would 
have done better to conclude with Lord Palmerston that those materials were 
furnished by the Russian Embassy at London, when he would have been able 
to charge both The Times and the Foreign Office with being the organs of 
the St. Petersburg Cabinet. 

Holding the opinion that The Times is, in fact, a greater power than the 
Coalition, not as to its opinions but as to the data which constitute the 
treasonable character of this secret correspondence; I subjoin the whole 
statement of Mr. Layard against that paper: 

"The first of these secret dispatches was received in this country on the 
23d of January, 1853, and on the 26th of the same month appeared in The 
Times the first of those articles to which he had referred. The next dispatch 
was received onthe 6thof February, 1853, andonthe 11thof the same month, 
four days afterward, there appeared an extraordinary article in The Times, 
from which he would now quote. In one part of the article it was stated: 

'We do not suppose that it is the intention or the policy of Russia to 
accelerate a catastrophe in the East, and the good offices of this country will 
again be employed to lessen the perils of a situation which is becoming 
critical. We cannot, however, forget that the attempt to prolong the brutal 
and decrepit authority of the Turks in Europe is purchased by the surrender 
of fine provinces and a large Christian population to barbarous mis- 
government; and we shall rejoice when civilization and Christianity are able 
to repair the injuries of the Ottoman conquest.’ 

Again, it was stated in The Times on the 23d of February 1853, after various 
comments on the exhausted state of Turkey: 

‘With the utmost political caducity, with a total want of ability and integrity 
inthe men who are still its rulers, with a declining Mussulman population, and 
an exhausted treasury, the Porte unites as if by way of derisory contrast a 
dominion over some of the most fertile regions, the finest ports and the most 
enterprising and ingenious people of Southern Europe. ... It is hard to 

The War Debate in Parliament 

comprehend how so great a positive evil can have been so long defended 
by politicians as a relative good; and, though we are not insensible to the 
difficulties attending any change in the territories of so huge an empire, we 
are disposed to view with satisfaction rather than with alarm the approach 
of a period' 

How did The Times know the period was approaching? 

'when it will be impossible to prolong the dominion of such a Government 
as that of the Porte over such a country as that which is now subject to its 
authority. Perhaps that period is less distant than is commonly supposed; 
and it may be the part of wise statesmen to provide against such a con- 
juncture, which it is beyond their power indefinitely to postpone. We do not 
believe, and we do not mean to imply, that any combination of Austria and 
Russia, hostile to the territorial claims of the Ottoman Empire, is now in 
existence, or is likely to be formed without the knowledge of the other 
European powers. We have strong grounds to believe'— When The Times 
says that, we know what it means—'that Prince Menchikoff is sent from 
St. Petersburg to Constantinople upon a special embassy, for the express 
purpose of declaring, in the name of the Emperor Nicholas, that as head of 
the Greek Church he cannot submit, or allow the Eastern Church to submit, 
to the conditions of the firman recently obtained by the French Embassador 
with reference to the Holy Shrines in the Holy Land.' 

Now, the first intimation of Prince Menchikoff's mission was contained 
in Sir H.Seymour's dispatches, received February 14 and February 21. It 
was important to observe that on the 6th of March, 1853, arrived the dispatch 
giving the whole of the Emperor of Russia's plan for the partition of Turkey. 
The answer to it, as he had before said, was not returned before the 23d of 
March, and no Cabinet Council was held until the 13th of March, though cer- 
tain members of the Government had seven days previously received the Em- 
peror's proposal. That proposal was not submitted to their colleagues till the 

13th of March, but it had been previously submitted to The Times, for on 
the 7th of March, the morning f ollpwing the receipt of the dispatch, which 
then could not have been known to more than two or three members of the 
Cabinet, and which could not then have been seen by any clerk in the Foreign 
Office, there appeared a particular article in The Times. (Hear, hear.) The 
article said, among other things, that 

'The state of the Turkish Empire and the relations of the European Powers 
to the East are subjects on which it may be useful for reflecting politicians 
and the independent press to form and express opinions, though the con- 
summation to which these opinions point be still unwelcome and remote. 
Statesmen, bound to transact the business of the day, and to recognize at 
every turn the obligations of what is called State necessity, are restrained 

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within narrower limits, and would probably be unable to give effect to any 
novel or original conception if it had not previously been entertained by the 
mind and reason of the public' 

He entreated the noble Lord to mark the words which followed, for they 
referred to the objection which he had offered. 

'We are therefore by no means surprised that, in adverting to the dif- 
ferences which have recently taken place in Turkey, and especially on its 
European frontiers, Lord John Russell should have expressed his dissent 
from the opinions which have been recently put forward on this subject, and 
should have repeated in his place in Parliament, speaking under the weight 
of official responsibility, the old story of the integrity and independence of 
the Ottoman Empire. We ourselves, however, are not affected by similar 
considerations.' 

How did the writer know that the noble lord dissented? (Hear. ) The article 
proceeded: 

'We do not, therefore, concur in the opinion of Lord J. Russell that no 
greater calamity could occur to Europe at the present time than the neces- 
sity of considering what ought to be done in such a case as the dismember- 
ment of that empire.' 

Let the House mark the following words, for they were almost identical 
with those of the Emperor of Russia: 

‘It would, we think, be a far greater calamity that the dismemberment 
commenced before any such consideration had taken place.' 

(Hear, Hear.) They were the very words. The writer went on thus: 

‘And here we must be allowed to express our surprise that any statesman 
should, for an instant, confound the policy whichit might be proper to pursue 
in the event of a dissolution of the Turkish Empire with that which led to 
the partition of Poland. No doubt the argument of State necessity still re- 
mains to support the integrity and independence of the Turkish Empire; but 
that argument stands alone against a host of evils, and it means, in reality, 
no more than the fear of dealing with a momentous and uncertain question. 
Yet, so strange are the prepossessions on this subject which have been 
fostered, especially of late years, that an attempt to discuss this question on 
its own merits is viewed in some quarters as an act of political depravity, 
and a violation of all the laws which bind nations together.’ 

The next article appeared onthe 10th of March. The House might, perhaps, 
have been of opinion that hitherto he had not shown that the writer in The 
Times employed the exact words used in the dispatches; but the article 
he was about to read would remove all doubt upon that point. On the 
10th of March an article appeared in The Times commencing with these 
words: 

The War Debate in Parliament 

'Prince Menchikoff arrives in a more strictly diplomatic capacity, and we 
have reason to believe that his instructions are more conciliatory than those 
of Count Leiningen.' 

A similarity of expression would be found in Sir H. Seymour's dispatch 
of the 21st of February: 

‘His Excellency (Count Nesselrode) wished to assure me that the in- 
structions with which Prince Menchikoff would be provided were of a 
conciliatory nature.’ 

The article continued: 

‘We must venture to say thatitimplies some penury of resources in modern 
statesmen that, when they have to deal with a question which involves the 
civilization of great provinces, the restoration of Christianity itself to that 
supremacy which it once enjoyed in all parts of Europe, and the progressive 
welfare of millions of human beings, the only expedient on which they can 

agree is to dress up a Turk's head in a turban, and agree to treat it as if it 
was still a symbol of force and empire.’ 

A Cabinet Council was held on the 19th of March, at which the dispatch 
received on the 6th of that month was discussed, and an answer to it was 
returned on the 23d of March, containing this passage: 

‘Although her Majesty's Government feel compelled to adhere to the 
principles and the policy laid down in Lord John Russell's dispatch of the 
9th of February, yet they gladly comply with the Emperor's wish, that the 
subject should be further and frankly discussed.' 

On the same day an article appeared in The Times, in which some of the 
phrases used in Lord Clarendon's dispatch might be found. The article 
commenced thus: 

‘The opinions we have expressed on the present condition and future 
prospects of the Ottoman Empire do not coincide with the views entertained 
by Lord J.Russell, and communicated by him to the House of Commons; 
they differ from the course of policy which this country has pursued in 
former times and on several occasions; and they are entirely at variance with 
the system which a large numerical proportion of the London press is at- 
tempting, not very brilliantly or successfully, to defend.' 

Honor to the British press that, though wanting the brilliant epigrammatic 
pen which had shaken a Colonial Minister and almost upset a Cabinet, it did 
not support the views of The Times. The Times added near the end of its 
article: 

'He (the Emperor) has said that it is an object of his ambition to stand well 
with this country, and to deserve its confidence. His proceedings on this 
occasion will bring that assurance to the test, and he can give us no greater 
proof of moderation and good faith toward Turkey and the rest of Europe 

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than a willingness to cooperate on these subjects, as he has before done, with 
the British Government.' 

On the same day on which The Times announced that its endeavors to 
reconcile the British public to the partition of Turkey had failed, the answer 
to the dispatch whichhad beendelayed for 16 days was sentto St. Petersburg. 
(Hear, hear.) He need not trouble the House with further extracts from The 
Times." 

Mr. Bright supported the character of Mr. Cobden, in order to afford 
another opportunity to Lord Palmerston to gather popularity by abuse of 
Russia and sham-energetic defense of the war-policy. Among other things 
Palmerston stated: 

"Now, it is known, I think, to those who have given their attention to the 
affairs of Europe for a considerable time past, that the views of Russiaupon 
Turkey arenotof yesterday, or indeed of any recent date. (Hear.) Itis known 
that for a great length of time it has been the standing and established policy 
of Russia to endeavor to obtain possession of at least the European part of 
Turkey, and subsequently of Asiatic Turkey. This policy has been pursued 
with undeviating and systematic perseverance. It has been ever keptin view. 
When opportunities have offered, steps in advance have been made, and 
when checks have been experienced, those steps have been withdrawn; but 
only for the purpose of taking advantage of the next opportunity which 
offers. (Hear, hear.) Delay has been no element in mitigating or in inducing 
Russia to abandon its schemes. Its policy has been to keep one object in 
view—not to hurry, not to lose its object by prematurely grasping at its 
possession, but to watch the course of the other Governments of Europe, 
and to take advantage of every opportunity which might present itself, by 
which it could get even the slightest advance toward the ultimate object of 
its ambition." 

Now compare this declaration of Lord Palmerston with those he made in 
1829, '30, '31, '33, '36, '40, '41, '42, '43, '46, '48, '49, and you will find that 
the above is less areply to Mr. Bright than to his own former policy. But while 
this cunning foe, by such onslaughts upon Russia, conciliates the sympathies 
of the public, he on the other hand secures favor with the Czar, by the 
following observation: 

"Now, Sir, do I blame the Russian Government for entertaining such a 
policy? A policy of aggrandizement pursued by legitimate means is a policy 
which you may condemn as dangerous to yourselves, which you may oppose 
as destructive of the independence and the liberties of other States, but which 
is not areproach to the Government which pursues it, provided it be pursued 
by open, undisguised, and avowed means, without concealment, without 
subterfuge, and without fraud. Now, the course which, I am sorry to say, 

The War Debate in Parliament 

the Russian Government has pursued in allthese recent transactions has not 
been that open and straightforward course which would justify itin avowing 
and in boldly declaring its policy." 
But the only reproach to be made against the Russian Government was 
just, as Mr. Disraeli termed it, her fatal frankness. Palmerston, accordingly, 
by disapproving only of what Russia did not do, justifies entirely that which 
she really has done. 
Mr. Disraeli's criticism of the secret papers was clever, as usual, but missed 
its effect by his declaration that it was out of place, and that his only intention 
in addressing the House was to support the address. It is painful to see aman 
of his genius cajoling a Palmerston, not only in the House, but also in his 
reputed organ, The Press, from so sordid a motive as the politics of place 
and party. 
In yesterday's sitting of the House, Sir J. Graham stated that he had re- 
ceived intelligence that the fleet had entered the Black Sea, and was in the 
neighborhood of Varna. 
In the House of Lords, Lord Aberdeen gave notice that on Tuesday, the 
11th, he should move the adjournment of the House till Thursday, 27th inst.