Jesse's Hall on December 8, 1876, an occasion which would have been ...

Jesse's Hall on December 8, 1876, an occasion which would have been even more edifying if some of the historians, novelists, and divines, who met to settle the business of the world, had explained how England was to get 100,000 men into Turkey, how much it would cost, and how many of them would come home again. Instead, Lord Salisbury went to Constantinople.

By this step the Government recovered its control of the situation. The Conference of the Powers did, indeed, fail of its immediate object, to enforce a settlement in Bosnia and Bulgaria.

But it made clear to the Turk that he could

expect no assistance against

Russia, and to the public at home that no armed intervention

on behalf of

the Nonconformists was contemplated or was possible: in other words, that a policy of British Interests was to be pursued, that within the limits thus indicated Russia might do as she liked, and that the issue of peace or war turned, therefore, on Russia's willingness to recognize them. Fortunately they were plain to all men: Constantinople and the Straits, the Gulf and the Canal: and the history of the years 1877 and 1878 comes in brief to this, that Russia accepted the invitation and respected, or was forced to respect, its restrictions.

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