Sir Charles himself was in a great difficulty, being as he says, 'anti- Russian without being for that pro-Turk.' Sharing to the full the general detestation of these massacres, of which the earliest complete exposure had been made public [Footnote: See p. 207, Schuyler's letter.] by him, he held that there ought to be armed intervention. But he knew too much of Russia's action in conquered provinces to feel that the matter could be settled satisfactorily by allowing Russian influence to replace Turkish control.
What was more, he knew that in 1870, when Russia repudiated the Black Sea article in the Treaty of Paris, March 30th, 1856, Mr. Gladstone's Government had pressed the Powers of Europe to make general the Tripartite Treaty, April 27th, 1856, 'Our Government (Gladstone-Granville) proposed to answer the Russian Circular by extending the Tripartite Treaty to all the Powers, and it was only Germany's refusal that stopped it.' By this treaty, 'France, Austria, and the United Kingdom bound themselves to consider any breach of the Treaty of Paris, 1856, or any invasion of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, as a casus belli.' In other words, the Liberal Government had been anxious in 1870 that all the Powers should guarantee for all time the power of the Turk in its full extension, though Turkish methods were in 1870 and before it no other than they revealed themselves at Batak in 1876. Sir Charles thought that, as Liberals had been precipitate in their desire to guarantee Ottoman integrity in 1870, so now they were precipitate in their Pan-Slavism. Moreover, the vacillation of the Liberal leaders had put a weapon into the hands of the Government. 'Fancy what a temptation to the present Government to publish the despatches,' notes Sir Charles, in comment on Sir William Harcourt's remark 'that the Tripartite Treaty discussion would be a mine of gunpowder to the Liberal Front Bench.'
He set forth his position in a speech to his constituents at Kensington on January 9th, 1877. He condemned Lord Derby, who had neither "the energy nor the force of character to fit him for the post of Foreign Secretary," and whose policy had left them at the close of 1876 in "absolute isolation." Yet, "on the other hand, he marvelled to see Radicals, for years the enemies of Russian autocracy, propose the immediate adoption of the policy of Canon Liddon and of the Emperor Alexander." [Footnote: Dr. H. P. Liddon and Dr. Malcolm MacColl were conspicuous as enthusiastic supporters of Mr. Gladstone's campaign.] And he went on to depict what that policy might mean:
"The world could not afford to see 120,000,000 of Slavs united under the sceptre of an absolute despot, holding at Constantinople the strongest position in all Europe, stretching from the Adriatic to Kamskatka and the Behring Straits, and holding in Corea the strongest position in the Pacific." Then he recalled the record of "that Power with which the Liberals of England were to strike alliance—an absolute autocracy of the purest type, the Power which crushed Poland, the Power which crushed Hungary for Austria." And by what methods! The long story of violation "both of the public and the moral law" was repeated, with citation of British Ministers who had spoken in fierce condemnation of, Russian methods; the decoration of Mouravief, the "woman-flogging General," was set off against the promotion of Chefket Pasha. He himself had seen in 1869 "long processions of Polish exiles, who were still being sent by hundreds into the solitudes of Siberia." In Turkestan General Kaufmann had ordered a massacre of women and children, and Kaufmann, "loaded with favours by the Emperor Alexander, still ruled in Turkestan." It was a vehement denunciation of the autocracy of Russia, and he notes that he had never before so moved his hearers. To his attack on the Russian Government were added some severe strictures on the barbarities perpetrated by Servians, and by Mr. Gladstone's special favourites, the Montenegrins, inhabitants of "countries whose civilization had not sufficiently progressed to allow of the belief that they were the unselfish champions of an outraged Christianity."
Holding these views, and holding them the more strongly because they were the outcome of personal experience and knowledge laboriously acquired, he was in a considerable degree isolated, not only from the Liberal party as a whole, but even from that more intimate organization whose existence was already recognized in the autumn of 1876, when Mr. Knowles asked him to write in the Nineteenth Century on the "New Party."
His closest associate, now and henceforward, was Mr. Chamberlain, who in 1877 stayed a great deal in Sloane Street, and Dilke notes that in February of that year he was giving dinners almost every night to introduce the member for Birmingham to London. But the "New Party," when Mr. Knowles made his unsuccessful request, consisted
'of Chamberlain and myself and Cowen in the House of Commons, and Morley outside of it…. As Chamberlain and Cowen failed to agree upon any subject whatever, the House of Commons portion of the party soon dwindled to two leaders, in the persons of Chamberlain and myself, who, however, picked up one faithful follower in Dillwyn. From September, 1876, to April, 1880, there did exist a very real and very influential, but little numerous, party, consisting of Chamberlain and myself, followed blindly by dear old Dillwyn, and supported in the Press by Morley. As Randolph Churchill afterwards said to me, shaking his head over Balfour's desertion: "When you and Chamberlain were together, your party was not too large." He had begun with four (three regular and one half-attached), and found it certainly one, perhaps two, and I sometimes think three, too many, though Wolff indeed followed him almost as steadily as Dillwyn followed us.'
For a time the "New Party" consisted of six. Mr. Edmund Dwyer Gray, an Irish Nationalist, owner of the Freeman's Journal, was of it, but soon dropped out, and for a time Mr. Burt—Father of the House in 1910—was also included.
At the beginning of 1877 summons was sent to a meeting before the opening of Parliament, to which Mr. Chamberlain replied solemnly: "The party will be complete." Further solemnity was added by the holding, at 76, Sloane Street, of a Queen's Speech dinner in due form on the eve of the Session, but—
'the dinner of six members, which assembled democratically without dressing in order to suit Burt's habits, was not graced by that copy of the Queen's Speech which is sent by Government to the leaders of the regular Opposition.'