On Tuesday, in the Town Hall, Chester, Mr. Gladstone made
his promised speech on the Armenian question. The speech was in his best manner. Though full of fire and eloquence it was, as a whole, moderate and statesmanlike in tone. Turkish government was to be impeached, not on account of its Mahommedanism, but because it was "perhaps the worst on the face of the earth." The atrocities were proved by eye-witnesses, among whom was Dr. Dillon, the commissioner of the Daily Telegraph, who had travelled in Armenia in disguise, and had seen the horrors to which he testified. Mr. Gladstone dwelt specially on Dr. Dillon's account of his interview with a Kurdish brigand, who was in prison charged with many offences. It was this brigand who declared, "If I am hanged it will be for attacking and robbing the Turkish post and violating the wife of a Turkish colonel who is here in Erzeroum, but not for Armenians. Who are they that I should suffer for them P" The denials of the Turkish Government when their attention was called to the atrocities must not deceive public opinion. They did the same in 1876. After the Bulgarian outrages, which were afterwards established by the authentic report of the present Lord Cromer, a formal statement was circulated by the Turkish Ambassador, in the name of his Government„ denying entirely the outrages, and saying that there were a few insubordinate people in Bulgaria whom it had been necessary to "keep in order," but treating the whole thing as a false- - hood. "The fact is, falsehood was the weapon which the
Turkish Government then used, and falsehood is a weapon familiar to its use."
