Lord Salisbury was a guest at the annual dinner of
the Associated Chambers of Commerce on Wednesday, and after telling them that in India taxes a thousand times condemned were often saved by some new and terrible deficit, he made a few important remarks upon the Eastern Question. He thought, to use commercial phraseology, that this country, twenty years ago, had endorsed a bill for -a gentleman who now turned out to be insolvent. The alterna- tives, therefore, were a composition, or a hostile liquidation in the Bankruptcy Court. Under the latter process, there might be total loss to everybody, and under the former, very little good to any- body ; "the utmost you can hope for is some arrangement, some- thing not wholly and absolutely unsatisfactory," "perhaps a dividend of 2s. in the pound." Well, but who are the creditors, the Powers who signed the Treaty of Paris, or the Eastern Christians ? Surely the latter are rather in the position of " innocent holders" of guaranteed bonds, and are entitled to preferential payment in full. It is something, however, to bear it publicly acknowledged by a member of the Tory Government that the Bill given by Turkey in 1856 is dishonoured, that Turkey is insolvent, and that the responsibility now rests with the endorser.
Previous page
