Mr. Bryce called attention, on Friday week, to the miserable
condition of Armenia,—a district about 200 miles long, by 250 broad,—in a very able speech. The Armenians were suffering from frightful and constant outrages by the Kurds ; from the abuse and denial of justice, and the refusal to admit Christian evidence in the Courts of Justice ; from oppressive taxation, and from the exaction of arrears of taxation which they could not pay. A famine was upon them, and the Porte showed a disposition to take advantage of the famine to extinguish the population ; indeed the late Turkish Prime Ministerhad said," the way to get rid of the Armenian question is by getting rid of the Armenians." Mr. Bryce maintained that the only precedent which would meet the Armenian case was that of the Lebanon, —in other words, the appointment of an able Christian Governor, guaranteed by the European Powers, Armenia to pay a fixed tribute to Turkey, and to have an immovable gendarmerie. Sir Charles Dilke was somewhat too mysteriously official in his reply; and Sir Wilfrid Lawson made an atrocious speech, in which he declared that he had always heard that the Armenians were the greatest scoundrels in Europe or in the world, and that he would oppose as bitterly any forcible interference with Turkey on behalf of Armenia or any other portion of Turkey, as he had opposed the interference of the late Government with Russia. We had at home thirty-three millions of people full of crime, misery, and vice, and we had better look at home first, before enforcing reforms on Turkey. On the same principle, we sup- pose, if Sir Wilfrid Lawson saw a man robbing or killing another, be would calmly remark that so soon as he (Sir Wilfrid) had eradicated all his own evil passions lie would interfere,— which, on such a principle, of course, could never be.
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