Page:Karl Marx - The Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston - ed. Eleanor Marx Aveling (1899).pdf/70

 64 and these fortifications with guns, was a violation of the Treaty of Adrianople itself, which expressly prohibits any fortifications being erected within six miles of the river. The exaction of tolls, and the obstruction of the navigation, were a violation of the Treaty of Vienna, declaring that "the navigation of rivers along their whole course, from the point where each of them becomes navigable to its mouth, shall be entirely free," that "the amount of the duties shall in no case exceed those now (1815) paid" and that "no increase shall take place, except with the common consent of the states bordering on the river." Thus, then, all the argument on which Russia could plead not guilty was the Treaty of 1827, violated by the Treaty of Adrianople, the Treaty of Adrianople violated by herself, the whole backed up by a violation of the Treaty of Vienna.

It proved quite impossible to wring out of the noble lord any declaration whether he did or did not recognise the Treaty of Adrianople. As to the violation of the Treaty of Vienna, he had

By the Treaty of Adrianople, Art. V., Russia guarantees the "prosperity" of the Danubian Principalities, and full "liberty of trade" for them. Now, Mr. Stewart proved that the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were objects of deadly jealousy to Russia, as their trade had taken a sudden development since 1834, as they vied with Russia's own staple production, as Gralatz was becoming the great depôt of all the grain of the Danube, and driving Odessa out of the market. If, answered the noble lord,

"my honourable friend had been able to show that whereas some years ago we had had a large and important commerce with Turkey, and that that commerce had, by the aggression of other countries, or by the neglect of the Government of this, dwindled down to an incon-