Mr. Gladstone arose amid an outburst of enthusiastic applause, and
addressing the vast audience said:
That the massacres in Armenia resulted from intolerable
government--perhaps the worst in the world. He offered a resolution
pledging the support of the entire nation to the British Government in
its efforts to secure for the Armenians such reforms as would guarantee
the safety of life, honor, religion and property. Mr. Gladstone said
that language failed to describe the horrors of the massacre of Sussoun,
which made the blood run cold. The Sultan was responsible, for these
barbarities were not the act of the criminal class, such as afflicts
every country, the malefactors who usually perpetrate horrible crime,
but were perpetrated by the agents of the Sultan--the soldiers and the
Kurds, tax-gatherers and police of the Turkish Government. And what had
been done, and was daily being done, could be summed up in four awful
words--plunder, murder, rape and torture. Plunder and murder were bad
enough, but these were almost venial by the side of the work of the
ravisher and the torturer. And the victims were defenceless men, women
and children--Armenians, one of the oldest Christian civilized races,
and one of the most pacific, industrious and intelligent races of
the world.
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