to its last great effort in the National Conference on the Eastern
Question at St James's Hall in December 1876. Thereafter, the
student of the processes of opposition to the Eastern policy of Lord
Beaconsfield's government is concerned essentially with the more
restricted and, as I would argue, somewhat different phenomenon
of pressure groups. I have not attempted, therefore, to deal with
the career of the Eastern Question Association in 1877 and after.

I deliberately place the theme of the agitation as a phenomenon
in its own right before the theme of Gladstone in relation to it.
For the first conclusion of such a study as this, it seems to me, must
be the greatness of Gladstone's debt to the agitation and, con-
versely, the smallness of his contribution to it, despite the myth
to the contrary. Nowadays the agitation is remembered only by
virtue of Gladstone. The most instructive episode in later nine-
teenth-century English political history has been obscured by the
high drama of Gladstone's crusade on the Eastern question. An
interpretation which treats the agitation teleologically, merely as
the occasion of Gladstone's return to full political commitment,
ignores half the potential of the subject, and necessarily distorts
proportion and perspective. No doubt the fact that Gladstone
was called out of his retirement is, in retrospect, the point which
gives significance in a positive and pragmatic sense to the events
of 1876--for the agitation itself failed to attain its objectives. But
historians ought, if they wish to avoid presenting a distorted vision
of the past, to concern themselves as much with significant failures
as with significant successes. One purpose of this study is simply
to correct such a distortion. It attempts to restore the true colour
and shape of the events of 1876 by removing an incrustation of
misattributed cause and effect which has grown unavoidably in the
absence of close criticism. At the same time it tries to bring into
clearer perspective the wider political implications of Gladstone's
participation in the movement.

I am grateful to many people for their help. At Cambridge Dr
G. S. R. Kitson Clark first guided me into the field of nineteenth-
century studies, and has been ever since an unfailing source of en-
couragement. I owe much also to the generosity of Dr H. J.
Hanham of the University of Manchester, who helped to prepare
this work for the press. My manuscript benefited greatly from the
comments of three of my teachers, friends, and former colleagues

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