TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE IMMEDIATE POLICY OF GREAT BRITAIN.
THE point on which Englishmen have now to decide, and decide at once, is whether they will fight Russia in a great war, because from selfish motives she is helping to emanci- pate thirteen millions of slaves. That is the issue now pre- sented to them, in the most direct and concrete form, in such a form, indeed, that unless they speak out strongly and at once, they may find themselves this year embarked in a second Crimean War. Those readers who have followed our course upon this Turkish question will, whether they agree with the view of the Spectator or not, give us credit for a fair amount of insight into the situation in European Turkey ; and we desire to warn them most gravely and emphatically that this is no dream, no vision of a literary politician, but a pressing and immediate contingency, on which they must for their own interests form a judgment. It is now as certain as anything in the future can be, that the belief of the Stock Exchanges in the diplomatic assurances of peace was unfounded ; that, as we have maintained all along, the situation could not be altered by talking ; and that a great war between the Osmanli caste and their Christian subjects is an affair of hours. The Servians and Montenegrins, whether wisely or foolishly, whether from foreign inducements or from patriotic enthusiasm, have made up their minds to risk all, rather than allow their kinsmen to remain any longer under Turkish oppressions. They intend to fight, and the Turks intend to fight them ; and the instant the struggle begins, before it has continued ten days, European Turkey will from end to end, from the Danube to Thessaly and Constantinople, be in one great flame. The Eastern Question, that is, the right of the Christians of Turkey to their freedom, will be fairly opened, and if the Powers will stand aside, will be settled as it ought to be settled, at the cost and through the sacrifices of the races immediately involved. The Christians will try whether their numbers, their determi- nation, and their comparatively high though positively low moral civilisation, will enable them to contend successfully against a most debased and cruel, but most brave and haughty caste, which, when let loose on a religious cry, fights with a will, and which can summon to its assistance all the fighting races, all the desperadoes, and all the soldiers of fortune of Western Asia, Egypt, Arabia, and Northern Africa. The Christians of European Turkey, ground down for centuries under a despotism which knows of no toleration for infidel subjects, except the tolera- tion of contempt, will be face to face in fair battle with the race which has crushed them, and which through five centuries of unbroken rule has learned no art, developed no science, and acquired no know/edge, but has bravely, skilfully, and pitilessly applied the maxim " Woe to the conquered," even when they submit.
Were the meaning of the contest visible to the majority of Englishmen, as it seems so visible to ourselves, we should have no doubt either of the side which would engage their sympa- thies, or of the action they would compel their Government to take ; but their perception is clouded by a great intrusive fact. They distrust Russia, and they think that Russia is at the bottom of it all. There is no doubt that the Russian nation, as yet apart from the Russian Government, is heartily favour- able to the insurgents, that it instigates them to select this particular time, that it sends them money, arms, and officers, and that it will in certain contingencies constrain its Govern- ment to assist them overtly with the whole force of the Em- pire. There is also no doubt that the Russian Government, if thus constrained, will employ the hopes of the insurgents and the enthusiasms of its own people to obtain political ad- vantages, or even territorial advantages, for itself. And finally, it may be admitted, though it is not so certain, that such ad- vantages so obtained will be to the detriment of British in- fluence, and may be to the detriment of British safety in the East. The British Government, perceiving this, is, as we believe, in danger of taking steps which will immensely in- crease the Turkish chance of retaining the Christians under Osmanli rule. Now, are the people of this country content to endorse or endure such a policy Y The Daily Telegraph, which has often a very accurate knowledge of the wishes of dominant persons in the Tory Cabinet, says "Yes," because the Christ- ians of European Turkey are a disloyal set of ruffians. The Pall Mall Gazette, well informed as to Tory feeling generally, says "Yes," for Russia, in fostering the insurgents is, in the first place, working for herself, and Russia is a power always hostile to Britain ; and in the second place, she is violating the great European compact, which protects the " integrity of the Ottoman Empire." And Lords Hammond, Napier, and Campbell say "Yes," for the same reasons, and for the sake of the hold the Khalif possesses over the Mussulman population of our Indian Empire. We, on the contrary, like the Times and the Daily News, representing for the nonce all sections of English Liberalism, say " No," because such action is immoral, is contrary to the best interests of Europe, and is not in accordance with the permanent interests of Great Britain.
On the moral, or, as the Pall Mall Gazette calls it, the sentimental side of the dispute, there can, in our judgment, be no doubt whatever. It is shameful for a Power like England, which professes to believe in the moral claim of human beings to decent government, to civilised security, and to freedom, to support a tyranny like that which fighting Mahommedans establish, and must establish over reluctant Christian subjects. That tyranny must under any circum- stances be terrible, because it is the tyranny of men of an in- ferior civilisation over men of a potentially superior one, and in the circumstances of the Turkish Empire it must be revolting. A small body of semi-European Mussulmans opposed by large masses of European Christians, exposed to extreme provocation, and. obliged to employ as their instruments hordes of uncivilised and cruel Asiatics, must meet insurrection by measures fatal to civilisa- tion, measures which in principle involve extermination, and in practice an amount of slaughter, cruelty, and destruction which Western Europe, if it has any responsibility at all to God, or to man, or to the future, for its irresistible powers, has no right to permit. The Turk, if he conquers, will enslave, will re-establish a system under which its victims have no security for their lives, their property, or the honour of their women; under which happiness is as impossible as progress,. and under which peace—the secure peace which Stock Ex- changes love, and which, on certain conditions, is a blessing of the first order-cannot be maintained. To support such a tyranny, even if exercised by the intellectual over the stupid, by the superior race over the inferior, would be shameful"; but to support it when the dominant raco is the lower,. not in blood, or even in creed, but in civilisation, when the victims out-number the oppressors by four to one, and when the oppressed, giving up the massacres and fire- raisings to which risen slaves are tempted, appear armed in the field to do fair battle for their rights, is an utter infamy to which Englishmen ought not to descend, were their dearest national interests in peril. It is as if they were actively to assist the blacks of the South to enslave the white men ; as if they used their cannon to compel Neapolitans to submit to a. Moorish Bomba ; as if they sold the Army of England to put down Mussulman resistance to Chinese extirpation. It is a. sale of English strength to put down risen slaves, and nothing else, though the price is not money, but influence in territories where we ought to be influential. Its character is utterly base, and is not a bit better, because Russian sympathy with the insurrection may be selfish. Russia has a right to sym- pathise with the better cause, even though she may intend to use its victory in order to disturb the prosperity of Great Britain. " That is sentiment," says the Pall Mall Ga‘a-te. Then is it also sentiment to refuse to help in a .ubbery, even though if the robbed retain his ne may bring a dis- a-ropoiao we44.21 Tne right of populations like those of Turkey to take their freedom if they can in fair battle, is as- clear as the right of any man to keep his own possessions. We have no more right to help a Power to commit atrocities such as are going on in Bulgaria, because the Power is useful to our interests, than to help a Ribandman to murder because he- votes straight. And, as we maintain, in so helping Turkey, we are injuring Europe and our own position in the world. Europe is not so large that its most fertile kingdoms can be sacrificed to a caste which suffers nothing to grow, without enormous loss to the general welfare ; and as for ourselves, we are placing ourselves in a position of armed hostility to the only population in Turkey which has an interest in keeping Russia out, and which, if independent, would, by alliances with Vienna, Berlin, and London, obtain the power to do it. Let us make no mis- take on this point. There is an underlying idea in many quarters that if the South Slays succeeded in oversetting the Sultan's throne, and compelling the Turks to fill up their de- populated but beautiful territories in Western Asia, they would be mere dependents of the Russian Czar. They would, on the contrary, be the most dangerous enemies the Russian Govern- ment ever encountered in its career. The South Slays have na
wish "to be lost in the Russian morass," no desire to exchange one foreign despotism for another, no temptation to merge their own future in that of the gloomy Power whose selfish- ness they understand. Rather than bear the Osmanlis any longer they would submit to the Russian Civil Service, as men would pay ransom rather than walk the plank; but their dream is to govern themselves for themselves, and their situation would be most favourable to their dream. Prince Nikita at the head of the eight States, or better still, the Archduke Albrecht, would be at the head of a Power which Bismarck would court, because without its consent Russia could not move ; which Austria would court, because it alone could guarantee Hungarian obedience ; and which England would court, because it could give precisely that security which we are always hoping in vain to obtain from the Otto- man caste. What is there in such a prospect which should induce Englishmen to expend blood and treasure in reject- ing it ; or why, if we must fight—and we do not deny for one instant that Russia is dangerous—should we not fight when European Turkey has been freed? The Federation would hold the keys of South Russia, and would be so dreaded in St. Petersburg as to be forced to defend itself by external alli- ances. Russia may " rush" Constantinople ? Nonsense Which is easier to fight,—Russia on the borders of the Sea of Marmora, a thousand miles from her resources, for the inde- pendence of the Slavonic Federation ; or to fight her in the Crimea, on her own ground, for the right of the Ottoman caste to misgovern thirteen millions of reluctant subjects ? If, indeed, there were a possibility of making the Ottomans at once so civilised that their rule was no injury to Europe, and so secure that this rule could be lenient to its subjects, something might, at all events, be said for adhering to the tradition which has cost so much ; but not even Mr. Disraeli believes in a possibility of the kind. He knows perfectly well that all we can do by lending millions to a repudiating Power, by wasting our soldiers for the second time, and by setting Germany free to work her will in the world, is to reimpose for a few years the will of a worn-out caste upon a people who thenceforward will, with justice, attribute the continuance of their misery to ourselves.
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