THE PORTE AND THE POWERS.
SIR CHARLES DILKE'S answer to Mr. Otway last Thurs- day has caused considerable uneasiness in Liberal circles. The impression produced at the time was that the British Government was prepared, in concert with the other Powers, to give some kind of guarantee to the Porte that, provided it fulfilled its treaty-engagements, it might rest secure in the uncontrolled administration of the territory still remaining to it in Europe. This impression is not justified by anything which Sir Charles Dilke said. His answer must be read to- gether with Mr. Otway's question, which was as follows :— " Whether any intimation was given in the letter addressed by her Majesty to the Sultan, or whether her Majesty's Go- vernment had intimated to the Porte that, in the event of the Sultan yielding to the recommendation of the Powers recently aasem. bled in Conference at Berlin, and ceding to a neighbour- ing Power certain provinces of his Empire, the possession of the territory in Europe then remaining to the Sultan, and recognised as Turkish territory by the Congress of Berlin, would be guaranteed to his Majesty the Sultan by the Powers represented at the recent Conference." The Great Powers would be mad indeed if they gave any guarantee of that kind. Turkish rule everywhere, and especi- ally in Europe, is being gradually undermined by forces whose action all the Powers of Europe combined cannot arrest. They might as well attempt to arrest the dissolution of a patient in the grip of a galloping consumption. The Turkish Empire has arrived at that crisis in the history of States which Livy has -so tersely described. It "can neither endure its vices, nor their remedies." Its only hope is in reform, and reform will infallibly destroy it. No diplomatic guarantee, though backed by the legions of armed Europe, can avert that fate, and Lord Granville is not the man to engage in Quixotic adventures. It is clear, from Sir Charles Dilke's answer to Mr. Otway, that our Government has no intention at all to commit this country to any engagement which could imply the slightest guarantee of the Sultan's possessions, either in Europe or Asia. The Under- Secretary's words are :-•••■" No such intimations as those referred to by the honourable Member have been made either to the Sultan or the Porte. But it is the fact that her Majesty's Government have received from certain quarters the suggestion, to which they see no objection in principle, that in the event of Turkey consent- ing to carry out the terms prescribed by the Congress and by the Conference of Berlin, the Powers should place on record their intention not to demand further concessions." To record this intention will be a very harmless proceeding. For we may safely affirm that by the time the Porte has fulfilled all its obligations under the Berlin Congress and Conference, there will be no need to "demand further concessions." Let us just glance at the nature and scope of these obligations.
The Porte is pledged by the Treaty of Berlin to introduce into Crete, and "into the other parts of the Turkish Empire for which no special organisation has been provided by the present Treaty," such local self-government as shall be ap- proved of by "the European Commission instituted for Eastern Roumelia." As far as the words of the Treaty go,—and we must assume that this was the intention of the Plenipotenti- aries,—the whole of the Sultan's dominions in Europe and Asia are included in this sweeping obligatien. But the liability of the Porte does not by any means end here. There is, over and above the general obligation under Article 23, a special clause in respect to Armenia. By that clause, 'The Sublime Porte undertakes to carry out, without further delay, the amelioration and reforms de- manded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and Kurds. It will periodically make known the steps taken to this effect to the Powers, who will superintend their application." The Porte undertook to do all this, "without further delay," two years ago: and up to this moment it has not taken one serious step towards the fulfilment of its obligation. Nor will it take any step in that direction, except under the stress of foreign coercion. But what the Government see no objection to "in principle" is a promise not to "demand further concessions" from the Sultan, provided the Sultan will, on his part, spontaneously make the concessions which have been already demanded of him. A very safe promise, certainly ; for the Sultan, if he yields, will not do so in virtue of a vague promise, but be- cause he will shrink from the responsibility of refusing. It is like the late Government's promise to restore Cyprus to the Sultan whenever Russia restores Kars, Ardahan, and Batoum. But not only will the Sultan never make willingly the conces- sions to which he is pledged by treaty,—as a m'etter of fact, he cannot make some of them, except under compuWon. Consider for a moment what those concessions mean to the mind of the Sultan. He is required to surrender Mussultnatt territory to Infidels. In other words, he is required to violate one of the fundamental dogmas of his religion. Mussulman land is declared by the Sacred Law to be for ever inalienable. The Sultan cannot give away a rood of it voluntarily. But what. he is forbidden to do voluntarily he is commanded to do at the bidding of irresistible force, lest a hopeless conflict might entail still greater damage on the cause of Islam. Another concession which is demanded of the Sultan, and to which he is pledged by the Treaty of Berlin, is thus expressed in Article 62 of that document :—" In no part of the Ottoman Empire shall difference of religion be alleged against one individual as a ground for exclusion or incapacity as regards the discharge of civil and political rights, admission to the public Service, functions and honours, or the exercise of the different professions and industries. All persons shall be ad- mitted, without distinction of religion, to give evidence before the tribunals." Now it is an unchangeable dogma of the Sacred Law of Islam that the non-Mussulman can never be admitted to an equality of civil rights with the Mussulman ; and in particular that his evidence shall not be received against a True Believer, and that he shall not be permitted to bear arms. This debars him from the two most important branches of the public service—the army and the administration of justice—and practically reduces him to a condition of helpless servitude. Such is the teaching of the Sacred Law, and the Sultan cannot go against it without apostacy ; in which case his subjects are ipso facto released from the obligation of obedience to him. And let it be remembered that this is not a mere theory of the schools. It is a practical, energising doctrine, rigidly enforced in Turkey, as a consensus of British Consuls attest, wherever Turkish officials are free from the restraint of foreign interference.
Two consequences follow from these facts. The first is that Lord Granville will be perfectly safe in pledging the British Government not to "demand further concessions" from the Sultan, on condition that the Sultan agrees to make the con-
cessions which Europe now demands of him. For it is certain that the Sultan never will area to this without compulsion, and equally certain that if he did, he would practically be agreeing to the repeal of Mussul- man rule all over his dominions. A Mussulman State which admits Christians to equality of civil rights with Moslems ceases in fact to be a Mussulman polity, in just as true a sense as an Episcopal Church would cease in fact to be episcopal which should admit laymen indiscriminately to all the grades of its hierarchy. The name might remain, but the substance would be gone. Every Mussulman knows this, and therefore it is preposterous to expect the Sultan and his Ministers to yield in this matter to anything short of external force, or the manifest determination to apply it. This is the second consequence which follows from our pre- misses, and we trust that the Powers are fully alive to its importance. One of the latest rumours is that. the Porte has asked for an extension of the period within which it has been bidden to surrender to Monte- negro the territory that has been awarded to that Principality. We earnestly hope that the Powers will not be so weak as to yield on that point. The Porte has already had two years in which to fulfil its obligation, and nothing would please it better than to negotiate for two yeats more. The Albanian resistance has really been the work of the Porte, and the Sultan and his Pashas must not be suffered to profit by their own petthiy. In truth, we are getting a little weary of the prolonged negotiations with the Porte. There is not the smallest doubt that the Turks will, within forty-eight hours, yield everything that is demanded of them, if they receive a plain intimation that the Fleets of the Powers, or of any two of them, will appear at the expiration of that time in Turkish waters. The Russian ultimatum in the winter of 1876 extorted from the Turkish Government in twenty-four hours what our Government had failed to obtain after weeks of diplomatic entreaty and argument. Appeals to reason are simply thrown away upon the Porte. Lay your commands upon it in a tone which clearly indicates that you intend to be obeyed, and all the difficulties which the Turks declare to be insurmountable will vanish like smoke before the wind. For these reasons we trust that the Powers will reso- lutely decline all further negotiations with the Porte, and warn. it that execution will follow speedily on the heels of the Col- lective Note. The spectacle of the Great Powers of Europe dancing attendance in the antechambers of this effete despotism is becoming somewhat undignified, and even ridiculous.
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