THE CRETAN QUESTION.
IT is said that the Cretans are making up their minds to another insurrection, under the idea that, whether it succeeds or fails, they will force the hand of the Greek Government, and therefore of all the Governments in- terested in maintaining the general peace. We know nothing of the truth of the story, except that we believe it to come from well-informed persons ; but there is one circumstance observable which tends to increase the im- pression that it is well founded. The old defenders of the Turkish Government are waking up again, as they always do when trouble is expected in Turkey, and busying them- selves in misrepresentations. According to them, the Turks are excellent people, and the Greeks lying chatterers, who, whether in Crete or anywhere else, cannot govern themselves properly, but sacrifice everything to get them- selves places, and misuse all the powers entrusted to them. by any Constitution in order to oppress their Mahommedan fellow-subjects. The Cretans have so misused their autonomy, it is said, that it has been necessary to send 20,000 Turkish soldiers to garrison a little island not quite twice as large as Suffolk, with only 270,000 people, of whom 70,000 are Mahommedans. The Christian Cretans number only 40,000 men of an age to bear arms, so that it takes one soldier to keep every two civilians in order, a proportion which is, of course, quite sufficient to prove the unendurable perversity and unruliness of the latter ! It is the old story over again, always repeated whenever a Christian province of Turkey asks for emancipa- tion, always superficially true, and always substan- tially false. It is quite true, for example, that Greeks are chatterers, quite true that they often tell lies, quite true that they are eager for place, and quite true that they misuse at times the powers given them by the Constitution. They were chatterers before Christianity ; men governed by Turks of necessity become liars ; and whenever two civilisations, two radically opposed creeds, and two histories of conflict are opposed in a Parliament, Parliamentary powers are sure to be abused. All those assertions need not be disproved, because they are entirely beside the point at issue, which is fully embodied in this question,—Are the Cretans oppressed in a way to justify insurrection ? The Turks, of course, say they are not, and ascribe Cretan discontent entirely to Cretan "turbulence" and want of reason ; but the Cretans say they are, and give at least one substantial proof that in this matter they are telling the truth. They are willing, rather than remain quiet, to run the frightful risk of insurrection,—that is, of being nearly extirpated by a garrison of picked soldiers, half their own total number, armed with modern weapons, and certain, if history may be trusted, when once justified in their own eyes by open revolt, to show no mercy. The Greeks of Crete are not inexperienced persons ; they know perfectly well what took place in other Greek islands and their own ; they belong to the generation in which the massacre of Batuk occurred; and they see every day what manner of men the Turkish soldiers are. To say that they would encounter such a risk without reason, is to accuse them of being sheer madmen, and to prove once for all that the Turks do not know how to govern so as at least to prevent their subjects from falling into a stupid despair. The truth is, that it is the knowledge of the risk which creates the despair ; that the horror of Turkish rule for Christian populations is not what the soldiers do, but what they may do if they are offended ; that it is not torture which makes life for the Christians intolerable, but the never-dying fear of it. Let London remain unoppressed by a foreign garrison, but with grave reason to fear that Batuk may be re-enacted within its limits, and what would be the mood of London ? Its insurrection, we venture to predict, would be a scene for history to record, and would not be entirely unattended with" scenes of violence" or exhibitions of " an unmanageable temper." The Cretans are wild with fear of the garrison, and of what, according to history, it will one day certainly do, and therefore are unmanageable, just as Englishmen would be under circumstances so terrible, circumstances, too, aggravated in the Cretan case by the fact that the subjects belong to the higher civilisation, and profess a higher creed than the rulers. We have to imagine London garrisoned by Tartars before we arrive at an approximate conception of the facts. We maintain that there is no necessity for a Cretan Question at all,—that the claims of the Sultan, the rights of the Cretan Mahommedans, and the liberties of the Cretan Christians, could all be made safe together, and the whole question postponed till the time when the Ottoman Empire, true as it will be to its origin and its history, goes crashing down under Christian cannon. Let the Sultan withdraw his garrison, who will only succeed in plunging Turkey into a dangerous war, and ap- point a Christian Prince of Crete, not necessarily a Greek, with absolute powers and a tenure for life, and under contract to despatch an annual tribute to the Seraglio. That Prince can form an army just as well as the Prince of Bulgaria can, can protect Mussulmans just as effectively as they are protected in Bosnia, and can gradually, when it seems convenient, change the form of government into one a little more popular, as has been done in Servia. We entirely agree with the Times' correspondents that the Parliamentary method of govern- ment is not suited to a people who for centuries knew of no law except the will of Asiatic Pashas ; but there is not the slightest reason why, if Europe approves, Parliamentary government should remain the only expedient to be tried in Crete. The Cretans do not want it particularly, but only good government, liberty to chatter, and equality, all which an able Prince could readily secure to them. We also entirely agree that the Cretan Mussulmans ought not to be oppressed simply because they are Mussulmans ; but wherein lies the risk of their oppression ? The Prince would not care one straw about their creed so long as they paid their taxes, and we do not suppose it will be argued that they, of all mankind, are thirsting for Parliamentary methods and unlimited debate. The Times' correspondent, it is true, argues that if Christians are to rule Crete, the Mussulmans will depart ; but they do not depart out of Bosnia, and in Crete, as in Bosnia, they would, during the term of waiting, be ruled by a foreign Prince. If, though not oppressed, they still, as he hints would be the case, found the situation unbearable because of their loss of dignity, their departure, though greatly to be regretted for their sakes, would still be their own affair. The security and well-being of a Christian community cannot be sacrificed because a community of Mussulmans, one- fourth of the total number, think that, under certain circumstances, they should greatly prefer emigration to acquiescence in their condition. So do tens of thousands of excellent persons in England, Germany, and Italy every year. But this, it is said, would be a new blow to the Turkish Empire. In what way ? The Sultan would get his tribute, which is all he ever receives from Crete, an island from which he derives no conscripts, and in which he maintains no naval statior. His dignity as Sovereign would remain unimpaired, for he already promises a Christian Governor-General, and he recently sanctioned the appointment of a Christian Prince in Eastern Roumelia, so to speak, at his own gates. The whole question of the Turkish Empire would be postponed, and he would avoid an insurrection which will either cost him a long and most expensive guerilla war—for the untamed Cretan mountaineers resisted even the Janissaries—or be ended by a European decree which never has been and never can be to Mussulman advantage. So far from the Sultan's dignity being involved in refusal, he would not hesitate for a moment to grant the Christians their demands if he received £500,000 as a solatium ; and we almost wonder that the Greeks of London, Paris, and Odessa do not com- plete the Greek claim to the reversionary sovereignty of the island by promising him the money. For the present, Greece must wait for her property ; but that is no reason why the Cretans should be decimated merely in order that a totally needless garrison should eat up all the tribute the Turkish Government can under any circumstances hope to extract.
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