WHAT THE GOVERNMENT REALLY MEAN.
THE chief intellectual interest of the week's debate will be in the light it throws on what the intention of the Govern- ment in negotiating the Anglo-Turkish Convention really was and is. We have scanned with minute attention the official speeches on the subject, to discover this so far as we can, and the result is, we fear, very far from satisfactory. We believe that the Government now, as heretofore, mean two different things, and not one ;—while no member of the Government, unless it be the Prime Minister himself, has any distinct con- ception how far he is prepared to go on one line of action before deserting it and taking to the other line of action. Lord Beaconsfield's own general idea is not very hard to discover. He wishes to stop Russian aggression, and to him- the Anglo- Turkish Convention really means the "thus far, and no farther," of his first grandiose statement. He has now supplemented that statement by announcing, in no indistinct terms, that he thinks the irresolution and indecision of his own Government in not preventing the war,—for he appears to hold that by a threat only, we could have prevented it,—was a weakness of which he and his colleagues, like the Government of 1853, ought to be ashamed. So far as we can see, he does not lay much stress on the reforming covenants of the Convention. He looks to preventing the advance of Russia by positive threats, in the main ; and we must assume, of course, that,— whether the reforming covenants of Turkey are fulfilled or re- main unfulfilled,—he would still meet Russia promptly by arms, wherever she pleased to compel us to meet her, in Asia Minor, Syria, or Mesopotamia, rather than permit her further advance in the Southerly direction. But. though Lord Beaconsfield is clear, he obviously attaches too much value to the deterrent effect of a mere British threat, and is far too little of a realist, far too deficient in the power to work out such a policy as his, into the detail which such a policy re- quires, to render his own view of any great value. He has so long accustomed himself to govern men by words, that he thinks of statesmanship -ehiefly as the art of governing men by words, and he hardly sees at all, or if he sees he does not care to give any effect to what he sees, that if the Anglo-Turkish Con- vention is not to be followed by a great expansion of British military power and a vast expenditure of British capital, it is a romantic and silly bit of braggadocio, and not the serious policy of a practical State. But there are other members of the Government who do see this, who see it more clearly than they see anything else, and prefer, therefore, the unreal view which makes it mere braggadocio. They endeavour in all they say to attenuate the meaning of their promise, to whittle it away into the exertion of a new moral influence over the Sultan. For instance, Mr. Bourke, the Under- Secretary for Foreign Affairs, says positively that the Anglo- Turkish Convention is a mere conditional engagement to de- fend the Turks of Asia against Russia, if the Turks of Asia are willing to amend their administrative system as Great Britain advises. If not, not. If the Sultan and his subordinates prove in- tractable, our engagement, says Mr. Bourke, is at an end, and we may reconsider afresh the best British policy for preventing the encroachments of Russia in some other way. Lord Sandon, notwithstanding his lyric on the blessings which we, working in concert with all other nations,—in spite of the secrecy which excluded all other nations from any glimpse of our design,— are to bring into Asiatic Turkey, utterly disowned any occu- pation of it on our own behalf ; while Mr. Cross, who answered Mr. Gladstone, expressly insisted on the conditional character of the obligation. Lord John Manners spoke in the same strain. He spoke of the Anglo-Turkish Convention as diminish- ing instead of increasing the obligations of the Treaties of 1856, and ridiculed altogether the notion that any great burdens or any weight of taxation should be imposed on this country in order to carry out the objects of this Convention.
Now, if that be the view of the majority of the Cabinet, we suppose that when they speak of the Anglo-Turkish Con- vention as a milder thing than the Tripartite Treaty of 1856, on which we have never been called to act, they mean to imply that the new engagement will be easy and harmless for the same reason,—that it will mean nothing but moral pressure on Turkey ; and that if ever the occasion arise contem- plated in that Convention,—if Russia again advances on Asiatic Turkey,—we should find some easy excuse for not ful- filling our compact. We fear, in short, that the greater part of the Cabinet think the substantial value of the Treaty confined to its threat, the consideration received for it, and its moi al influence over the Sultan ; that Russia will be more alarmed by a threat from England alone, than by a threat from several European Powers combined ; that in any case, we shall keep the price of the promise we have given, and that we may perhaps be able to work the promise we have received to the advantage,—even if it be only to the slight advantage,—of Asiatic Turkey. If Russia is not more deterred by our words than she was by the words of Europe,—well, we can nevertheless make them as elastic as the words of Europe were found to be. Still, the valuable Island remains, and the hope of getting something wholesome done in Asia before Turkey finds out that our words are not at all more real than the words of the Treaties of two-and-twenty years ago.
We say we fear that this is the real construction put upon this Anglo-Turkish Convention by the majority of the Cabinet. And it is a thing to be feared, for to that view of the Con- vention the British public may perhaps be brought round, as a view that is only unworthy of us, not really danger- ous to our interests. We should respect the Cabinet far more, if we thought they really intended to carry out the Convention in its plain and obvious sense, though we should then expect the country to repudiate the engage- ment, and to insist on the substitution of some other policy. Nothing can disgrace British Governments so much as the conclusion of these high-sounding, but thoroughly unreal bargains. This one in particular, interpreted in its unreal sense, will do mischief to everybody. It will lull Turkey into a false reliance on a Power that does not intend taking any active means to save her. It will foster in the British people one of the worst tastes inherent in all democracies, the love of showy threats, which it is not in tended to redeem. And it will lead us to pique ourselves with still more Pecksniffian self-con- gratulation than before, on the benevolence of our treatment of the great populations of the East, to whom we offer so much useful advice which we well know them to be quite unable to take. An ounce of real administration of Oriental provinces by British administrators, is worth a ton of such empty inter- ventions on behalf of the people, with rulers whose profession is plunder and intrigue.
Previous page
