FALLACIES OF THE EASTERN

QUESTION.

THERE may be a difference of opinion as to the amount of knowledge possessed by the people of this country on the Eastern Question at the moment when the news of the wholesale massacre in Bulgaria first reached England; there can be no difference of opinion as to the sympathy felt and expressed by Englishmen at the terrible sufferings of the people of Bulgaria. The country labourer, who rarely interests himself with what is passing at a distance; the hard-worked artizan in our towns; the busy commercial clerk, thought and spoke of little else for some months of the past year. The sympathy felt was almost universal, and would have been quite universal but for the lack of information in some and the jealousy felt by others at the possibility that the misrule of Turkey might be taken advantage of by other Powers to the injury of English interests. A conversation which I had a short time ago interested me so much that I noted down, so far as I could remember, the line of argument and the points raised by an old friend on the Turkish Question.

It was one of the unusually mild, almost warm, days which occurred towards the end of the last month in the old year. I was sauntering down the broad walk leading from the Uxbridge Road to Prince's Gate, enjoying the rare advantage of a dry afternoon, when I saw an old college friend seated on one of the benches eagerly devouring the contents of a daily paper. He was so intent upon this that he did not notice my approach, and it was only on my addressing him that he looked up from his paper.

"So," said he, “I see your name among those present at what they are pleased to call the Conference at St. James's Hall."

"Not only they," I said, smiling, "but I have been calling it a Conference."

"Well," he rejoined, "it doesn't matter what it is called; what I want to know is what you think of doing in the matter of Turkey and its people?"

"It's the real one," said G., with animation; "it's of no use to pull down unless you have a plan in hand to rebuild; it's of no use talking wildly of turning out the Turk unless you have some one who can take his place. I don't ask you what you are going to undo-thaťs bad enough, I confess—but I want to know what you propose to do?” D. And yet to pull down precedes to build up-to turn out an undesirable tenant must go before putting in a new one.

G. Yes, I grant that; but I don't turn out an undesirable tenant unless I contemplate a better one taking his place. Now tell me— what I have never been told yet-what do you propose doing? Remember, I am not defending the Turk.

D. I don't venture to accuse you of that; but now to answer your question. I have no proposals to make of turning out any one. I want—I should rather say we want, for happily I am not alone—we want to see the people of Turkey-for remember the people of Turkey are not the Turks, but the Bulgarians, the Greeks, the Serbs—we want to see these people have some security for life and limb, to possess the enjoyment of the fruits of their industry, and a fair measure of their family rights. And we want one thing more, that Europe should be freed from the incessant worry, danger, and ruinous expense of having to keep its armies ready for war on account of Turkish misrule.

G. Well, but the Turk has promised, and Midhat Pasha is striving earnestly, to set things right.

D. Midhat Pasha may remain in power, or he may be set aside at any moment. The Turk has promised at intervals during the last forty or fifty years, at least, to do what Midhat Pasha promises anew. He has never performed a single promise of mending the condition of the people who obey his rule.

G. They have terribly misgoverned, I admit. If they had not, we should not have the present embroilment. I am not so childish nor blind as to deny there is much injustice and stolid misrule in Turkey, but I say "of two evils choose the least." And a war of races, ending in a general massacre and the convulsion of Europe and part of Asia, is not a pleasant prospect for us, nor indeed for the people of those countries whom you are taking under your protection.

D. A possible war of races—a possible massacre-a possible convulsion throughout Europe and Asia! Have you any grounds for assuming that any of these terrible things will ever happen?

G. People who know these countries better than I pretend to do, say all this is probable, and a wise man will avoid such a risk.

D. A wise man will not forecast evil when he is called upon to think what is right. It is not a wise man but a slothful one who

shrinks from duty by saying, "a lion is in the path." But a handful of experience is worth a waggon load of conjecture. The Turkish fleet was destroyed at Navarino, Greece was freed from the Turkish yoke, the Sultan was coerced, and yet none of these things happened which you dread. Why think they will happen now? We spent our treasure, and poured out our blood in the Crimean war, for the defence of Turkey, and our reward was Mussulman mutiny in India, massacre of our people, and danger to the empire. I don't say we should have the same return again, but I do say that experience is against the notion of danger to ourselves if we do right now.

G. Yes; but that is the question. Have we any right to interfere between the Government of Turkey and its subjects?

D. An Englishman's house is said to be his castle; but, tell me, have I not à right to interfere if my neighbour stores petroleum or gunpowder in that castle of his? If I hear cries for help proceeding from his house, does not humanity demand that I should forget a little about his house being his castle, and give help? And Turkey does store materials as dangerous as petroleum and gunpowder—a justly discontented people. And every day we hear piteous cries for help from fathers and mothers, and young maidens and infants, whose first articulate cry is "Help! help!" and does not all this constitute, I don't say a right, but an obligation to interfere?

G. The sufferings of these people I grant. I don't deny that in some cases we might even be called on to interfere. I don't think, however, that has happened yet. Besides, whatever abstract right we might have we have renounced by treaty, and as honest men we must abide by our treaty, and that says-I mean the Treaty of Paris in 1856-that neither collectively nor individually shall the Powers of Europe interfere between the Porte and its subjects. I don't re

member the exact words, I quote the substance of the treaty.

D. A treaty is a solemn thing. Under the Treaty of Paris, however, we relinquished no right. We never bound ourselves not to interfere between the Porte and its subjects. You have, I think, fallen into a very common error on that score. The ninth article of that treaty, which is what you refer to, says that the firman which the great Powers required the Sultan to issue " cannot in any case give to the said Powers the right to interfere, either collectively or separately, in the relations of His Majesty the Sultan with his subjects, nor in the internal administration of his empire."* No one says the firman gave any right, still less that it took from us any right. It did neither one nor the other. The right of interfering when our safety is endangered we have still, and our safety-the safety of all Europe-is

*General Treaty for the Establishment of Peace, with three Conventions annexed thereto. Presented to both Houses of Parliament, 1856.

endangered by the misgovernment and brutality of the gove powers in Turkey towards the bulk of its subjects. The right o common humanity was not given-it is not pretended that diminished-by the firman which was issued, by the paper which blotted, and the promises which were made, and remain unfulf More than that, the history of the firman, or Hatt-i-Humay proves that we-whether from considerations of our safety, o our obligations as human beings, or from the fact that we had pended such great treasures, and so many lives, for the defenc Turkey, because of one or all of these measures we assumed that possessed a right to interfere when humanity is outraged and peace of Europe endangered. The firman itself was an interferen and the firman was demanded by the European Powers; it bea indeed, the lie upon its front of being granted "spontaneously;" it known that this is untrue.

120

VIII

G. What, then, is its history? I suppose some suggestion was maER by the great Powers, but was it more than a suggestion?

D. The history of the firman is this: on January the 9th, 185 during the negociations which resulted in the Treaty of Paris, th great Powers agreed that it was essential to the preservation of peac that the Christian subjects of Turkey should have the guarantees, lon promised by the Porte, at length carried into effect.

G. Not guarantees, surely?

D. I am citing the words of the Porte, drawn up and insisted upon by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, after rejecting the terms proposed byking Fuad Pasha.* "Fourth guarantee "—some misgiving seems to have struck the editor of the Blue Book from which I quote, at that Hongko awkward word, "guarantee," so he translated it "Fourth point;" if, however, you turn to the original, you will find that it stands thus"Fourth guarantee”—1. Effective measures shall be taken that the guarantees promised to all the subjects of His Majesty the Sultan may receive their full and entire effects." Then when this guarantee had been entered into, not until then, the plenipotentiaries agreed to the treaty. Now who were parties to this guarantee?

G. Of course, the powers which signed the treaty. D. There can be no question of this. The Sultan guaranteed to England and to the other powers of Europe that "every distinction or designation tending to make any class whatever of the subjects of His Majesty the Sultan inferior to another class, on account of their religion, language, or race, shall be for ever effaced from the administrative protocol." It guaranteed protection to its Christian subjects,

*Correspondence respecting Christian Privileges in Turkey. Presented to both Houses of Parliament, 1856, p. 60.

AU

VI