reason to apprehend that the firm purpose of resisting the encroachments of Russia upon Turkey which the refusal to join in the Berlin Memorandum and the gathering of the Mediterranean fleet in Besika Bay conveyed has received a wrong twist and bias. The idea seems to have seized hold of the popular mind in Constantinople that England has pledged herself to Turkey, and has, in vulgar phrase, undertaken to see her through her troubles. The English Government may not be responsible for the impression made; but it will be responsible for allowing it to remain if effectual steps are not taken for dispelling it. (June 22nd.) [Ministerial responsibility is all very well; but, in the face of the events which are now happening, it does not abolish parliamentary responsibility and national responsibility. So far is this from being the case, that Ministerial responsibility seems to need quickening by parliamentary, and even, it may be, by popular action.]-D. N. June 23rd. [The Government has been successful so far, and merits confidence. If there were danger of war it would be their duty to communicate with the House; but as long as they can say that negotiations are taking a peaceful course discussion may be postponed.]-T. June 23rd. The Economist urges the necessity for a full discussion in the House of Commons on our Eastern policy. Lord Derby (it says) is cautious; but Mr. Disraeli is not to be trusted. He is fond of great coups. He likes a theatrical policy, and it would be just like him to do something which would be so decided a demonstration for Turkey that we might find ourselves committed to a warlike policy without ever having wished it, or even having considered the question. We are sure of this, that if England acts deliberately, England will never attempt to prop up the rotten Government of Turkey in Europe again. But it is quite possible that England may not act deliberately. And it is to prevent that great evil that we deprecate any further continuance of what Mr. Disraeli calls the "patriotic reticence" of Parliament. -(July 1st.) As June wore on, stronger and stronger misgivings showed themselves among the "violet" party as to the action of the Government; and the question what the Government were doing and what they ought to be doing led at this moment to an incipient newspaper war which, however, had none of the acerbity of a later stage. There is serious danger that we may drift into a defence of Turkey against the will of the nation. . . . So utterly silent do both sides remain that the body of the people are unaware that serious matters are toward, and are trusting to Lord Derby's prudence, to keep them out of the mess. We do not doubt his prudence but we do doubt whether he is master in the Cabinet, whether he thoroughly knows the public feeling, and whether he is not capable of being led into acts which the Turks would accept as virtual pledges of support. The question asked by Lord Hartington on Friday meant very little and the answer if it signified anything-signified that England was bullying Servia. into moderation, which is most unsatisfactory.-Spec. June 10th. Her Majesty's Government has exhibited considerable skill and some courage in supporting the wrong cause. [The Turkish Government is] on the whole worse than that of King Bomba in Naples. Throughout the whole action of the British Government there is no trace of a belief that the insurgents are in the right, at least as much in the right as ever the Italians were. What then would we have had the Government do? We would have had it do precisely what it has done, with this rider openly and seriously added, that it had no intention whatever of interfering between the Porte and its subjects, that it would prevent the Russian Government from claiming any part of European Turkey, but that if Servia or Montenegro or the insurgent provinces by their own efforts and the efforts of such sympathisers as the English were to Garibaldi, could overturn the Sultan and set up free States in its stead, they would have no resistance whatever to dread from the people of this country.-Spec. June 17th. The Pall Mall Gazette criticises the Spectator and Daily News, saying that though the nation appears to be content with the policy of the Government, yet a certain section of the Liberal party are "angered" by it. In the present case sentiments honourable to those who hold them are driven out of the place they deserve to hold by the fraudulent action of other Powers. The Spectator is quite wrong in saying that our Government has supported the wrong cause. What they have done is to support neither "cause." They are compelled to look far over and far beyond this forced quarrel.-(June 24th.) The Saturday Review says no plausible plan has yet been devised for the security of the Mussulman population if the Government of the Porte were overthrown.-(June 24th.) That aspiring little State [Servia] is apparently anxious to be the Piedmont of the Eastern peninsula. It makes peaceful professions, and accompanies them by military preparations. [Whilst the writer has little faith in the possibility of constitutional reforms in Turkey he] would sincerely deplore any outbreak which should prevent a fair trial of such expedients as Turkish statesmanship can devise or as the ingenuity of European counsellors may suggest to it.-D. N. June 26th. During the last ten days of June there was a tone of growing inflammation in the journals, due to the imminence of war, which had plainly become inevitable, and which, in fact, was commenced by Servia and Montenegro against Turkey on the 1st or 2nd of July.1 To go to war for the support of Turkey, or simply to leave her to her fate, were regarded as the alternatives between which this country would have to choose, and choose speedily. Here was a simple issue, the importance of which every one could understand, but about which hardly any one had considered. Yet it was by no means clear that the Government was not about to commit us to the former alternative, in the not improbable event that Russia should give any moral support, still more if she should appear as an open ally of Servia. Towards the end of the month it was rumoured that a direct understanding had been arrived at between Russia and England that neither of them should intervene. The Post and the Standard condemn the war unreservedly, the former as a virtual violation of the Treaty of 1856, the latter as a disgrace to our European civilisation. But the Standard regards the war as after all one of comparatively small dimensions, and this view is also taken by the Daily Telegraph, which speaks of it as a quasi-domestic quarrel. The Daily Telegraph moreover goes the length of saying that the widespread opinion that Servia will never provoke the risks of warfare without assurances of powerful support must be treated as a surmise merely until positive evidence compels us to admit it as proved. When it is proved, and not till then, the Treaty of 1856 will be violated, and the situation would at last be wholly and seriously altered.-(June 30th.) 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 sympathies 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. . . . The British Government perceiving this are, we believe, in danger of taking steps which will immensly increase 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? The Daily Telegraph, which has often a very accurate knowledge of the wishes of dominant persons in the Tory Cabinet, says "Yes," because the Christians 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 1 Prince Milan issued a proclamation to his people announcing the commencement of war on June 30th.-Turkey, iii. 1876, No. 532. Berlin telegram in Times of June 27th. violating the great European compact which protects the "integrity The month ends with a feeling that war is in the air. The Times recognises that the mere "Order" policy, on which for the last few days it had been building, has crumbled beneath its feet, and again seems tending towards “Emancipation.” [The benevolent purposes of the last month have failed of their object like those which preceded them. We have seen in Italy, in Germany, in the Northern States of America, &c, long periods of uneasiness and agitation which could only be terminated by a trial of strength. We are bound to believe that the Russian Government has done nothing to incite the demonstration of the Servians, but on the other hand we may be morally certain that the Emperor will not visit them with severe condemnation or threaten them for their hostility to his ally the Sultan.]-7. June 30th. The state of Public Opinion on the eve of its awakening, and its relation to the Executive, are sketched in a striking article in the Spectator, entitled, "The Weakness of our System in Foreign Affairs." We have a Prime Minister and Cabinet who are the elect of the Parliament, a Parliament which is the elect of the nation, and these meeting in constant, frequent, and anxious deliberation. Nevertheless the Parliament knows nothing of what the Ministry are doing, and the nation knows nothing of the mind of Parliament, and all for a very good reason, that whatever either Ministers or Parliament may think is kept religiously to themselves. An admirable apparatus for maturing public opinion when it is unformed, and getting at the public opinion which is already formed, is in the most perfect order; only it does not act exactly when it is most important that it should act, and act in time. There are but a few days left, probably, in which opinion can be so expressed as to have a grave effect on the course of the Executive. If the Government should be called upon to act before the nation has a mind of its own, or is aware that it has a mind of its own, on the policy we ought to pursue, the action it might take would 1 See also Fort. Rev. July, 1876, "Home and Foreign Affairs." X probably be quite sufficient to determine the public opinion till then uncrystallised. "Act first and think afterwards" is supposed to be the motto of a rash man. But it describes something very like the practical conduct of this great Parliamentary nation, when it has any matter to consider about which the masses of the people know nothing and feel less. First they trust the Government up to the very last moment, then when the Government decides to do something, and the formidable logic of blows begins to take effect, it is practically too late to consider what ought to be done, as if the question were an abstract one. What their position requires the people to think, for the most part they do think, and think without any further reason for thinking so than that the Government acted before they, at least, had heard anything about the matter. . . An accidental Prime Minister like Mr. Disraeli, the last, we will venture to say, whom the nation would choose for a mere dictator at an epoch of a great and momentous foreign crisis, acting on an irresolute and uninformed state of the public mind which naturally produces an irresolute and uninformed Parliament, issues the mandate, and this nation's vast influence is thrown into whatever scale he chooses, and stays there, the tabula rasa becomes a historic record, the blank paper is covered with the chronicles of great efforts made by a mighty and active people, and Parliamentary institutions turn out a result more strictly one of political chance than despotic institutions themselves. Where Parliamentary institutions yield a blank popular mind, and the chief of the hour is at the top only as the man of greatest tact and talent in a particular party, of whose general principles on foreign policy hardly anything is known, the apparent resolve of the nation is the mere accident of an accident, and not in reality a national or popular resolve at all. . . . Popular Government is a rude thing at the best. But it is tried under monstrous disadvantages when the people, unaware of any particular danger, leaves everything to the representatives of the people; and when the representatives of the people, though aware of a very particular danger, leave everything to the Government, and when the Government means two men, of whom one is a riddle and the other a plastic mind for the riddle to mould.-Spec. July 1st, 1876. Thus with war in the air, with an "accidental Prime Minister," and with a still half-slumbering people, the period of Incubation closes. |