If we compare the tone of the agitation in September with the tone of the Willis's Rooms meeting in July, we may note that the public mind had gone through something like a process of "making up" in the interim. It is clear that in September any possibility that the Government should actively support Turkey was thought to be out of the question. There is no longer any expression of satisfaction in mere neutrality. The demand that England should take an active part in bringing about a happy issue has grown strong, and crystallised into a call for a perfectly definite policy. The demand was that the provinces in question should be emancipated from the Turkish yoke. Exactly how this was to be effected, whether by autonomy, or by reducing the rule of the Turks to a mere name by controlling their administration of these provinces by means of an international commission, was a question of detail and of degree. There might indeed be a preference for the larger and more ungrudging measure, but, about this, compromise might be admitted, if the substantial end could thus more easily be obtained. To give Bosnia, Bulgaria and Herzegovina the position of Servia or Roumania was the solution to which most seemed to incline; but it was generally recognised as sufficient that the Turkish Power should be excluded from interference with the life and personal safety and property of the inhabitants.

cr

Thus the desideratum was often expressed by the phrase practical independence," leaving the question how it was to be worked out an open one.

We must make our diplomatists understand that any peace will be a sham peace which does not provide for the practical independence of Turkish Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Old Servia, and Bulgaria. . . . I say the practical independence of those lands, because if it merely comes to a question of tribute or some other purely outward acknowledgment of Turkish supremacy, I should not be disposed to stand out on that point only. . . . But it must be made plain that, if the tributary relation is to go on, it must be in a share which will not allow any agent of the Turk, military or civil, to exercise authority of any kind within the delivered lands.—Mr. E. A. Freeman, in D. N. Sept. 5th.1

We may for the present accept, as the very least that we can accept, if nothing better is to be had, the erection of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria into tributary states like Servia and Roumania. This is my minimum. I cannot take less; I should like to get more.—Mr. E. A. Freeman, in D. N. Sept. 15th.

1 "Points for Public Meetings," ante, p. 401.

Lord Stratford de Redcliffe leans as I gather from his letter -to the appointment of a foreign commission, representing the Powers of Europe, and appointed to exercise a conclusive control over all Turkish operations and proceedings in those provinces. ("No, no,") Well, my respect for Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's authority is such that I am ready to say that, if such a measure could be adopted as we did adopt in Syria when Lord Dufferin was sent there, I should be very glad to see that. . . . I know that Lord Stratford de Redcliffe has always looked to that measure without repudiating others, and that it is a very great question whether the simplest course is not that which I have presumed for it is presumption on my part-to recommend, that all Turkish authorities should walk out of the place. . . . If it can be done by a foreign commission taking the government of these provinces virtually into their own hands, let it be so done. I myself lean to the simpler method of saying to the Turk— which I believe to be very good terms for him-" You shall receive a reasonable tribute, you shall retain your titular sovereignty, your Empire shall not be invaded; but never again, while the years roll their course, so far as it is in our power to determine, never again shall the hand of violence be raised by you, never again shall the floodgates of lust be opened by you, never again shall the dire refinements of cruelty be devised by you for the sake of making mankind miserable in Bulgaria.”—Mr. Gladstone at Blackheath, Sept. 9th.

§ 3. Mr. Gladstone comes to the Front.

(First Pamphlet and Blackheath Speech.)

The climax of the Agitation is marked by the appearance of Mr. Gladstone's first pamphlet,1 and by the speech which he delivered at a great open-air meeting, at Blackheath.2 These, together, may be regarded as constituting one event; but it must be noticed that it was in the short interval between them that Lord Hartington spoke at Sheffield and that the letter of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe appeared in the Times. The pamphlet was published on Sept. 6th. The sale was enormous.

The speech was delivered on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 9th. The pamphlet is the more rhetorical utterance of the two, and the

1 "Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East," ante, p. 81.

2 Mr. Gladstone's first utterance on the subject after the recess appears to be contained in a letter read at a meeting at Hackney (T. Aug. 30th). In this letter he says the Premier treated the subject in so inadequate and unsatisfactory a manner that it is well the people should assist the Government to judge whether it is right to give opportunities for the repetition of the recent outrages by the re-establishment of the status quo.

delivery of the speech was made an occasion for softening down or explaining some of the stronger and more epigrammatic utterances of the pamphlet. The supposed change, which at most amounted to a slight difference in tone, was remarked on by the "red" newspapers, with expressions of satisfaction.

The Pall Mall Gazette says the speech must have been read with relief by every moderate-minded man.-(Sept. 11th.)

One important new point, it is true, the speech contained. Mr. Gladstone who, in the pamphlet, had formulated the particular solution he advocated, namely, total withdrawal of all Turkish administration from the provinces, in his speech, as we have just seen,1 expressed himself willing, in deference to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's great authority, to adopt the plan of vesting the control over all Turkish officials who came into contact with the Christian populations, in a European commission, so that they might actually be amenable to it, instead of to the Porte, although the titular sovereignty of the Sultan might remain.

Perhaps there could not be found a more striking example of the function of the orator, defined as "the giving back in flood what he receives in vapour," than is afforded by the Blackheath meeting. It was one which pre-eminently combined in itself the characteristics of the earlier and strictly agitation meetings, and of those later ones which rather assumed the character of "Parliament out of Session." It was at once the expression of an enormous body of Public Opinion, and it made plain the position of Mr. Gladstone.

This was a matter on which people up to this time had not been clear. The independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire was the Shibboleth of traditional official philo-Turkism; and this Shibboleth Mr. Gladstone had seemed to pronounce. To be sure, he had not framed to pronounce it aright; but the public ear had not been fine enough to catch the distinction.3

The Spectator, already convinced of the Premier's invincible philo-Turkism, had written somewhat dubiously of Mr. Gladstone.

There is hope, we believe, that Mr. Gladstone will perform his clear duty at this crisis, and lend his powerful aid to solidify the decision of Englishmen that Lord Beaconsfield shall go, and that 2 Ante, p. 367.

1 Ante, p. 408.

3 In the pamphlet, p. 55, he alludes to the incident in the debate of July 31st, and makes the distinction clear between the "status quo" and the "territorial integrity."-Ante, p. 103.

Turkey shall suffer the only retribution possible for her conduct in Bulgaria by losing the direct government of the province.Spec. Sept. 2nd.

A week later Mr. Gladstone was unhesitatingly accepted as the one statesman who could be trusted to point out what was, and what was not, a practicable policy for giving effect to the "violet' notions.

The first and larger portion of the pamphlet is mainly occupied by a historical retrospect of the recent action of the English Government in the Eastern Question. As to this, Mr. Gladstone draws the conclusion that:

The House of Commons has in the main been ousted from that legitimate share of influence which I may call its jurisdiction in the case.1

But the chief interest of the work centred in the expositions of the policy Mr. Gladstone advocated, and in his anticipations of the means by which the adoption of it, as the policy of the English Government, was to be brought about.

The nation will have to speak through its Government; but we now see clearly that it must first teach its Government, almost as it would teach a lisping child, what to say.2

In my hope and my opinion, when once the old illusions as to British sentiment are dispelled, and Lord Derby is set free, with his clear, impartial mind and unostentatious character, to shape the course of the Administration, he will both faithfully and firmly give effect to the wishes of the country.3

[The latest present indication of British policy is the re-establishment of the status quo:—that is, of the same forms and opportunities, which again mean, on the first occasion the same abuses and crimes.] This purpose of the Government, I feel convinced, is not irrevocable. But it will only be revoked if we may take experience for our guide under the distinct and intelligible actions of public opinion. No man will so well understand as the Prime Minister what is the force and weight of that opinion, and at what stage in the development of a national movement its expression should no longer be resisted.

It would not be practicable, even if it were honourable, to disguise the real character of what we want from the Government. It is a change of attitude and policy, nothing less." . . .

But this change is dependent on an emphatic expression of the national sentiment which is but beginning to be heard. It has grown from a whisper to a sound; it will grow from a sound to a peal..

1 Bulgarian Horrors, p. 10. 4 Ibid. p. 56,

2 Ibid. p. 11.

3 Ibid. p. 48.

5 Ibid. p. 57.

6 Ibid. p. 58.

I entreat my countrymen, upon whom far more than perhaps any other people of Europe it depends, to require and to insist that our Government, which has been working in one direction, shall work in the other, and shall apply all its vigour to concur with the other States of Europe in obtaining the extinction of the Turkish executive power in Bulgaria.1

A tremendous denunciation of the Turks chimed well with the climax of anti-Turkish feeling.2

The remedy for which Mr. Gladstone called, both in the pamphlet and the speech, was the exclusion of the "administrative action" of the Ottoman Government from Bosnia, the Herzegovina, and above all Bulgaria.

This was expanded in a celebrated rhetorical passage:

Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves: their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbachis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned.3

The expressions of this passage, as well as his denunciation of the whole Turkish race, were much criticised. They carried to some minds suggestions of violence and spoliation as attaching to the Emancipation policy.

The Times asks:-Whither are the Turks to carry themselves? As for Mr. Gladstone's tremendous anathemas, and his indictment of the whole of Turkish rule, from the beginning to the end, in Asia no less than in Europe, was it prudent to frame such stupendous premisses for the justification of a course which can be defended on simpler grounds? It may be of service to open our eyes to the full nature of the Eastern Question. That question is not only whether the Turks shall cease to govern, but who shall govern, or maintain any sort of order, in the East in their stead. As a matter of justice, it must be acknowledged that the Turks, bad as they may be, have governed in the East for four centuries, because no other race had the cohesion, the unity, and the force requisite for national organisation.-(Sept. 8th.)

1 Bulgarian Horrors, p. 61.

2 See illustrations of "anti-Turkism," ante, p. 81. This passage contrasts somewhat with the contention of Mr. Gladstone in the debate of July 31st, that Turkish promises were unfulfilled more by reason of impotence than iniquity (ante, p. 367). See also pamphlet (p. 61), "Nearly the whole mischief has lain in the wretched laws, and the agents at once violent and corrupt of a distant central Power, which (having none others) lets these agents loose upon its territory."

Bulgarian Horrors, pp. 61, 62.