§ 6. The Pro-Turkish Press.

Although the weight of Public Opinion thrown for the “violet" policy was overwhelming, the "red" notions were by no means extinct. Though it is true a discordant note was occasionally struck, speaking broadly, the opposing voices were hardly heard upon the platform, but it was far otherwise in the press.

The Economist, almost the sole advocate of abstention, deprecated alike the enthusiasm which might lead this country improvidently to subject itself to new and onerous responsibilities, and the anti-Russism which would engage England's responsibility for the maintenance of the status quo.

[The moral effect produced by the history of the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria has been rarely paralleled in this country. While foreign critics, who generally miss the point of popular movements in England, are declaiming against the English Govern ment as the protector and patron of the Turk, the real danger is not that England may plunge into war or involve herself in diplomatic meshes in defence of the Ottoman Government, but that she may be forced into a military or political intervention, abounding in risks and responsibilities, for the humiliation or subjection of the Turks as a penal measure to satisfy the boiling anger and indignation of our countrymen. We trust so injurious and ill-considered an impulse will be resisted as well by the leaders of the Liberal party as by the Conservative Ministry.]— Economist, Aug. 18th.

[We had better run the risk of letting Russia or any other competitor obtain Constantinople than give a complex series of binding promises to prevent it. We can estimate the risk of harm from Russia, or from any one else possessing Constantinople, but we cannot in the least foresee or estimate the loss which the wars

necessary to keep the promises might cause us. Nor is it likely now that Russia would ever be allowed to obtain Constantinople. A saying of Mr. Cobden has come true, which no one believed when he said it, and which, right as he has proved, scarcely any one would have been then warranted in believing. It is to that "great educated nation-Germany-that we must look to defend Europe against Russia." We cannot, therefore, think Lord Derby to be wise in wishing to use English power and give English guarantees to uphold the present form of things in European Turkey, any more than we think Mr. Gladstone to be right in wishing to use English power and give English guarantees to create a new form there.]-Economist, Sept. 6th.

The pro-Turkish journals, bowing to the blast in their expression of feeling about the atrocities, were far indeed from

abandoning their advocacy of the "red" policy; but, meeting the exigencies of the time, presented it in a somewhat modified form.

The question of actively defending Turkey fell a little into the background, and the legalistic notion was urged that she must be allowed to reap the full fruits of her victory over Servia.

The accusations against the agitation which were afterwards so vehemently reiterated1 began to be brought. The agitation was disparaged (even in the act of flattering it) as mere "sentiment." The antithesis between this and our "policy" was insisted on, and our "policy" was represented as something too sacred to be changed in obedience to a mere "sentimental" impulse."

Again, the cry was raised that the agitation was an attempt to fasten the responsibility of the massacres on the Government in order to embarrass them for party purposes.

The Standard cannot too strongly protest, in the name of humanity itself, against attempts to engage the sympathies of the British public on the side of one of the combatants.— (Aug. 8th.)

The Post deprecates mediation, at all events until the war has arrived at some decisive issue; and says Servia must be regarded first as a rebel, next as a wanton aggressor, and thirdly as ungrateful for benefits bestowed spontaneously upon her by Turkey. This quarrel ought not to be patched up only to break out afresh when it suited the convenience of the aggressors; it should be fought out now once for all. There is absolutely nothing to warrant any interference unsolicited or objected to by Turkey.— (Aug. 10th.)

The extreme section of the Liberal party has shown itself disposed to make vigorous partisan use of the atrocities perpetrated by the irregular soldiery of the Turks in suppressing the Bulgarian insurrection. . . . The sentimentalists without responsibility who sit below the gangway say we ought at once to break off all connection with the accursed thing. . . . Against so sudden and causeless a perversion of English policy we feel assured this country would, if necessary, protest with emphasis. The interests we watch and guide in the East are too momentous to be shifted about as if they were pawns on the political chess-board. We may change our policy on a deliberate calculation; but it would be discreditable to do so in the spasms of even a just and natural indignation at acts of savage cruelty for which we have no shadow of responsibility.-P. M. G. Aug. 10th.3

There has been for some time a real danger that popular feeling, stimulated by the hideous details of slaughter and outrage

1 Post, chap. xiii. § 7.

2 For a protest against this view of our "policy" sec Times, Sept. 5th, quoted ante, p. 402. 3 Art. "Atrocities and Policy." F F

.. may precipitate some act of national rashness that no Ministry could resist or guide. . . . We have to make a choice between the extravagant indulgence of sympathy and the maintenance of a policy any departure from which the country, in its after mood of sobriety, would be sure to disapprove. We do not say, and Mr. Disraeli does not say, that our sympathies are misdirected, but that they should not be allowed wholly to overmaster the judgment and carry our actions away helplessly captive.—P. M. G. Aug. 12th.

The Hackney politicians, under the guidance of some old practical agitators, have the credit of being the first to burst through the sham of these atrocity protests, if not of showing us the true character of this movement. They protest, not idly against the Turks, but, with a shrewd eye to business, against Her Majesty's Government.-St. Aug. 31st.

By and by it will be found that this [general loathing of the Turks] may have serious consequences for ourselves (who happen to be more indignant than any other people), and may even place the fortunes of the empire in jeopardy. It is for that reason, and not from any hardness of heart, that we view with distress the signs and tokens of the hour. Therein we seem to differ from some other public writers. They like the idea of a grand moral European war to avenge the sufferings of Bulgaria: frankly, we do not. The anxiety of good men to outdo each other in the madness of indignation continues.-P. M. G. Sept. 2nd.

...

The Post says there can be no doubt that the excitement in England regarding the "atrocities" in Bulgaria is spreading fast and wide. On every side there are signs of anti-Turkish feeling. It is positively astounding, however, to find the people of England nursing their wrath until it threatens to overleap all bounds, and to swallow up impartial justice, sound judgment, the discrimination of national danger, and the policy handed down by truly English statesmen, for which England has toiled and fought with all her might.-(Sept. 6th.)

[There are three particular charges brought against the friends of the Christians in Turkey by the Mahometan newspapers of London, which influence some Liberals and a good many waverers. These charges are, that it is unfair to protect Servia when she has been beaten in war; that to punish Turkey for outrages on civilisation, though possibly justifiable in itself, is a "sentimental policy"; and finally-that Turkey is a Power entitled to suppress her own insurrections in her own way.]-Spec. Aug. 26th.1

[There are two fallacies exercising a certain authority upon the minds of men so as to prevent that unanimity which would otherwise characterise English opinion on the Eastern Question. They are accepted by a minority of our countrymen, and would be powerless to check the resolution of the mass of the nation; but it is not the less desirable that they should be removed, so that we 1 Art. "The Catch-words of the Mahometan Press."

may all be of one mind. The first is that Turkey is an independent member of the European system, just as Russia, Austria, or Germany is. The second fallacy is perhaps more insidious. It is thought that to maintain unabridged the authority of the Porte throughout the Ottoman Empire is, in the interests of England, an essential condition of every peace to which we could be a party.]-7. Sept. 5th.

Nothing in the present controversy is more remarkable than the all but insane vehemence with which the English advocates of Turkey are writing, now that the support of England is slipping away from their client for ever. One journal of undoubted ability has calmly laid down the moral proposition, that in imparting to the British Government a share of responsibility for the infamies in Bulgaria, some opponents of Turkey have been guilty of as great wickedness as the Turkish Government, "in permitting those atrocities to go unpunished." When the Pall Mall Gazette could print such a piece of stupendous silliness, it is clear that even the cooler and more intellectual of the English Mahometans have momentarily lost the command of their wits. It is less surprising to find in a very unintellectual quarter indeed the theory-so far as we can fish any theory out of muddy and mendacious "gush" -that the Bulgarians have been massacred and outraged through the operation of a vast Muscovite conspiracy, chiefly planned by General Ignatieff, to mislead England.-Spec. Sept. 9th.2

§ 7. The Daily Telegraph.

The newspaper to which the Spectator alluded, in its article entitled "English Mahometans," is evidently the Daily Telegraph; 3 and the course pursued by that journal presents us with a political phenomenon so peculiar as to be well worthy of separate consideration. The possibility of the existence of influence such as that exerted by the Daily Telegraph would form a section in a discussion on what, to adapt J. S. Mill's phrase, might be called "Infirmities and Dangers of Government by Newspapers." No one would desire that newspapers should have the functions of pioneering and formulating the Public Opinion by which the country is to be governed, without an assurance that these functions would be performed under the deepest sense of public responsibility.

It would be dangerous to admit that even a responsible statesman could ever be allowed to set himself to sophisticate the opinion he cannot fairly combat, or safely disregard. To do so, would be to admit the supposition that there are times when the sovereignty of Public Opinion must fall into abeyance, and when a nation, like 1 Compare this with Lord Beaconsfield at Aylesbury. Post, chap. xiii. § 3. 2 Art. entitled "English Mahometans." See ante, p. 164.

3 Compare "Betsy Prig's Soliloquy," Punch, Dec. 23rd, 1876.

a man raging in a delirium or paralysed by terror, must, for its own good, be delivered over to the personal authority of one wise enough and strong enough to perceive the path of safety and lead it along that way.

But a newspaper has no personal authority, save either such as it derives from confidence in the soundness of the judgment of those who conduct it, and their ability to obtain the data on which opinion is to be built, or else the authority due to the faithful expression of the conclusions of a large body of floating opinion. The general understanding about a newspaper is that it has a certain platform and a certain constituency; it stands or falls (so far as it depends on its political side) in accordance with the popularity of the opinions it holds and the ability with which they are expressed. The influence of its leading articles depends largely, like that of a sermon, on a tacit belief in the sincerity of the person who utters them. The public confidence is based on a supposition that there are no hidden bye motives; that the facts and materials on which a newspaper professes to base its opinion are the real ones—and that it presents the case it builds upon them fairly.

The position of the Telegraph was peculiar. It ranked as a Liberal organ, but the Pall Mall Gazette quite early spoke of it as

a newspaper which now seems to be the official organ of the present Government, as it was of the last, and doubtless will be of the next.-(June 28th.)

And, again, the Spectator alluded to it as a paper

which has often a very accurate knowledge of the wishes of dominant persons in the Tory Cabinet.-(July 1st.)

Its circulation was immense; it was doubtless accepted as political Mentor by vast numbers of people, and it was understood, in a somewhat vague way, to aim at making itself the organ of the opinion of its constituency, in the sense of giving expression to it.

Such was the journal which, at this juncture, employing all the arts of insinuation and innuendo, did its best, as Antony before the Roman mob, to sophisticate and beguile opinion, until the time should come when the mask could be thrown aside, and a policy of war for Turkey openly advocated. No doubt they were honestly convinced in their own minds that the adoption of Mr. Gladstone's policy would be ruinous to the country; but, as afterwards appeared, the proprietors of the paper claimed the right to treat it as a purely

1 Compare the case of the money articles in newspapers. It is manifest that confidence in them would be destroyed by any suggestion that the proprietors were interested in raising or depressing certain stocks.