to itself to awaken the sympathy of civilised communities in its cause, and to raise a correspondingly strong feeling amongst the same powerful witnesses against its opponents.-Bath Chronicle (about) Aug. 9, 1877.1 But the result seemed to be that the public mind was surfeited so full of horrors that it failed to respond to the stimulus. The public mind is far less eager for security against the continuance of all these horrors than it was. It is getting accustomed to the notion that an amount of lust, cruelty and plunder, which would make England a boiling sea of righteous passion, has a certain sort of geographical appropriateness in distant places between the Balkan and the Danube, and does not call for any very strenuous policy of repudiation. And therefore, though Mr. Gladstone's second pamphlet is infinitely more cogent and conclusive than the first, we much doubt whether it will have a proportionate effect.-"Comparative Atrocities," Spec. March 17, 1877. § D.-England's Special Responsibilities for Turkey's Good Behaviour. Let us pass on to the notion that England was under obligation to protect the Christian populations from ill usage, not as being generally commissioned from on High to redress human wrongs, but by reason of the special circumstances of this particular case. This was presented in several aspects. The Guildhall meeting2 resolved: That the favour shown and the protection accorded for so many years by Great Britain to Turkey entail upon us grave responsibility for the acts of the Turkish authorities, and in view of this responsibility we urge upon the Queen's Government the necessity of taking immediate steps to obtain reparation for the wrongs already done, to prevent the recurrence of such atrocities as have recently been committed, and especially that the Government do all in its power to provide for the independence of Slavonic provinces now subject to the rule of Turkey.-(Sept. 18, 1876.) The money spent and blood spilt for him [i.e. "the Turk "] twenty years ago have only served to prop up a little longer an execrable barbarism. England especially is responsible for this. 1 Compare the following articles in Punch, which seems to represent the feeling of the time : July, 21, 1877, "Atrocities and Atrocities," written against the P. M. G., goes to show that the balance is heavily against the Turks. 64 July 28, 'Poor Humanity": a different tone; one of perplexity and regret that truth should be overlaid for party purposes. Aug. 11, "Holding the Balance": a dialogue between Mr. Punch and a philoTurk; same tone as the article of July 21. 2 Post, chap. xii. § 6. It is now the duty of the working classes of this country to proclaim in an unmistakable voice that the direct rule of the Ottoman Government over the non-Mussulman Provinces must cease.-Working Men's Address. T. Dec. 15, 1876. But I wish to point out that Lord Derby is not correct in saying we are no more answerable for the conduct of the Turks than other people. I say we are answerable in a manner that no other State in Europe is. I will endeavour to prove it to you by a very familiar illustration. Suppose I am afraid of my house being robbed, or some other calamity happening to it, and I keep a very fierce dog which flies at everybody and tears them to pieces. The law of this country, founded upon common sense, says-if I am not aware that dog is fierce I shall not be answerable for his acts, but if I am, and have the power of restraining him, I should be responsible.—Mr. Lowe.1 Now supposing the Porte to be victorious, we cannot in fairness lose sight of those circumstances whence it has derived the means of victory, and whence, if not controlled, it may hope to enjoy a harvest reaped by its unsparing sword. Millions on millions extracted from the moneyed classes of Christendom since the Crimean War have enabled it to form those numerous battalions which are now in the fields of slaughter, and promises of reform proclaimed by authority and recorded in treaty have obtained for it the countenance and friendly protection of its Christian allies, on credit of performances hitherto but faintly and partially realised. Do not these undeniable facts confer a right-nay, even impose a duty of mediating with a firm resolution to carry into full effect the dictates of humanity and the principles of equitable government?-Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.2 Mr. Goldwin Smith (Contemporary Review), Nov. 1877, speaks of the Sultan's fleet as "built with a part of the money stolen from his creditors." With reference to the argument from the loans to Turkey, there seems no warrant for suggesting that a State is in general bound to assume any responsibility arising from private loans, but it had been understood by those who had lent money to Turkey that they did so with the approval of their Government; and perhaps this suggestion was intended as an argument addressed to the consciences of the bondholders to induce them to throw their individual influence in favour of the "Violet" policy. It is difficult to say whether, in fact, the bondholders collectively exercised any definite influence, or into which scale their weight was thrown. We cannot find that they contributed any one definite notion to Public Opinion. They 1 At Croydon, D. N. Sept. 14, 1876. 2 Letter to T. Sept. 9, 1876. were often reckoned as a pro-Turkish element,1 and it was said that they hoped, by speaking smoothly to the Turks, to obtain payment of at least some of their debt. On the other hand, the Edinburgh Review 2 appears to think the agitation against Turkey was the work of persons irritated by the loss of half the high rate of interest they had been receiving, and begs them to consider what would remain of their investment if the Turkish Empire were annihilated. The reviewer agrees that the Turkish power was to a great extent the creation of private English capitalists, but so far from drawing the conclusion that England lay under a special responsibility to curb the Turkish power, he argues that the bondholders should in mere consistency support it. Lastly, this notion of special responsibility was deduced from one view of our obligations under the Treaties. The claims of Neutral Powers to intervene in the government of Turkey have been long since established as a matter of fact. The Crimean War and the Treaty of 1856 settled that, not for the first time. Russia had obtained by previous Treaties the title and authority of protector of the Christian subjects of the Porte; and though we withstood, and successfully withstood, the abuse of the privileges of this position, we did not on that account hand over Slavs, Bulgarians, and Greeks to the unrestrained caprices of the Porte and its Pashas. The Guaranteeing Powers accepted, instead of Russia, the rights and responsibilities of the Protectorate of the Christians, and the Sultan, as a party to the Treaty of Peace, recognised and allowed this Protectorate. We have, therefore, not morally only, but as a matter of international law also, the power and the obligation to intervene to see that justice is done to the Christian subjects of the Porte. A single illustration will show the pertinence of this reflection. It is sometimes said that the Bosnians and the Herzegovinians rebelled and have been defeated, and they must endure the consequences of defeat. The Bulgarians were ready to rise against their rulers, and their nascent rebellion was stamped out-perhaps with some excess of severity; but are we the armed missionaries of civilisation to rectify every deed of cruelty done in the world? One answer of course is that if we withdrew our aid and countenance, the Turks could not do what they have been doing, whence arises a moral obligation on us to check their barbarities; but there is a legal right antecedent to this moral obligation. We are the trustees of the settlement under which these Bosnians and Bulgarians live. We have undertaken to look after their interests, and—as has been happily said—the Sultan is no more than a ward in Chancery, subject, as the lawyers would say, to a very strict impeach 1 e.g. by Arthur Arnold, Contemp. Rev. July, 1876. ment of waste if he does not administer the property with full regard to the well-being of all his subjects.-T. Sept. 5, 1876. It may be observed that just as we found the notion of "NonIntervention" antithetical to "Humanity" so we shall find later on a notion, "Treaty Legalism," antithetical to this notion of Treaty Responsibility." The question of the true construction of the Treaties was debated at length, and the two opposed interpretions were enunciated over and over again, in Parliament and out of it, on various occasions. SE-Nationality. In attempting to reduce the factors of the Eastern Question to fundamental questions, we find that these questions are largely concerned with facts of race. Again, questions of race are closely connected with questions of Nationality. It seems appropriate to take as the next of the constituent notions of anti-Turkism the application to the case in hand of the doctrine of Nationality that is to say, the doctrine that unity of race is the best foundation for political unity. There has been in recent years a rise of the feeling that the aspiration for a national unity, which shall correspond to a race unity, is an aspiration to be sympathised with; and there has been a corresponding discrediting of the doctrine of the previous two centuries-the Balance of Power. The aim of this last principle was not, as sometimes appears absurdly to be supposed, to make all States equal, but to secure their independence by so regulating their size that no one of them should be able to dominate a coalition of the rest. This, as the Duke of Argyll points out, is not an immoral aim; but the attempt to preserve a balance had sunk into disrepute, and it was the fashion to denounce it as an old-world device of an effete diplomacy. Mr. John Bright spoke of it "as a ghastly phantom." The doctrine was regarded too as immoral because it subjected populations to one government rather than another without any regard to their wishes. In this aspect there is a connection between the doctrine of Nationality and the humane sentiment. With respect to the danger of a universal monarchy from the tendency to aggregation which the doctrine of Nationality allows, 1 "Morality in Politics," Contemp. Rev. July, 1877, p. 323. 2 Speech at Birmingham, Jan. 13, 1878. it has been pointed out that this doctrine carries bane and antidote together. If, on the one hand, it favours the formation of immense States which from their vastness might well aspire to universal empire, on the other it sets bounds to their growth which they may not overstep. The Liberal party of late years has rather inclined to the doctrine of Nationality, and against that of the balance of power. There is some ground for attributing the reverse position to the opposite party. [The late] Lord Derby took occasion to comment with severity upon the conduct of the Government [in approving the events then passing, by which the unity of Italy was being achieved]. Speaking of the unity of nationalities he said, "No doubt all the people in Italy might be called Italians, As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, The fatal error of Tory policy has always been that it has based national settlements on dynastic arrangements regardless of the sympathies of the people who were the subjects of the transaction. Austria expiated in Italy, by long years of disaster, this capital mistake. She may yet suffer the same bitter experience from dreams of Slavonic aggrandisement. The policy of the Liberal party has been exactly the reverse. They have sought, in the contentment of autonomous and homogeneous races, the solid foundation of tranquillity and peace.-Sir Wm. Harcourt.3 ́ Italy seems to regard it as her special rôle in Europe to champion the doctrine of Nationality in much the same way that France was supposed to be the appropriate champion of a democratic form of government, and England of personal liberty. We had occasion to notice the antithesis between the notion of Humanity and Non-Intervention. Now the notion of Humanity, particularly if the word assume its Continental tinge of meaning, is closely related to the notion of Nationality. That non-intervention should appear as the antithesis of Nationality need therefore not surprise us. To illustrate this point we naturally turn to Mazzini. Having denied the idea of nationality-soul of the new epoch -and substituted his personal potency for that of a principle, the genius, energy and prestige of the first Napoleon vanished on the first interruption of his victorious career. . . . A similar fate 1 By Professor Seeley. 2 Annals of our Times, p. 593. 3 At Liverpool, Oct. 6, 1879. |