THE NEW HOPE.
THE atmosphere is lighter. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked Mr. Chamberlain to postpone till Monday his question as to the day on which it will be most convenient to debate a vote of censure, and it is under- stood that he expects to be then able to make some pleasing com- munication to the House. Count Schouvaloff also, the Russian Ambassador in London, who, in spite of the insults of English "society," has always been opposed to war, has started for St. Petersburg, after an interview with the Premier, said to have been pacific. These are the only facts accurately known, and they are small facts to excite political confidence, but it is undoubted that the confidence has been excited. The secret is well kept, but the general opinion of well-informed men is that the Czar, aware of the immense losses which war must cause, alarmed by the attempt on General Trepoff, and reluctant to call upon his people for further sacrifices, has agreed to certain concessions, among which the division of Bulgaria into two provinces, of which the Southern one will remain Turkish, is the principal. On the other hand, Lord Beaconsfield, warned by recent elec- tions, by fresh meetings, and by his own agents, has agreed not to press that obscure point which he thought so important and Russian diplomatists so humiliating, and there is, therefore, to be a Congress, which, the intention to quarrel having disappeared, will be able to patch-up some arrangement, which will be glorified for a few months or years as the settlement of the Eastern Question. As that question is simply the redistribution of the provinces held together against their will by the martial Ottoman caste, and as they will not be redistributed, there will be no settlement of it, but there may be an appearance of one, which will serve.
We need not say we welcome any postponement of this war, for any postponement draws us nearer to the hour when a more trustworthy Ministry, we care not from which side, will be in office, but we would ask those who exult in the truce now obtained to consider steadily the reasons for their gratulation. The British Government, by its conduct during the past two years, has made a nation of eighty millions, which has every reason to be its. ally, which can, in fact, secure none of its better objects without being its ally, a suspicious, exasperated, and perhaps permanent foe. It is not the Russian Government which will hate us now, but the Russian people. The Cabinet has spent six millions, has added three millions to taxation, has endangered the Constitu- tion and the Indian Empire by summoning Sepoys to its aid, and has spread through large classes the ancient suspicion of the Court, and at that vast price it has been successful in securing—what ? That the Turks, whom the Cabinet does not profess to defend, whom Lord Cranbrook himself condemns as guilty of inexcusable barbarity, shall again be invested with power to treat the districts they have destroyed as their own property, restored to them by Europe. It will be open to the Turks to appoint Chevket Pasha to the Governorship of South Bulgaria. Nothing else whatever will have been accomplished. The de- feat of the Turks will not have been effaced. The sway of the Russians in the councils of the Power which owns Con- stantinople will not have been diminished. Turkey will not have ceased to be a beaten Empire, with an effete Govern- ment, a disorganised soldiery, and an empty Treasury. Russia will not be the less a great Power, ruling a vast multitude of white men, impelled to advance southwards by laws which man did not make and man cannot control. In military strength she will have gained more by her experience and her new knowledge of the capacity of her Generals than she has lost in life and materials. In political strength she will have gained by the new certainty on the part of every oppressed race between the Danube and the Nile that Russia alone will help them to emancipation from the Turk. And in finan- cial strength she will have gained by all the value of a plea for new taxes, and for a new tariff system which even those who pay the money or su5er by Free-trade will not be able to disregard. No strength has been added to Turkey, no per- manent weakness caused to Russia, no extensive -and undeni- able enfranchisement secured to the Eastern Christians. All the evils caused are positive, all the results secured, even those results in which Tories believe, are negative or illusory. Our route to India is no safer, indeed is less safe, for we are further than ever from the possession of Egypt, while Russia has been convinced that in the next dispute, if she cannot threaten India, the Indian Army will be hurried into Europe. Nevertheless, the Tories will say Lord Beaconsfield has secured us a triumph. He has ventured to confront Russia, and Russia has receded. Consequently, the British vote in all Continental questions has regained its old importance. Well, is that true ? Let us try the assertion by one single test. At this moment every Power in Europe is long- ing for an ally, and of all allies the one which would be most valuable is Great Britain. If this country were heartily with her, France might regain her provinces, or Germany dis- arm, or Austria rest in peace, or Russia, with her finances restored, commence the Railroad which will one day quintuple her power over the Northern half of Asia. Every Power has been offered this alliance, if she would only aid Lord Beaconsfield's policy, and every Power has quietly declined, satisfied from the Ministerial declarations that England would, in the long-run, think only of her own interests. What kind of greatness, or prestige, or splendour is that with which every Power in turn hesitates to identify itself ? All Europe, the Tories say, will, if the programme is carried out, echo with the praises of Great Britain. Will it, when the Continental journalists know that nothing we have done will bring the price of Turkish bonds any nearer to the level of the bonds of a solvent State ? It is the statesmen, not the journalists, from whom praise is useful, and where are the statesmen who are to praise us ? In Russia, where Count Schouvaloff sees that the work has to be done over again ? In France, where M. Waddington per- ceives that his hoped-for ally must concentrate herself upon her Eastern task ? In Germany, where Prince Bismarck sees the Austrian Army remobilised and reprovided with material, paid for out of sums voted under the pressure caused by British policy? Or in Austria, where vast disturbance has been followed by no gain, ,14 here England has accentuated the division between Magyar and Slav, and where the Emperor has lost perhaps his last chance of dying without the stigma of leaving his House less mighty than he found it 1 The praise, we fear, from the statesmen will be small, and for it we have sacrificed the devotion of every rising race in the Turkish Empire—for we might have bound Arabs to us as well as Greeks—our consciences as Christians, and much, we know not yet how much, of our internal freedom. Peace will be a relief, but we cannot be glad of such a Peace.
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