12 OCTOBER 1889, Page 6

THE KAISER IN CONSTANTINOPLE.

WE trust Lord Hartington will attend, attend himself, and attend quickly, to one feature in the politics of the day which, if neglected, may threaten the harmony between the Liberal Unionists and the Government It is hardly possible to doubt that the group of statesmen who control the huge force called the Triple Alliance are endeavouring to persuade the Sultan into at least a con- tingent adherence to their plans. They want the aid of the great mass of brave men who obey the Sultan's orders, and who, in the event of the anticipated war, can prevent Austria from being attacked by Russia on her Southern side. No Russian General would venture to enter Bosnia in the face of an Austrian army, at the risk of being assailed by a Turkish army in his rear. It is with a view to this support, which is practical and tangible support, not a vague promise of benevolent regard, that the German Emperor permits German officers, one of whom at least is a man of mark, to reorganise and discipline the Turkish Army so completely, that it is now equal in all but content to any army of its kind in Europe. It is for this, also, that the Emperor himself, breaking through many diffi- culties of etiquette, is about to pay a personal visit to Constantinople, and endeavour by a direct negotiation -with the only real power in Turkey, to put an end to evasions and delays. The Kaiser's visit, which must be a most picturesque, and may easily prove a historical event of the first importance, must, at all events, greatly influence the Sultan, whose permanent weakness is inability to make up his unusually acute mind. To such a visit, with such an object, there is no objection in this country. The stronger the League of Peace, the greater the chance that peace, which is the English interest, will be maintained intact ; and if the Sultan is wise enough to see that in supporting the League he is protecting himself, almost all Englishmen will recognise his wisdom with a certain satisfaction. But there is one danger in the efforts made to attain this end. They may include English pressure upon the Porte, or, at all events, English advice to the Porte ; and they may end in convincing the Sultan that he is necessary to Europe, and therefore able to do as he likes within his own dominions. In other words, he may think that he is at liberty to reduce Armenia, Crete, and possibly Macedonia, to order by terror, as terror is understood by Asiatic rulers.

That there is a disposition at the Palace to have recourse to this method of suppressing discontent, or at all events to tolerate it, is past all question. The stories received from Armenia, from Crete, and less definitely from Mace- donia, are too consistent to be inventions. They are supported by the evident fact that the Government is anxiously suppressing information which would otherwise be over-full—in Crete, for instance, the Turks prohibit emigration to Greece, and imprison all whom they suspect of corresponding with Athens—and they are in themselves only too probable. The Turks, though they have an easy indifference when unresisted which is constantly mistaken for toleration, and is about as like toleration as the con- tempt of a mastiff for a terrier's barks, will not tolerate plans to destroy their ascendency, and when their Christian subjects are provoking, grow excessively cruel. Their subjects are just now most provoking. That their dependants should rise in resistance against customary order, not in their own strength, but in reliance on foreign aid, is enough to irritate any dominant race, much more one which, like the Turk, believes firmly that it reigns by divine commission, and that in surrendering authority it is disobeying an unmistakable command from Heaven. Armenians, Cretans, and Macedonians, they are all appealing to the enemies of Turkey to give them the freedom which, if they were Montenegrins, they would win for themselves. The Turks, under such circumstances, feel at once like Englishmen when Negroes rise, and like monks when brethren apostatise, and give themselves up to a fury which is more like madness than the ordinary anger of a ruling caste. They let them- selves loose ; and Asiatics let loose never can be con- tented to kill ; they must insult besides, must bring it home to their victims that in their masters' eyes they are dogs. Much of the horror which attended the Indian Mutiny was due to this feeling ; and Indians, whether Mussulman or Hindoo, have not the latent ferocity of the Turks, who remain, under all their veneer, true children of the Chinese desert from which they emerged to conquer two civilisationa,—the Roman and the Arab. Their subjects know this well, and whether the Armenians and Cretans are already under the harrow—as they assert—or not, they live, it is certain, in indescribable terror of massacre and outrage, terror which they know to be justified by history. The removal of that terror ought to be— must be, if Liberal Unionists are to approve—the abso- lute condition of the admission of the Sultan into any European affiance relying in the faintest degree upon the sympathy of England. We trust that the German Emperor, who is now allying his family with the reigning House of Greece, and who, though a stern man, has given no evidence of tolerance for cruelty, will bring this con- dition of affairs sharply home to the Sultan's mind, which is open at least to the impression that Europeans have fads which it is advisable to respect. It is rumoured, indeed, that he has done so, and that, in view of his coming relation to the Hellenic Kingdom, an amnesty for all Cretans will be issued during his stay in Constantinople; but this concession is as yet only a rumour. Whether it is true or not—and it would be true if the German Emperor exerted himself in that direction—this ought to be the policy of Great Britain, the implied or express condition upon which she will assent in any shape or way to any arrangement which may even indirectly involve a strengthening of the Turkish domination in Christian provinces. If this is not secured, Lord Salisbury will find next Session that his foreign policy, which we believe to be, in the main, acceptable to the country, is hampered with difficulties, and that there is one subject upon which he and his allies in Parliament are not in hearty accord. The Daily News may be issuing its accounts as party tricks, intending no good to the Christians of Turkey, but only to the G-ladstonians of Great Britain ; but its motive is no matter. If the Greek accounts are true, the terrorising of Armenia and Crete must be stopped at once, if the Government is not to find itself endangered by its Turkish policy. The Unionists are pledged to the Christians of Turkey, and they have a right to ask that, in spite of any momentary necessities, their clients shall be permitted to enjoy the measure of contemptuous toleration which is alone possible to Euro- peans under an Asiatic rule.

There are three excuses for the Turkish method of action which, whenever an outbreak of ferocity occurs, are always put forward in its defence. One is, that the stories of "atrocities "—that is, of the murders of unarmed men and outrages upon defenceless women—are, in truth, Mere devices of Russian and Greek intriguers to arouse the sympathies of Europe. That excuse always breaks down in the presence of a mass of disinterested testimony, sure, in places like Armenia and Crete, to be forthcoming at last. They are not unknown lands, or occupied by peoples whom the Western world has forgotten. The second excuse is, that the outrages are committed by the armed population, and not by the agents of Turkish authority. That is seldom true, the Mussulman population usually maintaining some malts vivendi with its Christian neighbours, though it naturally will not assist them to. resist the Sultan's Irregulars, acting on full authority and in the name of the Faith. The third excuse is, that the Sultan cannot control agents at a distance ; and that is absolutely false. The Sultan is better obeyed by his great officials than the Czar. How Abdul Hamid has re- established the authority of his great place, so terribly shaken by the events which preceded his accession, we do not accurately know, though we suspect ; but of the fact there can be no doubt whatever. It is admitted by every European, official or independent, who penetrates the secrets of official life in Constantinople. Mahmoud the Terrible, who destroyed the Janissaries, was not more dreaded than the present Sultan, who dreads every one, even his own Generals. To the farthest corner of his dominions, he is obeyed implicitly, and he has only to issue an order to cast Moussa Bey, the terror of Armenia, into prison, and turn Chakir Bey from the resolute oppressor of Crete into a good-natured pacificator, anxious only that everything should be as it was three years ago. That order will in no degree tend to foster insurrection, for the Armenians are resisting not the Sultan but the Kurds, and are well aware that their time for deliverance is not yet; while the Cretans understand perfectly well that M. Tricoupis wishes them to be quiet, and that aid for them is impossible except through diplo- macy. They are mutinous through fear alone, and if an honest amnesty were proclaimed and enforced, would return at once to their old attitude of patient waiting, until it pleases Providence to deliver them from the Turk. They are not loyal subjects, and never will be, but till their hour arrives they will be obedient taxpayers ; and the Sultan requires no more. With all Europe looking on, civil war is neither his interest nor that of the clan of which he is the repre- sentative. He would be far wiser to appoint a Christian Prince of Crete, and exact a tribute of £100,000 a year, guaranteed by Greece ; but if he prefers the old system, let him have it, on the well-defined understanding that the Christians are to be treated at least as well as horses, and while they remain submissive, are not to be whipped.