Mr. Layard appears to have become as pro-Turk as Sir
Henry Elliot. In sa despatch to the Foreign Office, dated May 30, and of course eagerly welcomed by the Mahommedan Press, he not only declares that the Bulgarian atrocities of last year were grossly exaggerated for Russian purposes, but affirms, " There are persons, and among them, I grieve to say, Englishmen, who boast that they invented these stories with the object of writing down' Turkey, to which they were impelled by a well-known hand." The only " persons " whose stories weighed with English- men are Mr. Baring, Mr. Schuyler, and the Daily News' corre- spondent. Does Mr. Layard charge those gentlemen with wilful falsehood, or not ? Mr. Layard further complains that while Russia is active in the Press, the Turkish Government takes no pains to put forward its case in the same way, and he implies, is not defended in the English Press. There never was a Govern- ment which had such devoted defenders among English journalists, —defenders who will circulate any statement, provided it be to the disadvantage of Christians. The Turkish Government, how- ever, does not need them. Could it have by possibility more earnest, more devoted, or more widely-read defenders than suc- cessive British Ambassadors, aided by more than half of all the Consuls under their authority?
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