"PRACTICAL POLITICS" IN MACEDONIA. IT is not only a moral
question, as the four Bishops who have written to the Times seem to think, which is involved in our desertion of Macedonia. There is a moral question, no doubt, and a very grave one, for it was we who in 1855 gave the Turk a new lease of his right to devastate, and we who in 1878 handed the Macedonians back, after they had been rescued, to their horrible slavery under a Mongol tribe. It is our conduct, therefore, that is responsible for the scene now visible in Macedonia,—the extirpation, with every circum- stance of outrage and wrong, of one of the most ancient, and potentially most capable, of the European peoples, by order of a ruler who twice before has pursued with im- punity for himself the mane fiendish policy. Still, the moral offence of theft consists in the wish to steal, and as the British people have no wish that Macedonian women should be outraged or Macedonian men slaughtered out, it is not unnatural that they should be slow to perceive their moral responsibility for the infamies now in progress. But besides the moral question there is a tangible question involved, one which Ambassadors can discuss and the most callous statesmen admit to.be important. We are helping to destroy the power of collective Europe to keep peace within its own borders. That power rests upon the belief of all wronged peoples that the great European Tribunal —the " Concert," as it is called—will when appealed to be fairly just and merciful, will protect civilisation as understood by Christians, will at all events prevent great crimes such as the extirpation of a people or their sale into slavery. If it will not so act, then there is for the oppressed no hope save in armed rebellion,—that is, in a civil war differing from every other in that the laws of war will not be observed, and the governing caste, by employing extir- pation and outrage as weapons, will teach the oppressed caste to regard. atrocities merely as " reprisals." It was thus that the Conservatives of Southern France justified the hideous cruelties which accompanied their return to power. They had suffered from the Red. Terror, and therefore they held. that the White Terror was excusable. The Concert of Europe in refusing to act is, in fact, announcing to the whole East that " the police is with- drawn," and that the castes are at liberty to kill or torture each other at their own discretion. Imagine that pro- clamation issued by the civilised Governments in their own dominions, and the scenes that would. follow in all great capitals, where, nevertheless, the people are not armed, are not inflamed with religious hate, and have not been demoralised by centuries of an Asiatic domination main- tained, as Mr. Brailsford has shown, for purposes of pillage. Even as we write the consequences of that withdrawal are manifest, for the Bulgarian Ministers are informing the Powers that as they, as supreme police of Europe, refuse to intervene, no course remains to them but to prepare for war, and accept the consequences. They would, they declare most rightly, rather lose their national existence than sit quiet and watch the extirpation of their kinsfolk. That war once declared, the waters are let loose, and Europe can only say : " We have permitted the flood, and must now set up new dykes,"—over which every Power will quarrel.
This brings us at once to what are called. "practical politics." No statesman doubts that Russia and Austria can if they please terminate the hideous scene in Macedonia, either by a joint occupation in force, or by sending an international squadron with instructions, if the orders of Europe are not obeyed, to shell Yildiz Kiosk ; and very few doubt that but for certain apprehensions decided measures would be adopted. Neither Russia nor Austria wishes the extirpation of the Macedonians, if only because Russians regards them as co-religionists, and Austria as men who might be assistants in her march to Salonica. One of the apprehensions in question is, no doubt, of Germany ; but Germany will not go the length of resisting the Concert, and may be left for the moment out of the question. The other, and the more operative one, is dread that when the work has been done, and the sacrifices made, Great Britain and France will combine to.
deprive the executive Powers of . all profit from their beneficial undertaking. We have done that before, and the iinpression in Russia is that we shall always do it, that we shall tolerate any crime or any oppression rather than admit of any Russian expansion. The belief is not unreasonable, for there are hundreds of men among us who lay that down as dogma, and who would see. the whole population of the Balkans destroyed by the Sultan rather than that Russia should. so much as threaten Constantinople, which they, in defiance alike of history and geography, .believe to be the key of India. The British Government, however, is under no such illusion, and can if it pleases signify to both St. Petersburg and Vienna that if the joint occupation of the Balkans is necessary, or a marine demonstration against Turkey, the British people assent to the former, and will give material aid towards the latter. France, which is growing excited over the accounts from the Near East, will, we believe, join in this representation ; while Germany will not resist, except possibly in secret. The two executive Powers will then be released to act ; the Sultan will withdraw his troops from.Macedonia ; a Christian Governor-General will be appointed, protected. by the Powers, and made irre- movable; and one more province will have been rescued from intolerable suffering. The question of the ultimate fate of Macedonia will be postponed. till it is seen clearly that Macedonia has regained prosperity, and there will be peace instead of war. The Concert will, in fact, have succeeded in its proclaimed object, and have justified. its frequent appeal to itself as the ultimate Tribunal in the Western world.
But suppose there is war ? There will be no war, for the ruling Mussulmans understand. that they cannot resist col- lective Europe ; but supposing there was war, that the Ottomans, who are soldiers by instinct and very brave, should in their wrath at their coming expulsion from Europe declare war on the Powers, or thatAustria and Russia should come to loggerheads over Macedonia as Austria and Prussia did over Schleswig-Holstein, what then ? We maintain that even that contingency is far better for mankind than another relegation of a European people to an Asiatic tyranny. The losses, whether of life or treasure, caused by war are temporary ; the losses caused by the reduction of a people into slavery endure for generations. That is the point at which so many of our countrymen miss the truth. They count the heads of the fallen, and declare that as the number of the slain will be in any case equal, they will do nothing to free Macedonia that may involve war. They forget that defeat for the Macedonians by the methods now employed involves not only the slaughter of tens of thousands within the next few weeks, but the extinc- tion of a whole people as human beings for the many generations during which they will be unable to rise again. They forget that his victory will confirm the Sultan in his policy of extirpation as the easiest method of suppressing insurrection, and that he and his successors will be emboldened to slaughter out any race, whether Armenian or Arab, which ventures to throw off his detested dominion. And lastly, they forget that Europe, in confessing itself too weak, or too divided, or too callous to secure peace within its own dominion, releases all the elements of disorder within at least two continents, which will have a right to believe that if in so extreme an instance as that of Macedonia the masters of the world refuse to interfere to protect Europeans, they will not interfere to protect them in Anatolia, or Egypt, or China. The police, as we have said, are withdrawn, and the burglars will take advantage of their magnificent opportunity. At this moment the Macedonians are perishing, the Mussulmans are growing furious against Christians, and all Eastern Europe is in dread or suffer- ing because the Powers allowed the Armenians, whom they had promised. to protect, to be slaughtered in thousands with impunity. And even the Armenians were not extirpated, as the Macedonians will be.
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