TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE FAILURE OF THE NEGOTIATION.
THE emancipation of the Eastern Christians still depends upon the decision of an Emperor who cannot make up his mind, but to all appearance, Lord Derby has failed in his effort to coerce Russia into giving up the only good work she has ever attempted as a nation to perform. The Govern- ment of St. Petersburg, moved by causes of which as yet the world knows only one, the reluctance of the Czar either to declare war or abdicate, made one more desperate effort to preserve peace without wholly abandoning the Slav Christians of European Turkey. They offered, if Europe would under- take the guardianship of Turkish reforms in an effective way,—by menacing action, if the reforms were not effected,— to await the result of that pressure upon Constantinople, of course without disarming. To disarm when asking Pashas to do justice, is merely to tell them that they need not do it. Lord Derby, who, under Lord Beaconsfield's influence and the adulation of a portion of the newspaper Press, has finally abandoned the pretence of caring about the Turkish Christians, insisted that the threat of action should be abandoned, and when that point also was conceded, demanded that pressure should, in advance, be rendered nugatory by Russian demobi- lisation. This, however, was too much for the Russian Government. They had obeyed the call of their people to put down a flagrant oppression, supported by the mobilisation of the armed Mahommedan caste of Turkey, and to be ordered by Lord Derby to disarm, in order that their armed opponents might do as they pleased, was too galling a humiliation, too clear an announcement that whenever matters became serious, Russia was nothing even in the East. They were, without the smallest reason, except Lord Derby's will —for his will is not the will of England, as he would find, if his Government dared dissolve—to abandon the Eastern Christians, to declare themselves powerless to keep their Emperor's pledged word, and to give up Nicholas of Montenegro, the only living Slav except the Czar who is also a sovereign Prince, and therefore the object of sleepless inter- est in Russia, to the vengeance of his implacable foes. They very naturally replied that they would disarm when Turkey had disarmed, when Montenegro had obtained the terms settled by the European Conference, and when Turkey had commenced the reforms demanded by the English Plenipotentiary. Lord Derby declares this insufficient, and his especial supporters in the Press, the newspapers which profess from day to day to Low everything, but which, during the Conference, knew absolutely nothing, accentuate his refusal by hinting that it is due to a well- founded belief that Russia is treacherous beyond example. There is, therefore, every probability that the negotiations will come to nothing, and that Lord Derby's feeble diplomacy will end in leaving Russia and Turkey face to face, with Russia exasperated by totally needless and indeed wilful insults, with Turkey maddened by excitement, and by the certainty that the British Government cares nothing about Christians—though it is most vigorous in pressing the cause of the Jews upon Roumania and Servia—and Europe in such an attitude of mind that self-respecting Russians think any consequence pre- ferable to continued acquiescence in their present position, that of a nation whose policy depends upon the fluctuations of Lord Derby's mind. That is the splendid result of six weeks of " able and " determined " and " far-seeing" diplomacy, diplomacy which has taken into consideration everything ex- cept the desires of nations, civilisation, history, and God.
There are still five weeks of bad weather to get through, and so, we suppose, there will be plenty more writing, and a good many more chances for the shrewd speculators on the European Bourses; but, meanwhile, a new and unknown factor has entered into the situation. The Pashas have got together what they are pleased to call a Parliament, the Sultan's Secretary has read to it a speech nearly as full of promises as the grand decree in which Abdul Medjid promised equal rights to all classes of his subjects, and in a few days the new Assembly will be in working order. No one knows or even guesses what it will do. That it will represent the people is impossible, for it is entirely composed of the dominant caste, which the people desire to shake off, and the few Christians and Jews upon whose aid the caste thinks,—and till the hour comes, rightly thinks—it can implicitly rely. That it should reform Turkey is impossible, for it can make no laws better than those under which Bulgarians and Bosnians and Macedonians are being killed and tortured, and can find no instruments to execute them except those who set existing laws aside. That it should control finance is impossible, for there is no finance to control, all means being absorbed in remittances to the army, in the expenditure of the Palace, and in huge purchases of war material, especially arms for Bashi-Bazouks, in America. But it will probably do something, and the something will be to accrete to itself the regard of all those who are discontented with the present position of affairs. They are numerous in Constantinople. The fanatics are angry at what they deem the injurious peace with Servia, the soldiers are tired of the maladministration of the supply departments, and all classes are weary of the distress caused by the fall in the value of the assignats now used as currency. The posting of placards is a dangerous symptom in a capital like Constantinople, and we should not be surprised to see the new Council become the nucleus of an agitation which must either be repressed by violence, or terminated by a " spirited foreign policy,"—a declaration of war. It is useless or silly- ever to predict that any definite thing will happen in the East, but with a feeble Sultan, an excited populace, a soldiery- paid in falling assignats, a body of administrators at their wits' end for money, and a " Parliament " with indefinite powers, no experience, and no leaders, all the materials of a catastrophe are accumulated together in the capital, where, and where alone in Turkey, an explosion is always serious. Tension of the kind reported from Constantinople is never borne long, and the swiftest and most certain method of tem- porary escape is war.
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