THE RUSSIAN PERSECUTION OF THE GREEK CHURCH.
(TO TER EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.'] SIR,—Though I am not a supporter of the Government, I do not wish to see them unjustly assailed. The documents about the persecution of the United Greeks in Russia were not published by them, as you seem to think, of their own accord and unsoli- cited. They were issued at my instance, and in compliance with a return for which I moved on March 5. If there is any blame attaching to any one in the transaction, I am the culprit ; it is on me that all the vials of the Anglo-Russian Press should be poured, and I have no desire to evade their censure :— "Ads= qui feel; me, me convertite tele !"
I moved for the return with the deliberate intention of bringing before the people of England the conduct of "Holy Russia," and in order to show how well qualified she is, from her own humane and generous method of dealing with subject-nationalities and dissenters from her national religion, to take up the cause of the Christians in Turkey. That I have not been altogether unsuc- cessful is evidenced by the reluctance of the Daily News and Spectator to approach the subject, as well as by the righteous and manly indignation of Lord Waveney and the Times,—not at the " atrocities " having been perpetrated, but at the account of them having been published, and that in a form which it was impossible to question, and equally difficult to ignore or admit. My Par- liamentary career has been a humble one, but it is at least a satisfaction to have been the means, at the present crisis, of bringing to the knowledge of the public facts about Russia and her policy of which they had been, to some extent, in ignorance. It has always been an axiom of British justice that those who complain of the conduct of others must be able to show that they themselves come into court with clean hands.—I am, Sir, &c.,
OWEN LEWIS.
[We are afraid Mr. Lewis's axiom would exclude almost every existing Power from the right to complain of the foul deeds of any other. Our correspondent imagined our "reluctance ;" which did not exist. —ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
