TOPICS OF THE DAY.
ENGLAND AND THE EASTERN QUESTION.
THE Eastern Question is getting beyond Lord Derby's con- trol, and it is some little compensation to the English people for the mortification which their Government's policy has caused them, that it is no doubt in no small degree, as the supporters of that Government complain, the attitude of the English people which has helped to put it beyond Lord Derby's control. The sanguine language which he used on Wednesday,— sanguine, we mean, in the mouth of one who approves the status quo, or the status quo modified by promises as to which Lord Derby himself is, rightly enough, far from sanguine,—would probably not be uttered now. The refusal,—the wise and patri- oticrefasal,—of Servia to accept a mere week's extension of the armistice for the purpose of discussing with Turkey conditions of peace which would not gain any one end for which the peril of war was incurred ; the probability that Turkey, on her part, will not agree to such an armistice as would carry herinto the winter, and render a Turkish invasion of Selina impossible till the spring ; the rapid influx of Russian soldiers into the Servian camp ; and the rapidly growing opinion abroad that the Govern- ment of England does not express the mind of the nation in its trimming Austrianising policy,—are all conditions exceedingly unfavourable to the conclusion of such a peace as Lord Derby has proposed to the Porte. So far as we can see at present, the only influence which could impose such a peace would be the agreement of the Powers to force the hand of Servia by occupying the principality. Such an agreement, however, is exceedingly unlikely. The Czar, pacific though he is, could not afford to concur in a policy which would make him the most unpopular man in his own Empire. Germany assuredly has no wish to take the leading part in deciding a question which she steadily regards as of only secondary importance to her own interests ; and if, per impossibile, she did take such a part at all, it would hardly be in this direction. Austria certainly cannot interfere violently on behalf of Turkey, having re- gard to the vehement excitement of her own Slavonic soldiers and subjects, without the assent and warm co-operation of Russia, which she will not get, for whatever Lord Derby may say, Austria in this crisis will never act alone. Nor will England, we presume, in the face of the popular agitation, venture on a stroke of policy so audacious, so untrue in every way to Lord Derby's precedents, as to join Austria in the infliction of this final blow to Slavonic hopes. So far, then, as we can see, Lord Derby's language on Wednesday is already obsolete ; and looking to the character of his disclosures, —the implicit admission that nothing like independence was intended for any of the Christian provinces of Turkey which are not already self-governed,--and the confession that Lord Derby himself entertained the gravest doubts as to the feasibility of making his own half-and-half proposals in any way efficient,—we can feel nothing but satisfaction that it is so. We know the gravity of the crisis. No one could go beyond us in our dread of war, and especially of a war the limitation of which within a defined area,—a limitation always difficult,—will be far more difficult than in the case of any war of recent years. But yet we feel so deeply that the evils which brought on this war were of a graver and more permanent character than the evil of war itself, and that none of these would be removed, none of them in any substantial degree lessened, by the make-shift terms which Lord Derby appears to have offered to a set of diplomatists who were only too eager to stave off the immediate peril, that we would rather see the war renewed than terminated by a meaningless compromise like Lord Derby's. Our chief criticisms on Lord Derby's speech are these,—first, that he does not rate duly the direct responsibility of England in relation to this war ; and next, that he seems eager to 'under-rate the power of England to affect the crisis, in order to justify the mediocrity of his own aims and the even deterio- rated character of his own policy. Pint, as to the former point, he said to the Guildhall deputation, on Wednesday, as a reason for not calling Parliament together for an Autumn Session,—" The American war and the war between France and Germany were considerably more important, if I may ven- ture to say so, than what is passing now, whether you look to the magnitude of -the operations, to the actual amount of bloodshed involved, or to the ultimate results on the destinies of the world." Now, we will not try to compare those wars with this, as regards the import- once of their "ultimate results on the destinies of the world." It is not very easy to make such a comparison. The wars of nations in the germ are sometimes even more important, though they may be on a much smaller scale, than the wars of nations in their maturer stages. The early wars of Rome were petty enough in their scale, but they were probably more important in their results on "the destinies of the world "' than the Franco-German war, or even the long-enduring wars of Napoleon L And of course, as regards the scale of the wars with which Lord Derby compares this struggle, no. one will deny that that scale was vastly greater than the scale of this little Servian and Montenegrin war up to the present. time. But the need for the advice of Parliament does not in the least depend on the scale of the war, but on the direct re- sponsibity of England in connection with it and for the' negotiations for peace. Can Lord Derby pretend that England's honour and conscience are not infinitely more deeply concerned in the causes and the consequences of this war, and in the. conditions of peace which ought to close it, than they were. in the case either of the American civil war or the France- German war ? Lord Derby ignores the whole point at issue, when he pleads that because Parliament was not summoned' to pronounce an opinion on our duty in relation to those greater wars, Parliament need not be summoned to pronounce an opinion on our duty in relation to this smaller one. We are in great measure directly responsible for the grievances and oppression which gave rise to this war. We certainly were not in any degree directly responsible for the evils which gave' rise to the Civil War in America, or to the Franco-German. struggle.
But the worst element in Lord Derby's attitude is the- eagerness which he displays to Underrate the power of England in the matter, as a sort of excuse for his own.
stationary attitude. His attitude has not always been. so stationary. In 1864, when he was not in power,. he was amongst the severest critics of the pro-Turkish policy. Then he could not understand the pertinacity with which our old-school statesmen insisted on standing by the. Turkish rule. He complained then that we were needlessly making for ourselves enemies among the races which were destinel to become the leading races of the East of Europe. Now it- is Lord Derby who is himself pursuing this very policy. Twelve years have brought him the unexpected opportunity of reversing- it, and of setting the example which he formerly held up as an ideal to others, and here he is sustaining the old policy, to the- full satisfaction of so vehement an apologist for the Porte. as Lord Beaconsfield, and telling us, after snubbing- Russia for proposing political autonomy, that England can- not afford to stand alone. Lord Derby ought to know, if he were as strong a Minister as he is unfortuately the reverse, that no great change is ever accomplished without surmounting very serious difficulties ; but that it is only to the timid and weak that the difficulties of standing stock-still in a moment of crisis like this, seem less serious than the difficulties of directing movement in the right direction. If he had had the heart to take up, as Minister, the policy he avowed when he was in Opposition, he would not, at the- present moment, be pleading helplessly that England could not afford to stand alone. She had the best chance in the world of coming to a hearty agreement with Russia, had not- Lord Derby, listening to the inspirations of Austrian selfish- ness, forfeited his opportunity. But on this at least the country is determined,—that the policy of England shall not interpose fresh difficulties in the way of the freedom and self-government of the Slavonic provinces of Turkey ; and if Lord Derby will not become the representative and spokesman of that resolve, he will be oompelled,—if he continues in office,—to shrink into the mouth-piece of a State which counts for nothing in the diplomacy of Europe, because its Government is paralysed by the popu- lar will, and the popular will by the perverseness of the Government.
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