A great public meeting was held in St. James's Hall
on Tues- day to protest against the further tolerance of the atrocities in Armenia. The meeting was attended by the representatives of almost all the Churches, English and Scotch, and though the impression made was injured by some hysterical, and there- fore foolish, speeches, it was still great, the Duke of Argyll in particular delivering a most important address. He attended, it is said at the risk of his life, to bear his testimony that the governing motive with which the British Ministry enterea into the Crimean war was to place the Christians under the sway of Turkey beneath the protection of the European Powers. The Powers had secured that locus slandi by great sacrifices, and were bound therefore to carry out that policy. We had twice saved Turkey from extinction, and our responsibility for any crimes she might commit in her con- tinued life was therefore perfect. We cannot even think of an answer to that argument, which the Duke stated at length and admirably, and it binds us, if we cannot secure a concert of Europe, to act alone. The point is the way to act alone, and we cannot but recall Mr. Gladstone's argument, that
awing to her position on two continents separated by a strip of sea, Turkey is of all Powers in the world the one most open to naval pressure. Readers who want to know the exact facts should study Canon MacColl's pamphlet, published by Longmans and Co. It is full of official facts, briefly stated, and brings out the point, too often forgotten, that the periodic massacre of non-Mussulman subjects is part of the steady policy of the Ottoman clan.
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