CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Cretan Insurrection of 1866-7-8. By William J. Stillman. (Henry Holt, New York.)—This is not a new book (it was written in 1874), and it relates events between eight and ten years old ; never- theless, it is remarkably appropriate at the present time. Mr. Stillman was American Consul in Crete, and was an ardent sympathiser with the insurrection, so ardent, indeed, that his exequatur would have been withdrawn by the Turkish Goyornment but for the active interference of General Ignatieff on his behalf. He regards with the utmost dis- favour the action of the various governments during the contest between Turkey and its revolted subjects, and he expresses in the plainest language his conviction that not one of them behaved worse than his own. England seems to have stood by the Porte, and to have been the actual means of preventing Cretan independence. France was selfish and vacillating. Russia was anxious to weaken Turkey, and equally anxious not to have a strong Hellenic kingdom. Greece went on the policy of "Crete for Greece," not "Crete for itself," "and committed," says Mr. Stillman, "the mistake of counting on European intervention." What he says on this point is still worth reading and considering :— "Greek politics have always had the fault of being based on senti- mentality, and calculating too much on the sympathy of Christendom and classical scholars, neither of which has ever played a noteworthy part in modern Hellenic history, for even the genuine philhellenism of 1821 would have accomplished nothing, had it not been that Turkey stood in the way of Russian combinations. The Greeks seem never to comprehend that Governments are purely political, and never in- fluenced by sentiment or religious affinities. They count that Hellenism and Christianity must always be weighed in the Eastern question, and in this case calculated on forcing the hand of the Christian Powers by these appliances ; while if they had proved that they were capable of conducting the war with energy and good system, preparing themselves meanwhile for a war with Turkey, Europe must have interfered, as a war between Greece and Turkey involved too momentous questions to be risked for so small an affair as Crete, and Christianity might have got the casting-vote in deciding which side interference should favour."
Again and again we find remarks that might have been written yester- day. Thus, for instance, when the arrival of the 4 Arethusa ' brings a sense of security to the foreign population, we are told that "the feeling was so strong among the Mussulmans, that the English were on their side, that the native Christians experienced no benefit from the cause which brought us comparative relief. As for Turkish principles of govern- ment, Mr. Stillman's evidence is plain enough :— "The Turkish rule has never been, and probably never will be, any- thing but piracy,—the rule of the strong hand. The great object of government was to wring from the governed the largest possible amount of plunder ; it is so still. No motive of civilised government has ever yet entered into the head of the Ottoman. The development of a country's resources, even to increase its revenues, has never been thought of. A race of nomad conquerors, holding the land as if it waited the trumpet that should expel it, and could only reap where its predecessors bad planted, but never from its own sowing, it has ex- torted, butchered, and enslaved, without leaving behind it more than its bones to fertilise the soil."
Of course, it may be said that Turkish rule is no other now than it has been for four hundred years. The only difference is that the public conscience will not endure what it endured a generation ago. And if statesmen refuse to see the waking of that conscience, sooner or later it will be the worse for them.
Previous page
