BOOKS.
CANON MACCOLL ON THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.*
CANON MacCoLL's book is full of interesting reading from beginning to end. Undoubtedly he is often too confident, and takes very decided opinions of his own for absolute certainties ; but that does not make the book less interesting, and perhaps even adds to its interest, though it makes the reader cautious how he surrenders his judgment absolutely to his author's guidance. For example, after telling us what Count Beust's policy for Turkey was,—namely, to coerce Turkey into conceding autonomy to a number of the Christian populations of Turkey,—and remarking that this is the very policy which "Russia and Austria have now, it is said, com- bined to prevent by force of arms," he adds, "I cannot believe that Russia is partner in a scheme which would imply the policy not of statesmen but of lunatics " (p. 24). And again on p. 274, in relation to those Anglo-Indians who credit Russia with a design on the invasion of India, "In order to credit the fears of the Russophobists it would be necessary to assume that the Russians are a nation of lunatics." Now in both cases we heartily agree with Canon MacColl that the policy which he denounces is a foolish policy, and that the Russians would be very foolish to adopt it; but it is one thing to call a policy foolish, and quite another to call it lunatic. Unfortunately the human race is not wise, and as the Canon himself shows in the most admirable way, even statesmen and grave Judges have insisted in the most emphatic fashion on resisting the most obvious and reasonable of reforms (pp. 270-71), so that Canon MacColl's " lunatics " form a very considerable proportion not only of the ordinary populations of the earth, but even of the chosen men who guide the policy of nations. And this being so, it is impossible to assume that nations will not act in a way that we should call foolish, and that Canon MacColl would call lunatic. Nothing can prove this better than the extraordinary reluctance of the Great Powers who profess to wish to postpone as long as possible the partition of Turkey, to adopt the only policy which would really postpone that event,—namely, the removal of the present Sultan and the substitution by the Concert of Europe of some member of his family who would consent to be guided by European advice. As Canon MacColl insists, that is the only policy which could delay materially the great crash. The present policy of iniquity, cruelty, and massacre is precipitating that final crash with every year and every month. And yet almost all the Great Powers appear to be combined to resist the only course which would delay the catastrophe. Are we not bound, then, to answer that what the Canon calls a policy of "lunatics," is not less but rather more probable than a policy of sagacious fore- sight ? In point of fact, though we do not doubt for a moment either that Count Beast's policy for Turkey was wise, or that a Russian invasion of India would be exceed- ingly foolish, we do not on that account regard it as either the more probable that the former policy will be adopted, or the less probable that Russia may some day invade India, though the Canon holds such an invasion to be the policy of lunatics. European statesmen are not lunatics, but they are many of them very selfish and very shortsighted; and what we have to expect is that in the general way they will act from selfish motives and without any keen calculation of the consequences of what they do.
The great interest of this book is due to Canon MacColl's familiarity with all the ins and oats of European policy on the Eastern question. He can give us all the precedents for united action and for solitary action, show us how the
• The Sultan and the Pmeere. By the Rev. Canon MaoColl, M.A., Canon of Ripon. London : Longmans, Green, and Co.
mutual jealousies of the Powers have embarrassed the solution of the question, and how far each separate Euro- pean State has at times advanced that solution, with or without the co-operation of other Powers. What he does not show us is why both Lord Salisbury and Lord Rosebery have evidently taken a kind of alarm at the prospect of England's isolated action, which is almost a new feature in the Eastern question. When Mr. Gladstone proposed to seize Smyrna, and thereby compelled Turkey to execute her engage. ment to hand over Thessaly to Greece, the other Powers looked on, if not complacently, at least acquiescently, but now Lord Rosebery, who on March 3rd was evidently in favour of England's solitary action against Turkey, rather than of no action at all, expresses his profound conviction that solitary action would be pure madness. And Lord Salisbury, who at the Lord Mayor's banquet of last year evidently sup. posed that all the Powers were going to support the action of England, is now as deeply convinced that England must follow the lead of other Powers, if she is not to bring on a general war, as Lord Rosebery himself.
There must be some ground for this sudden and rather startling change of attitude, and though it is hidden from us, it naturally makes us less inclined to regard solitary action on our part as altogether the natural and easy course which Canon MacColl regards it. Very likely it would be right, and very possibly it might be successful. But surely it must be risky, with so marked a change of attitudo not only in our present Foreign Minister, but in the Foreign Minister of the Opposition too ? It is not easy to imagine that so very great a change of attitude is not due to the appearance of some conspicuous peril not as yet visible to the nation at large. It may be right to face thin peril, but it can hardly be right simply to ignore it. We ought to know exactly what it is. Canon MacColl discusses Lord Rosebery's change of attitude very acutely, and ascribes it to an erroneous interpretation of Prince Lobanoff's state. ments in August, 1895, which he shows not necessarily to have meant nearly so much as Lord Rosebery supposes them to have meant. But what he does not explain is why Lord Salisbury's attitude has also changed so ranch since the beginning of this year. On November 9th, 1895, Lord Salisbury's attitude was confident and peremptory towards the Sultan, but since the opening of 1896 it has been in the highest degree cautious and uncertain. That is the one point on which Canon MacColl's very acute and interesting book throws no light. And it is a point on which English politicians will greatly desire some light.
Of Lord Rosebery's policy in its relation to Armenia
the very interesting sixteenth and seventeenth chapters oS this volume give us a fall narrative, and a more humiliating story it would be hard to imagine. When Lord Salisbury left
office in 1892 he had just demanded the punishment of Hussein Agha, who had been guilty, as Madir of Patnoss in Armenia, of a long list of ghastly outrages against the Christians. The Sultan replied to Lord Salisbury's demand by giving the wretch a high command in the Kurdish cavalry, and raising' him to the rank of Pasha. This was the condition of things when Lord Rosebery's Government came in in 1892. Canon MacColl gives the history of that Government's proceedings in reference to the Armenian question. It did not resent in any practical way the Sultan's insult to the Queen's Govern- ment in the promotion of Hussein Agha for his many and violent outrages on the Armenians ; it did not publish the frightful Consular reports received from Armenia ; it did allow the Sultan to transform the commission of Inquiry into the massacres into a purely Turkish Commission of Inquiry into "the criminal conduct of Armenian brigands," so turning the real relations of the facts upside-down, and proclaiming to all the Turkish world that the victims were the offenders and the offenders were the victims. And t'zen, instead of following the Italian Government in its indignant with- drawal from such a travesty of the inquiry, it went on pressing• upon the Sultan the prosecution of this inverted and perverted' inquiry. And yet Lord Rosebery (in the March after he left- office) represented this inquiry as something of importance that had been squeezed out of Turkey on which a seheme or reforms could be based :—
" But the British Government, for some inscrutable reason. which I cannot fathom, clung to the Commission and the reforms, as if they believed them to be an infallible panacea for the wrongs of Armenia. Thus Lord Rosebery says, in his Eighty Club. speech last March : 'We had obtained with some difficulty from the Sultan a Commission of Inquiry into the massacres that occurred, on which Europe was intending to form an authoritative opinion as to whether they had occurred or had not occurred, as the Porte alleged, as the act of the Ottoman Kurds, or on the provocation of the Armenians themselves, as the Porte also alleged. Until we obtained that information we were not in a position to take action, and I say, then, that our connection with the whole of that investigation ended when we were still in process of negotia- tion. We had already obtained the concurrence of France and Russia in our policy ; we had already obtained the concurrence of France and Russia in our scheme of reforms ; and I may add that that it was not till two months after we left office that Russia made this solemn declaration to which I have already adverted [against coercive measures]: My entire belief in Lord Rosebery's sincerity makes this passage very hard reading for me. It is— like his interpretation of Mr. Gladstone's Liverpool speech—an example of his faculty of reading into acts and words, not what they really contain, but his own preconceived notions on the subject. After being himself an ardent advocate of separate action, it suddenly occurred to Lord Rosebery that separate action would lead to a great European war' ; and so, without pausing to consider whether there might not be various kinds of separate action which could not possibly lead to a European war, he fell upon Mr. Gladstone's exceedingly moderate and well- guarded speech as if it were a challenge to mortal combat flung in the face of united Europe. So here he reads into the Turkish Commission and the scheme of reforms, not what was in them, but what he wished to see in them. We had obtained with some difficulty from the Sultan a Commission of Inquiry into the massacres that had occurred.' In matter of fact, they had obtained nothing of the kind. What they succeeded in obtaining was a Commission to inquire into the criminal conduct of Armenian brigands,' coupled with an absolute denial of the truth of massacres' A Cabinet Council was called to repel that slap in the face from the Sultan, and the repulsion took the form of a mild expression of surprise and regret.' And when the Sultan peremptorily refused to alter the purpose and scope of the Commission, the British Government accredited a special delegate to accompany the Commission, and prevailed on France and Russia to follow its example. Italy refused to do so, as incon- sistent with its self-respect. Was not the Sultan justified, after that experience, in believing that the British Government would, for the sake of what it believed to be British interests, meekly stand any amount of kicking? Yet Lord Rosebery sincerely believes that a Commission, sent by the Sultan for the publicly avowed purpose of absolutely disproving the reports of massacres and finding the Armenians guilty, would enable Europe 'to form au authoritative opinion as to whether' there had been any massacres at all ! And all this time the Government had their own Consular reports, confirmed by Russia, Italy, and Austria, that there was no doubt at all about the massacres. Nor is it quite accurate to say that the Government obtained the con- currence of France and Russia in their scheme of reforms.' France followed Russia as a matter of course, and Russia declared the Commission useless, and the scheme of reforms unworkable' and ' objectionable,' though she gave a qualified assent to both, to oblige the British Government."
It is hardly possible to exaggerate the wretchedness of this policy. But so far as we have the means of judging, the causes (whatever they were) which were at work under Lord Rosebery's Government, to prevent a complete rupture between Turkey and the Powers, must have continued to be at work for the last year and a half also, since we have come to no more satis- factory conclusion under Lord Salisbury than we came to under Lord Rosebery. Surely there must be some graver explanation of this complete paralysis of our Foreign Office on the Armenian question, than Canon Ma.cColl is prepared to admit. He repeatedly tells us that if we had withdrawn our Ambassador in wrath at some one of the repeated insults which the Sultan has put upon us, Turkey would have been frightened and would have given way. But that surely depends on the attitude of some others of the Powers. If the Sultan had felt sure that he would be supported by some of the greater Powers and that a quarrel between England and those Powers would ensue, we do not see that the withdrawal of our Ambassador would have had any effect except to leave us unrepresented in Constantinople, and to make Turkey rather more secure than before of the astuteness of her policy. The whole object of the Sultan has been to foment a quarrel between England and some one or more of the Powers who are jealous of England. And we do not feel at all sure that the mere withdrawal of our Ambassador, if in view of the attitude of other European Powers, we were not prepared to go further, might not have played into the Sultan's hands. We cannot think that the prolonged hesita- tion and forbearance of England in this matter, can be explained without assuming a knowledge on the part of our statesmen of the existence of some great danger in the back- ground which is not visible even to Canon MacColl's eyes.
The book, however, is full of instruction on every aspect of the Armenian question. We have made no reference to the Canon's
discussion of the question whether the claim of the Sultan to be also Khalif can or cannot be sustained, because experts appear to differ on the matter, and the present reviewer has no sufficient knowledge of the subject to judge between them. Canon MacColl is himself an expert, and gives a very confident judgment that the Sultan has no religious authority over Mahommedans without the signature of the head of the Ulemas,—or the Sheikh-ul-Ishim. Luckily, on that question it is not essential for English statesmen to [pass any authoritative opinion. But on that as on various other outlying questions the book before us contains very interesting discussions. And in any case it draws a picture of the impotence of Europe in relation to the frightful barbarities of the Sultan, which is at once astounding and disgraceful. One would have supposed that for the obviously useful purpose of saving the status quo against violent collapse, the Great Powers of Europe would have found it absolutely necessary to put down all this hideous anarchy and massacre, with a strong hand.
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