pro THE EDITOR OP THZ "SPECTATOR."]
Silt.,—I am much obliged to you for your very sympathetic comments on my letter which you were kind enough tb print
in the Spectator of September 5th. Perhaps, as you say that I seem to have left out of consideration the unfavourable change in our position with regard to the Balkan States—a change due partly to our failure to enforce the Treaty of Berlin and partly to the recent • policy of Germany—you will allow me a word of explanation. I did speak of the political
and diplomatic difficulties in the way of interference ; and I fully agree with you and all reasonable people that they are real and great. My reasons for not stating them with any particularity were that I might avoid any appearance of lecturing experts on matters of which I have no special know-
ledge, and that I might not fall into some error or debatable proposition which would give a handle to supporters of a kisser. faire policy. There are plenty of people to point out the
difficulties ; what we want is to make up our minds whether we are going to try to tackle them. They may be insuperable; they certainly will remain so as long as no one stirs hand or foot to surmount them.
Meantime, as the days pass on the chance of any voluntary intervention on the part of the Powers seems to decrease. There has been a good deal of activity on the part of diplomatists and statesmen, but it is rather like that of sheep running about in a frightened crowd trying to find an egress from an enclosure. The total result of their wisdom appears likely to be a warning to Bulgaria not to expect assistance in the event of a Turco- Bulgarian war; and the Government of Great Britain is credited by rumour with reluctance to face even the responsibility of this heroic piece of interference unless all the Powers are in complete agreement!
In every morning's paper we still read of "the balance of criminality." This last word of political cynicism is held to settle the question. You, Sir, have pointed out the injustice of it. Should we refuse to interfere with a murderer because his victim was using savage methods of self-defence ? The Turkish Government has for centuries strangled the Christian provinces; but an English Prime Minister lives in such an exalted detach- ment from the passions of struggling humanity that he is simply shocked to find that the subjects of the Turk are little further removed from savagery than the Turk himself ! But the in- justice of the phrase is nothing to its irrelevancy. What is the criminality of Turk or Bulgarian to us? The inscrutable mysteries of moral responsibility may well be left alone until we have exhausted all our endeavours to remove miseries as plain as they are horrible. I have no more sympathy with people who talk of hating the Turks than with those who talk of hating their subjects. Probably Turks and Macedonians are both committing acts of nameless cruelty in that savage country ; but the worst of either people is of the same flesh and blood, "a man of like passions," as you and me ; and I, for one, am not prepared to boast of any superiority to him except in the all- important article of a happier environment. The only criminality in this whole matter on which the Great Powers are competent to pass judgment is their own; and they have for years prepared a heavy charge-sheet for the day of reckoning. That day will doubtless come, as such days do, when it is least expected. Tis accidental murder of a few Englishmen or Frenchmen, the assassination of the Sultan, any one of a number of possible accidents, may bring on the Turkish question of which we are so much afraid ; and then Europe may regret that it did not deal with that question on deliberate and far-sighted principles.
There is a greater difficulty in the way of England intervening to any purpose in foreign politics than any which I have seen mentioned. We have at this moment only one statesman of any proved mettle, and capable of rousing in the least degree the enthusiasm of the people of this country ; and he has, apparently, started on a disastrous crusade for an impracticable ideal. But there is a greater power in England than any single statesman. If the will of our countrymen were once aroused, we should probably hear little more about England being a negligible quantity in the Near East.
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