TOPICS OF THE DAY.
TURKEY AND INDIA.
WE should like to know how those who are exulting in Turkish victories over the Russians justify the English reconquest of India in 1857. If they are right in sympathising with the Asiatic against the European, the Mahommedan against the Christian, the polygamist against the monogamist, why did they not sympathise when in 1857 the two systems of civilisation and methods of life were in armed conflict in Mogul Empire ? The Emperors of Delhi were as rulers much better than the Sultans of Turkey. In the whole line of Othraan there is not a name to be compared with that of Akbar, and man for man, the Moguls were just and gentle Princes compared with the Sultans. They were tyrants, but they did not systematise plunder and call it governing. They were fanatics, but they left the Infidels under their rule in possession of all rights, entrusted arms to Hindoo soldiers, raised Hindoo Generals to great commands, and admitted Hindoo statesmen into the innermost penetralia, of the Cabinet. The Grand Vizier and second-self of Akbar was a Hindoo. Their rule was oppressive, but it did not extirpate, and while the Turks reduced Athens to "a dirty village" and Antioch to a heap of ruins, Benares, the most Hindoo of cities, kept its prosperity under the Moguls. They were destroyers, but they founded great cities, and while Turkey has not a building which an architect even remembers, the first architects of Europe stand wondering before the lofty beauty of a Mogul tomb. Every argument which can possibly be adduced for the Turks is far stronger for the people of Northern India. If the Turks are the weaker, so surely are the Indians, who instead of defeating an army of 200,000 men, were beaten by 18,000. If the Turks are de- fending their own possessions, the Mahommedans had the same title to India as the Ottomans to their dominion ; while the historic right of the Hindoos was like that of the Jews to Palestine, imprescriptable. As for character, the Sepoys in their worst excesses never approached the cruelty of the Turks to the Bulgarians. They only slaughtered us down. As for the rights of the majority, the Indians rose against a feeble minority of foreigners, almost imperceptible amid their millions, yet claiming to rule those millions, to hang them, tax them, and regulate their daily lives, without appeal, without election, and during the war without even tacit acquiescence. The Turks are an armed minority crushing the majority without arms. If England derives from her creed, her civilisation, and her obedi- ence to law any moral right to resist expulsion from India, wherefore do we sympathise with Turks, who are defending the social system, the morality, and the method of life which Northern India rose in 1857 to preserve ? The victory of the Turks is the victory, first . of all, of Asia over Europe, of the system which in India we despise over the system upon which we rest our moral claim to deprive two hundred millions of human beings of their independence. The Turks cannot put in one single plea that is wanting to the natives of India, not even courage or soldiership, for the defence of Plevna is not more splendid than that of Coimbatore ; Osman Pasha would be a child before Humayun or Hyder Ali; and it is more than doubtful whether the Ottoman Regulars would drive a. Sikh army from the field. The men who charged so brilliantly up the slope to Fort Nicholas never dared as Moplahs have often dared, and have been proscribed by Act for daring. Yet the very men who are calling day by day for further precautions to defend our Empire in India, who use the righteousness of that defence as their excuse for denouncing Russia, are the men who exult in the prospect that a domination purely Asiatic in its methods, its principles, and in its ends, may possibly continue to endure. And they exult, too, in the domination itself. The hatred of Russia is in great part a mere pretext, for as the war goes on, and rumours that Germany is on the Russian side ooze out, their bitterness visibly increases, till one orator, Mr. George Crawshay, tells an enthusiastic audience that if England attacked Turkey he would rather die in the Ottoman ranks than remain a British subject, and hints unmistake- ably that if Germany marches to the front, the time will have arrived for England to declare war. Not only may not Russia interfere with Asiatic domination over Euro- peans, but Germany may not, nor even England. The thin pretext of doubt whether Russia is civilised is abandoned, and Germany and England—who are civilised, if civilisation exists—are alike refused permission to make Europe supreme. Eastern Europe shall not be regenerated, even if Germany or England essay the task.
It is a strange state of mind, and one which may have con- sequences. If there is one thing certain in the world, it is that if the larger portion of mankind are to advance, are to claim any share in the great heritage of thought which Europe has acquired, Asia and Africa must pass for a time under European control, must acquire from below the Euro- pean ideas, and culture, and organisation. The whole lesson of this war, so far as it has gone, is that this will never be ; that the uncivilised, if only they will defend themselves, can defeat the civilised; that courage is a substitute for all other virtues ; that neither despotism, nor corruption, nor cruelty, nor a bad creed, nor an evil social system, nor any difference of race, nor any habit of wasting man, nor any defiance of progress can affect the power of any people to defy any civilised force that can be brought against it. Only let them be ready to die behind stockades or in shallow ditches, and their right to live as they will can never be impugned successfully, far less overthrown. Asia, and all that Asia re- presents, has only to be resolute, and it will defeat Europe and all that Europe represents. No morality, no extent of political liberty, no creed, no social organisation diminishes force. The strength of Western civilisation is a mere dream, a dream to be dissipated whenever the dreamer has the courage. It matters nothing to an Asiatic clan, once dominant, that its subjects hate it to the death, that its misgovernment has turned great provinces into deserts, that it has given to the world nothing in return for its massacres, neither thought nor action, neither book nor building, neither law nor freedom,— it has only to fight as an otter fights when the dogs have ap- proached its hole, and all will remain unchanged, and all be pronounced by the most civilised and advanced races admirable and indispensable to the world. Was there ever such a scene of mental confusion presented to us as that offered by the men who would war down the world to keep our dominion in India, and yet in supporting the Turk acknowledge that our dominion has no moral base ?
Believing that civilisation has a base other than readiness to go under fire, which most convicts also would show, and capa- city to live in health on dates and water, which all gorillas also possess, we have no fear of the final result ; but if it came, if the Ottoman were ultimately victorious, the impact on the opinion of the Asiatic world would be tremendous. "A fig for Europe!" would Ismail exclaim ; "my troops have beaten the Russians." Why should I be advised?" would the Shah say ; "my Persians have beaten the Turks often enough, and Europeans cannot resist them." "When we conquered India,* will Afghans think, "we were of the same race as the descend- ants of Othman." "Yes, and we were their conquerors," will add the dominant clans of China. The self-confidence of all Asia will be tripled, and will involve all Europe in sanguinary efforts to retain a prestige which is essential, if not to the happiness, at least to the progress of the world. There is not a State in Asia without arms, soldiers, the ability to throw up earthworks, and the desire, if those three things of themselves suffice to ensure safety, to cast off for ever the burden- some and harassing tutelage of civilisation. The dislike of Asia for Europe is not a mere matter of creed, it is also a dislike of Conservatism for restlessness, and extends, more or less, through every race of the continent. If Russia is beaten, Northern Asia is lost to Europe just as it has become accessible. Anglo-Indians observe with surprise that Hindoos are at least as pleased with Turkish victories as Mussulmans, and interpret that strange symptom quite rightly as arising from the latent sympathy of all Asiatics with each other, as against the restless, intruding, unintelligible vigour of the West. All Asia from Pekin to Trebizond feels a new hope in the success of her advanced-guard, in the sudden rehabilitation in the opinion of the world of the Tartar tribe who first taught Europe that the measure of civilisation was not the measure of comparative strength. Asia has nothing to learn from the West, except the best weapons,—that would be the broad lesson of a complete victory gained by Ottomans under Mahommedan leaders over a first-class Christian Power, and those who know Asia best will best under- - stand the influence of that teaching. Yet it is those who have most to suffer from it, the people who have most Asiatic subjects, most Asiatic trade, most wealth, and most people in every Asiatic port, who first of all are exulting that this lesson should be learnt. Surely political blindness has stricken the majority of our countrymen. We write without the slightest alarm, for we have lived through too many wars to believe that this one has ended, or to be daunted by the early successes of the less- civilised side ; but we would ask those of our readers who think still that Russia is " getting a good lesson," to ask themselves what the effect of that lesson will be upon opinion throughout Asia. The fall of Russia, they think, will be for their interest, but what will the rise of Asia be ?
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