BOOKS.

MR. GLADSTONE AND THE GREEK QUESTION.* Tuts is the third volume of Messrs. Bentley's series of " Diplo- matic Sketches." In point of interest and information it is

quite up to the mark of its two predecessors, while it possesses the superior advantage of dealing with what is, par eieeellenee, the diplomatic question of the hour. • It is an admirable hand- book of the Greek question, from its first emergence on the field of diplomatic history down to the present moment. The author writes With a strong Greek bias, and with some degree of prejudice against Russia and the Slav cause generally. But

he states the facts fairly and gives abundant references to authorities, so that his readers have the means of correcting his inferences, if in any case they should think them unwarranted by the facts. The book is, moreover, very well written, and carries the reader easily along to the end. And vet there are a few expressions and turns of thought which incline us to believe that the author, well as he writes English, is himself a foreigner. The following are instances—almost the only instances in the book—of what we mean, and they are, we think, decisive as to the foreign authorship of the book :—" The monstrous

project of transposing the entire population of the Morea."

" Without this timely help thousands would have again perished, and resistance [been] rendered impossible." " Steam factories of all descriptions have sprung up by the dozen, where

their sHuu.,/,',,ib was formerly considered an offence," &c. An Englishman wouhl have said, " the very suggestion of them." " Their very suggestion " means " the suggestion made by them." "To whatever page of the Greek history we may turn," is another expression which an Englishman would not have used. He would either have said " the history of Greece," or " Greek history." We doubt also whether an Englishman would speak of the necessity of creating " a viable Greece." - The expression is

accurate and terse, but it would come more naturally to the tongue of a Frew:lima/4 or of a foreigner to whom French and English were both familiar languages. It is exceedingly diffi- cult for a man to master any foreign tongue so completely as to escape all error when he commits himself to the task of writing a book in it. Mr. Gallenga is an instance to the con- trary, and perhaps Mr. Max Muller also.

But we do not regard the foreign (if foreign) authorship of the book as a flaw. On the contrary, it is a certificate of the

writer's impartiality as between political parties in England. Indeed, he carries his impartiality in that respect farther than we can follow him, as, for instance, in the following passage :-

/ "Both [i.e., Mr. Gladstone and Lord Beaconsfield], there can be no doubt, have in view the same object ; both are steering in the same direction by different channels. Both, unquestionably animated by the purest patriotism, are striving to consolidate the interests and greatness of Great Britain at home and abroad ; one by Imperialism, the other by Liberalism ; one by a centralisation of material power, the other by a diffusion of national freedom ; one by a display of • Mr. Gladotone and the Greek Qaaetion. Leaden; Bentley and lion, 1879.

majestic exclusiveness, the other by an acknowledgment of inter-. national equality. In only one point they coincide, namely, 'in the- sentiment of empire innate in every Briton,' as Mr. Gladstone calls it. And if Lord Beaconsfield intends insuring English prestige in the- 'East by moans of Turkey, we may be sure that Mr. Gladstone wishes

exactly the same by moans of the Greeks Lord Beacons- field's Imperialism and Mr. Gladstone's Liberalism both mean Tory much the same,—i.e., power not for themselves, but for the country.. There is only a difference of temperament between them ; and strange to say, the conquering element is represented by tho cool and cold genius of Lord Beaconsfield, whilst the principle of international conciliation has in Mr. Gladstone a passionate and almost wild advocate."

That is an interesting comparison from, as we take it, a foreigner's point of view, but it is one which both Liberals and Tories in England would hesitate to accept. There are few Tories, we fear, who would admit that Mr. Gladstone's sole aim has always been "power, not for himself, but for the country.' There are probably still fewer Liberals who would make a similar admission iu favour of Lord Beaconsfield. As a matter of plain historical fact, no man of our generation has shown such scorn for the mere possession of barren Parliamentary power as Mr. Gladstone. He has proved on many occasions that office has no attraction at all for him, except in so far as office gives him an opportunity of carrying into effect such measures, or enforcing such policy, as he believes to be right and useful. To be the leader of a party whose main object was to please the constituencies and keep its majority in-. tact would be to him intolerable, as would also be the sus- picion that he no longer possessed the confidence of the country.. When he dissolved Parliament, in 1874, his Parliamentary majority was as large as that of Lord Beaconsfield at this moment. But the ebb of his Government's popularity was marked. by the by-elections, and in his impatience of being• supposed. to be a Minister on sufferance he suddenly appealed to the constituencies. In all this Mr. Gladstone's character is the very antithesis of Lord Beaconsfield's. We are far from saying or thinking that Lord Beaconsfield does not care for the, • true greatness and the real interests of England. On the con- trary, we have no doubt that he would like to make England great, prosperous, and happy. But what his whole career shows is that it is not the greatness of England that occupies the first place iu his thoughts, but the greatness of Benjamin Disraeli. Be wishes undoubtedly to go down to posterity as a Minister who has left England a grander and a happier country than he found it, and we do not doubt that he de- sires this for England's own sake. But we seriously doubt whether he would desire it so much, apart from the, glory reflected thereby on his own name and race. As Mr. Gladstone has been conspicuous among contemporary statesmen for his lofty contempt for office for its own sake, so. Lord Beaconsfield has clung more desperately to office then, any English party leader of this century. In five different Parliaments he has attempted. to lead the House of Commons and govern the country as a minister in a minority. And all through the Session of 1868 he persisted in retaining office,. "by the favour of his Sovereign," against overwhelming votes of want of confidence, oft repeated. In brief, Mr. Gladstone forgets and loses himself in the cause which he advocates. With Lord Beaconsfield, the cause he advocates is always subordinate to the triumph of his party,—that is, of himself. Nor can we agree with the author that " the conquering element is re- presented by the cool and cold genius of Lord Beaconsfield." We see very little indeed of " the conquering element " in Lord Beaconsfield's diplomacy during the last three years. The one feature which is conspicuously lacking in it is sagacious bold- ness. It has mainly consisted of petty intrigue and blunder- ing trickery. It has shown a bold and bullying front towards Afghans and Zulus. It threatened Russia with three campaigns ; and when the time of action came, it pocketed its bluster, and secretly signed away to Russia the pledges it had made to England and to Europe.

The readers of this volume cannot help being struck with the- consistency, on the whole, which runs through the policy and conduct of the Liberal and Tory parties on the Eastern Ques- tion. The former has, on the whole, supported the liberation and the just claims of the Christians under Turkish rule. The latter has, on the whole, opposed them. With the conspicuous exception of Mr. Canning, the Tories of half a century ago pur- sued against the Greeks, but more openly and honestly, the same unworthy and short-sighted policy which their successors have adopted. against the Slays. Then, . as now, the Tory Government did its best to minimise and apologise for Turkish: atrocities. The following quotation, mutatie mi.dandts, would do very well as a criticism for more than one of Lord Beacons- field's pro-Turkish speeches :-

" Though 100,000 Greeks had been murdered at Chios ; though 40,000 wore sold at Smyrna for twelve million piastres, the Sultan taking one-third; though 7,000 were slaughtered in one day, of which 1,000, together with the Archbishop Platon, wore hurled into the sea; though at Neamoni alone 200 monks were beheaded, and thousands of women and children murdered, after the most revolting excesses, Lord Londonderry, in reply to an interpellation of Mr. William Smith (1822), had the heart to call it ' a misfortune which Hada its cause in the cruelties committed on both sides,' leaving to the Czar to remind the Porte that by such acts of blind fanaticism, ` elle so constitue en hostilite ouverte avec le monde chrl5tien.'

And so it was all through the negotiations in the affairs of Greece. The battle of Navarino was hailed in Russia with " as a proof of the solidarity of the three Powers (England, France, and Russia), and as the first stop of a collective and

forcible coercion of Turkey." Frenchmen wore convinced that towards the Porte," la meillure politique est cello dos canons." But the Tories denounced the victory of Navarino as "a viola- tion of the law of nations," and the Tory Government called. it " an untoward event," and lamented it " with profound grief." The Duke of Wellington opposed the liberation of Samoa,

Crete, and Acarnania, because he feared that the maritime importance of Greece would be "injurious to the interests of Great Britain alone." " The Cabinet of St. Petersburg pro- posed that Russia should occupy the Principalities simultane- ously with a naval demonstration by the Allies ; that jointly some material assistance should be given to Greece," and that the Powers should settle among themselves the future organisa- tion of the country. France supported the proposal, but the Tory Government iu England opposed it, as it opposed, to the ruin of Turkey, a similar proposal on the part of Russia two years ago for the pacification of Bulgaria and Bosnia. Austria and England then, as now, joined together to support Turkish tyranny against Christian freedom, and a Greek kingdom was at last extorted from the Porte by the sword of Russia; but cramped by the jealousy of England and Austria within such unreasonable frontiers, that the Greek question is still unsettled, and, by a just nemesis, is still a thorn in the side of • a Tory Ministry. But the Tory Ministry of that day was at least free from the disgrace of having bartered the freedom of enslave 4 Greece, and falsified their ownpledges, in return for a material bribe. Lord Beacons- field found it necessary to have some showy set-off wherewith to pacify the Jingoes, when they discovered the humiliating sur- render of the Salisbury-Schouvaloff Memorandum ; and the freedom of Thessaly and Epirus, and prdbably of Crete as well, was sold to the Sultan for the Anglo-Turkish Convention. This much is admitted, as the author reminds us, even by that ardent admirer of Lord Beaconsfield, the well informed corre- spondent of the rates at the Berlin Congress. (See p. 212.) it has been a singular misfortune to Greece, that in nearly every crisis of her history during the last half-century a Tory Government .has been iu office in England; just as it has been fortunate for Italy that, when her opportunity came, Lord Beaconsfield was the leader of a party out of office, and in a minority.