LORD BEACONSFIELD'S OPTIMISM.
LORD BEACONSFIELD, when at the Guildhall, is always on tiptoe. He feels thai the citizens of London expect from him a dignity that is at full stretch, and accordingly, even when he wants to say as little as possible, as he did this day week, he says it ore rotundo. He began by reminding
my Lord Mayor" that a year ago a terrible war was waging in the East of Europe, and that "a general fear pre- vailed that the whole world might be drawn into its vortex." This picture of " all the world" drawn into a vortex was a very lofty one. It suggested Europe and Asia, Africa and the two Americas, as mere struggling swimmers in the mighty maelstrom of internecine passion,—" rani nantes
in gurgite vasto," and it did more. For Lord Beacons- field reminded my Lord Mayor that he himself was undismayed by the universal panic. He looked down into the imaginary maelstrom, and resolved that it should never be. "I ventured then not to take so gloomy a view as was then prevalent. I expressed a hope that before we met again there would be a Congress of the Great Powers of Europe, that peace would be obtained, and a settlement made of the ques- tions in controversy, which would be a satisfactory and en- during one." Here the key-note is struck. The clear eye of Lord Beaconsfield had foreseen the calm, while the raging sea was still sucking in its victims. He anticipated peace, because he knew the weight of the influence which he could cast into the scale of peace ; and he was right. Now, moreover, when people are saving that the settlement of Berlin is not a settle- ment, Lord Beaconsfield is penetrated with scorn. The Treaty of Berlin, he says, was signed by all the Powers, with a common object. That object was identical with what he announced two years before to the citizens of London as the object of the Treaties by which Great Britain was bound, and which her Majesty's Government had at heart,— the independence of the Sultan. Like Virgil's Jupiter to the goddess-mother of .2Eneas, Lord Beaconsfield has always held the same language in relation to the inviolate mistress of Constantinople,—"manent immota tuorum fata tibi." While he is of the same mind, what can threaten Turkey ? And he is still of the same mind,—" neque me sententia vertit." " The independence of Europe, and especially of the Mediterranean Powers," was to be secured," so far as England was concerned," " by establishing the Sultan as a truly independent Prince."
Nay, not merely so far as England was concerned, for England had all the Powers of Europe in this matter on her side.
" When we repaired to the Congress of Berlin, that object was equally professed by all the future signatary Powers of the Treaty." That the sincerity of that profession might seem a little doubtful to cavillers, occurs for a moment to Lord Beaconsfield, in the face of the facts. "It has been said that the Sultan, by the regulations of the Treaty of Berlin, has been deprived of provinces and many millions of subjects. Now, the
which fought at Waterloo. The truth is, Lord Beaconsfield is playing his old game. He had decided years since on the first opportunity to cross the mountains which form the North- West frontier, and he is now inventing reasons for his decision. His original determination may have been wise or foolish, on affairs in such a manlier that really the greater part of the according to the reasons not yet revealed, but he persists in it, European territories of the Sultan was the scene of chronic without revealing what those reasons are. That is to say, conspiracy, varied only by insurrection ; it was to extricate he decides on and commences a war not only without the con- the Sultan from this source of constant exhaustion." In fact, sent of the country, but without explaining or intending to the Congress aimed only at cutting out the cancer from the explain the grounds of his decision. He contents himself with Turkish Empire. But then, as every one knows, cancer is an pitching to his audience a few arguments which he thinks will extremely difficult thing to cut out. When you have cut off persuade them that the enterprise is, if not indispensable, at the arms and legs, the cancer suddenly shows itself in some least not very inexpedient, and not at all rash, confident that portion of the maimed trunk. But this probability Lord the enterprise once started, discussion will be at an end. He Beaconsfield entirely ignores. After once the beneficent surgery of . is wise, according to his lights. If on Thursday week Lord Berlin has had its full effect, Lord Beaconsfield, who has steadily Lytton orders war, and shots are fired, no explanation of reasons will be demanded until the war is over. The British people cannot remember history, especially Indian history, and if the Army advances to a triumph will in their elation be utterly careless of the reasons for which the triumph has been secured. Once established as victor in Cabul, Lord Beaconsfield may retire from Afghanistan, or annex the Suleiman, or declare the Suleiman impregnable, without any one of his followers at- tempting to accuse him of inconsistency. For the present, he has decided on war, and whether it is war to avenge an insult, or conquer a State, or rectify a boundary, the nation, once in war, will fight on, undisturbed by the " historical consciences" of critics, statesmen, orators, or writers. frontier, he is compelled to form an army like that policy that was pin-E-iied at the Congress of Berlin was this :—
It was to extricate the Sultan from those ruinous relations with pseudo-feudatories or small tribes, differing in race and religion, but who were the constant and ready instruments of hostile external influences against the Porte, and who carried declared that his object is to save Turkey, will not even admit the possibility of its proving abortive. He insists that the Ottoman Empire will completely recover its health. With" an impreg- nable capital, the custody, guardianship, and possession of the Straits, rich provinces in European Turkey, the most valuable harbour in the Black Sea, and generally speaking, an intelli- gible frontier,"—with, moreover, " twenty millions of Asian subjects constantly improving by their administration in their wealth, their resources, and power, a Prince so circumstanced would have no inconsiderable influence, and could exercise that influence in the maintenance of the political balance." Such is Lord Beaconsfield's optimism. Ho sees in the valetudin- arian of Constantinople a promising convalescent. He sees in the prescription of the Congress of Berlin, a sure recipe for returning health and strength.
Nevertheless, those who are not so sanguine as Lord Beaconsfield do not seem to think that the patient will bear the treatment prescribed at Berlin. They think there is dan- ger of bleeding to death. They think the " rich provinces of European Turkey " are very much in the condition of the provinces just severed from it for their tendency to "chronic conspiracy." They think that the twenty millions of Asian subjects show no symptom of " improving by their administration in wealth, in resources, and in power," and they think that in his "impregnable capital" the Sultan is quite as likely to be in danger of revolt from within as of invasion from without. What has Lord Beaconsfield's grandiloquent optimism to say to these ill-omened anticipations ? Only this,—that as so much has been done since the Treaty was signed towards bringing it into full operation, there is every reason to hope that before the time appointed in the Treaty has expired, all the signs of evil omen will disappear. And he enumerates with a good deal of ostentatious detail what has been done in the four months of peace, towards the fulfilment of the hopes of those Powers who desire to see Turkey once more independent and powerful. Stripped of its circumlocutory eloquence, it comes to this :—Russia has retired from Gallipoli and Constantinople, and has given up Erzeroum, which is to be made into a great Asiatic fortification ; while Turkey has given up Batoum and the Danubian fortresses, and the Commission of Eastern Rounielia is taking steps to organise that province, so that it may be at once independent of the administrative interference of Constantinople, and safe within the military grasp of the Sultan.
Well, all that is very feeble optimism. It was not those who thought lightly of the Treaty of Berlin, but those who thought much of it, who doubted that Russia was sincere in dis- claiming the wish to occupy Constantinople and Gallipoli. We, at least, have always given her credit for sincerity in that matter, and felt sure that when she promised the evacuation of Erzeroum, Erzeroum would be evacuated. Still less did we ever doubt that what Turkey, in the extremity of her weakness, was compelled to resign under the pressure of Russian arms, sooner or later Turkey would resign. What we did doubt was whether any of the provisions intended to revivify the muti-
lated Turkey would take effect,—whether the new Roumelia would consent to be separated from Bulgaria,—whether the
Sultan would recover his authority, and the Government of Con- stantinople regain its steady revenue ; whether Asiatic Turkey would revive under the genial influence of Sir Austen Layard's mild prescriptions,—whether the Greeks in Epirus and Thessaly would accept the situation ; whether, in short, the Power that now " commands time Straits " can
ever become again a genuine Power in Europe. Now, what evidence of this has Lord Beaconsfield to produce ? Precisely none. The one thing decided by the Treaty of Berlin, which there seems to be no Power to carry out, is the one thing on which Lord Beaconsfield most prided himself as restoring independence to Turkey,—the military severance of Roumelia from Bulgaria by the frontier of the Balkans. Four months have not only done nothing towards rendering the result probable, but have done much to show that without active military measures it is impossible ; and that even with such measures, it will be difficult to achieve. The peoples of Bulgaria and Roumelia are hard at work trying to render the resolve of the Congress inoperative. Assuredly Russia will not step in to enforce a provision which she disapproved. Even the Sultan can hardly venture to take the military measures he would naturally sanction—such measures as those of 1876—in the presence of a European Com- mission, and with all the Correspondents of the European .Press watching every bloody massacre. If Lord Beacons- field's eloquence proves anything, it proves that every decision taken to curtail the power of Turkey is likely to be enforced, and every decision tending to restore it, is likely to be a dead-letter. When Lord Beaconsfield pledges England to maintain "to the letter" as well as to the spirit, the Treaty of Berlin, he pledges her to a task at once Quixotic and pernicious. How are we to bid Bulgaria be content to be split in two, if the Russian armies decline to interfere, and the Turkish armies do not dare to take the only measures which would be effectual ? We might as well affect to maintain "to the letter and the spirit " the cleavage in Saturn's ring, or forbid the falling of a meteor into the Sun.
Lord Beaconsfield's elevated optimism takes a happier field, when he assures " my Lord Mayor" that the people of Great Britain are not going to fall into the comparative insignificance of the people of Genoa, of Venice, and of Holland ; that "there is a great difference between the condition of England and those picturesque and interesting communities ;" that England is " more likely to create empires than to give them up ;" and that "the fate of England is in the hands of England." All these are grandiloquent commonplaces ; but as it was not by a policy like Lord Beaconsfield's that the empire was built up, so it will not be by a policy like Lord Beaconsfield's that it will be maintained and enlarged. We have propped up rotten empires before now, and have suffered for it. We have made treaties which it was impossible to fulfil, and have borne the consequent discredit. But the empire has grown by other means, and by other means it will be maintained. By modest aims and large achievements, by rendering help to others almost unconsciously when help was most needed, by half-reluctantly doing the work of the world, and finding, to our surprise, that those who will do the work of the world must rule the world,—that is the way the British Empire has grown up. Lord Beaconsfield's policy is the reverse of this,—a policy of big words and small deeds ; a policy of boast and promise, when performance is impossible ; a policy of patronage without sacrifice ; of menace without meaning ; of pageant without force. That is not the way to sustain or to extend our power, and the first true step in that direction should be a return to modesty,—and as the first step to modesty, the retirement of Lord Beaconsfield.
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