MR. FORSTER AT BRISTOL.
THE Colston Anniversary at Bristol would this year have had little interest for the country, but for Mr. Forster's speech. The Tories at the Dolphin were fobbed off with Mr. Stephen Cave, who, though a Privy Councillor, is not even a Cabinet Minister, and who made a silly speech, intimating that the Liberal party, whose leader is heir to the Cavendish estates, sympathise with those who would "divide the land,"" turn all permanent pasture into arable," and " confine all game to pens and closes ;" and the Liberals at the Anchor were addressed by only one man of Cabinet rank. Mr. Forster's speech, however, was the most noteworthy of the Recess. He travelled over the -whole region of home and foreign policy, and upon each he had something sound and definite to say, something which had guidance in it for the country, as well as encouragement for his own immediate party. As regards the war, though he, like Mr. Gladstone, maintains, as we think in the teeth of evidence, that the Christians of Turkey could have been freed without war, if England had only maintained the European con- cert, and is too complimentary to the action of the Govern- ment, which, though it has abstained from assisting Turkey, has allowed the Premier to manifest his deep sympathy with the Pashas, he repudiates the weak desire for a peace at any price, a peace which shall arrest bloodshedding by reinvigorating tyranny, and demands that the Turkish misgovernment of Christian subjects shally finally cease. No peace, he declares, can be lasting which does not involve that cardinal condition. And Mr. Forster does not mean by this demand a new Treaty,in which the Pashas shall again promise to govern fairly, a promise which they would be delighted alike to give and break, but a substantial political change, a change which can hardly be so large as to alarm him, for the most decisive change of all, a change in the sovereignty of Constantinople, would be received by him with satisfaction. He believes, with the Duke of Wellington, that the best successor for the Turkish Empire would be the Empire of Byzantium. " We hear men say and we read in the papers, Oh, rush to war at once, in order to prevent the possibility of Constantinople being occu- pied 1' But what did Lord Derby say, and what does the Government say at this moment ? 'Her Majesty's Govern- ment is not prepared to witness with indifference the passing into other hands than those of its present possessors of a capital holding so peculiar and commanding a position.' Well, no Englishman could view it with indifference. If the war should end in the defeat of the Turks, I should not look with indiffer- ence, but with very great pleasure, on the possession of Con- stantinople by the Greeks." That sentence was, we rejoice to say, received by the audience with loud applause, and its mean- ing is unmistakable. Mr. Forster, a man studiously moderate upon all foreign affairs, so moderate that we have ourselves reproached him for too great a tendency to compromise, has contemplated the total extinction of the Turkish Empire in Europe, and contemplated it with heartfelt pleasure. Mr. Forster does not speak of bag and baggage, or give vent to his horror of Turkish oppression, or strive, as Mr. Gladstone has striven, to fire the national heart, as his own has been fired, against the cruel race which now misgoverns Turkey, but he coldly pronounces for a policy which involves the extinction of the Pashas' authority in Europe, and the substitution for it of a comparatively civilised rule. And we may be sure that although, with every man who has read history, Mr. Forster thinks that the Greeks have the first claim, he would raise but slight opposition to any arrangement which secured the cardinal con- ditions,—the expulsion of the last Asiatic horde from Europe, and the replacing of their European provinces under a tem- perate, progressive, and Christian Government. Whether the King is a Dane, an Englishman, or a German is a trifle, in the face of that grand result, of the admission that Englishmen ought to sympathise with the Russians, at least so far as the total defeat of Turkey is concerned. How far further we could sympathise must depend upon events, but Mr. Forster pointed out strongly and truly that the defeat of Europe by Asia would be at least as threatening to our power in India as the occupation of Erzeroum. Of course, that result will not be acceptable to the Tories, who now hardly conceal their wish that the Turks should re- tain their dominance, admiring them all the more because they have shown that the cruel are not always cowards ; but Mr. Forster does not believe that Tory supremacy will last in England for ever. He is more hopeful than the majority of his followers. The Liberals• sustained, it is true, a great defeat at the last elections, but it was a defeat inflicted by very small majorities. In 1868 the Liberals had a majority of 90 in England and Wales. A change of only jive per cent. would turn the present Liberal minority of 115 in England and Wales into a majority of 45, which with the Scotch majority would make, we may remark, a Liberal Cabinet almost safe, even if the Irish Catholics should act upon the unwise threat they have so often held out, and should join the party to which no doubt every " Ultramontane," whether he calls himself Catholic or Orangeman, logically belongs. A change so small may occur at any moment, would have occurred now, if the country understood thoroughly what kind of a government it is that Tories support in Turkey ; and there are domestic reforms which, if the country begins to care about them, may at once secure the necessary support. Upon this subject Mr. Forster is as distinct as it is possible to be. Tories all over the country are repeating that Liberals are dis- united, that they have no programme, that they are out of harmony with the people, who are proclaiming in every sort of way that they want nothing. Well, says Mr. Forster, there are at least two measures of the first importance which are obviously for the good of the country, and upon which the Liberal party is united, and those are County Suffrage and the creation of Rural Municipalities. It is said that both may be taken up by the Conservatives, but there is little chance of the Conservatives taking up either in earnest, or in the true progressive spirit. They will want to maintain the power of landlords, and will not be willing to affront the farmers, who elect their county Members, by conceding to their labourers votes. The reform must be guided, if not introduced, by Liberals, and will have effects important enough to form a new object for the party which advances, and which has now re- solved, through its chiefs, to complete the Reform measure of 1867.
We have no desire to exaggerate the immediate effect of the programme thus outlined by Mr. Forster. We are quite aware, and have repeatedly stated, that for the present the majority of the country is under the impression that Liberal work is done, that there is nothing to work for, and that Englishmen may sit still and watch foreign affairs through their newspaper lorgnettes, in tranquil enjoyment of an excitement which is a great deal too like that afforded by the ancient Arena, in which gladiators less savage than the Turks died for the spectators' entertainment. The country is not yet anxious for county reform, or decided in its own mind as to what it desires should happen in the East of Europe, It is only clear that it will not go to war with Bashi-Bazouks for allies. But this state of opinion cannot last, and what we desire to point out is the distinctness and breadth which the Liberal programme is gradually attaining. Mr. Forster is not a orotchetty Liberal, full of his own ideas, and though ready to work with others, determined first of all that hie: individual opinions shall be heard. He is a man weighted with all the responsi- bilities which oppress a man so near OA Leadership, singularly moderate, both in opinions and in action, and disposed to dis- play towards Tory instincts, if not towards Tory ideas, a tender- ness which sometimes makes extreme Liberals furious, and he lays down as the policy of the party a scheme which covers the whole ground alike of foreign and home affairs. If the Turks are beaten, as they will bo beaten, then the policy for Liberals is to secure for Turkey in Europe the best possible Christian Govern- ment not Russian, the Czar being repaid, we assume, for his sacrifices in the right cause by cessions in Asia and the free navigation of the Dardanelles. When, this question being settled, the country again turns to home affairs, the Reform Bill of 1867 must be perfected by the grant of household suffrage in the counties, whether with redistribution or without it, and rural life reinvigorated and made more active and many- coloured by the construction of rural municipalities in which the people, heretofore governed by the gentry, may learn to govern themselves, with the aid of those gentry as their leaders. Of course, such a programme will be detested by many classes, and roundly abused by a portion of the Press, and it is not our wish just at this moment to defend it by argument. All we desire is that the country should see that however divided or uncertain. Liberals may be, the Liberal leaders are prepared with a sufficient and a definite programme of immediate action.
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