TOPICS OF THE DAY.
AN ENGLISH PROTECTORATE OF ASIATIC TURKEY. THE Tory papers, among which we must now, alas ! class the Tinier, have evidently received hints to put out feelers about a new and vast project, entertained either by the Government, or as is more probable, by the Premier alone. This is nothing less than that England should assume single- handed the direct Protectorate either of Turkey as a whole, or of the Turkish Empire in Asia. It is difficult to see how the two divisions of the Empire are to be separated, but from the amount of " eloquent " writing about the ruined cities and lost fertility of Asia Minor, from the incessant references to our position in India, and from the studious repetition of the untrue statement that the Sultan will henceforth be mainly an Asiatic potentate, and that it is in Asia he will be threatened, it is evident that some such idea is entertained. English "assistance "—which means money—and English officers, and English energy are to be placed at the service of the Sultan, and by them his Empire is to be re-invigorated, and regenerated, and repopulated, and its "resources developed" and its strength utilised, and we suppose, its Bonds in some way guaranteed. None of the journals state definitely how this great work is to be accomplished, or with what ultimate design it is to be attempted, but they all assume that it is an inevitable task, and one from which this country will not shrink. Most of them, indeed, speak of it with gratulation, as a great gain to the Empire, and a step in that "territorial development" to which manifest destiny always leads a 46 proud and successful" race. The Tinier, indeed, half hesitates, and talks of influencing Turkey through a Resident, whose advice, as in an Indian State, must always be taken ; but the nearer the journal is to the counsels of the Premier, the wider is the scheme, till at last it becomes one indistinguishable from the plan under which Lord Clive at first attempted to govern Bengal, and which he abandoned only under the pressure of necessity.
It is nearly impossible that such a plan should proceed only from the excited imaginations of Turkish Bondholders, eager for a three-per-cent. guarantee, which would give them 10 per cent, on their investments and nearly perfect security. Either all Tory papers have been stricken at once with the same craze, or a dream of the largest kind is entertained—though we do not say it is matured, or has advanced beyond the possibility of the usual smooth, minimising speech from Sir Stafford North- cote—by powerful persons, and amounts to this,—that Eng- land is in future to be invested with some direct authority over Asiatic Turkey, which will enable her to secure good government to its people, to ensure peace, to stop the" further aggressions of Russia," and to neutralise the formidable military position in Asia which Russia acquires by the cession of Kars and Ardahan. It is pointedly stated that the function to be per- formed cannot be performed by collective Europe, that it must be entrusted to some one Power, and that this must be, from the nature of things, either Russia or England, which latter country must have a recognised " position " from which to exert her authority. If this means only that we are going to govern Egypt, we agree without repugnance, because the gain to the world will compensate for the weight cast upon Great Britain, and because the sovereignty of the Isthmus would make India finally secure from maritime attack, until the Australian Republic assumes the place it must one day take in Asiatic waters. But it clearly does not mean this, or why all these eulogiums on the potentialities of Asia Minor ? If it means, as some strange hints seem to render possible, that Great Britain should occupy the Euphrates Valley from the Cilician Gates south-east to the Persian Gulf, then we wait to hear the opinion of experts on what soundsprimci facie a wild project, due to a desire to obtain possession, either direct or actual, of the Holy Land,—a project which will excite all fanatics, alike in Russia and in the Latin countries, almost to madness, and might entirely change the whole course of European politics. But if it means, as it seems to mean, that England should accept a new and direct responsibility for the whole of Asiatic Turkey, and either establish a " Residency " at Constantinople, with irresistible rights of advice and control, or form a European Civil Service, nominally under the Sultan, but really under the Foreign Office, for the regeneration of the Empire on that continent, then we desire, without at first expressing either approval or disapproval, to describe the inevitable conse- quences of either of the two alternatives. The first will fail, as it always has failed. The group of Pashas who make up official Turkey are not seeking the good government of Asia in any European sense, are not anxious to maintain order, and induce prosperity, and promote progress, but are seeking to govern either for their own advantage, or in accordance with the precepts of a creed which secures to none but its own votaries any rights which they cannot defend by force.. They will treat the Resident with the deepest respect, will issue any laws he advises—and he could scarcely improve upon the laws already issued and disregarded—and will go on governing by exaction and tyranny, as before. They know no other method. In a short time, probably a few months, for Arab and Christian Rayah alike have lost their old awe of the Turk, the Pashas will be resisted in the old way, namely, by insurrections, or riot, or flight from the harassed province, and then the Resident must either remain passive—that is, give np, the task of securing good government—or must commit that most terrible of crimes, the crime of using the irresistible- strength of Western civilisation to crush resistance to the oppression of Oriental barbarism. English or Indian soldiers. must reseat the Pashas driven out or threatened for their bar- barities. The latter policy is impossible. It was impossible even a century ago, when men were less moved than they are now by cruelty, when it took six months for a letter from India to reach London, and when years might elapse before a cry like that of the Rohillas against Hastings could call up a defender in the British Parliament. Now, when within a year Asiatic Turkey would be full of British travellers, when the newspaper correspondent is in every city and the Man- chester bagman in every orderly village, when a full Treasury is essential to decent government and oppression at once destroys civilised finance, the truth would be known too quickly, and the system would break down in a year, under an explosion of national abhorrence. Government by Mussulman Asiatics and responsibility to the British Parliament cannot be combined ' • the two civilisations are too different, the two creeds too hostile in principle, the two sets of governing persons too divergent in ideas and aims and educated consciences. The average British Member, once compelled to understand Turkish government in Asia Minor, or Syria, or Egypt, would not endure to be responsible for it for a year, and would either abandon the attempt, or substitute for it—and this would be his course- -direct and efficacious European control. Every Pasha who. governed like a Pasha would be replaced by an English Com- missioner, governing like an Anglo-Indian in a Non-Regula- tion Province. Failure or direct government would be the immediate alternatives, and the second is obviously the one to which the projectors look, and as they want a sound finance to begin with, will probably try from the first.
To that project we have no moral objection to raise. If Asiatic Turkey is to be governed by an English Civil Service, and English commandants of Turkish regiments, and English mayors of municipalities, Turkey and the world will alike be the gainers, but at what a price to England ! She would indeed. be superseding the Turks, but she would be taking on herself a second India, without its complete sovereignty, would have to• guarantee a vast Empire against Russia, to govern a dark population, which under her sway would increase to tens of millions, spread over provinces each of them a kingdom, and to do it all for the benefit of a potentate whose Court would pass its life in endeavours either to thwart her efforts, or to. absorb all the benefit of their results for their selfish or evil luxury. Imagine governing India for the benefit of the Great Mogul! Our forces are to ensure peace, and the Sultan to be- great thereby. Our magistrates are to refill the districts, that conscription may make a Turkish army formidable. Our Collec- tors are to restore prosperity, that an effete Court may revel in unimaginable luxury and caprice. Ten years would not have passed before the country would be weary of such a task,. would cry out that the waste must cease, that the revenues must be spent on the people, that the country regenerated by Englishmen must not be plundered for the benefit of a corrupt. Court. The early Indian system, which endured so short a time that it is not even remembered, would be superseded by the later Indian system, and England would have on its hands a second Asiatic dependency, so placed by nature that it must be garrisoned against Russia like a fortress, and garrisoned by men capable of scientific 'warfare; that its proceedings and its fate would be objects of incessant jealousy to all European States, and that it could be reached only so long as we main- tained by endless fleets the freedom of the seas against the maritime coalitions which France, Austria, Italy, and Russia would be almost compelled to form. Is the "weary Titan" really about to stoop his back to that tremendous burden? If he is, if the Englishman, knowing the facts, having counted the cost, having surveyed the ground, is resolved that in the interest of the world he will govern Asiatic Turkey as he now governs India, that he will run all the risks of the consequent wars, and all the greater risks which his own freedom will incur from the reflex action of Anglo-Turkish ways, we at least shall pause before we resist his determination. There would be a heroism in such an effort, a moral grandeur in such a self-sacrifice, before which mere political judgment might well retire, to bethink itself whether patriotism is the highest duty of man, whether gain to mankind may not justify even risks to England. It is not with reason that one can refute Muller, when he says that, moneyless, he will receive and feed all orphans that come. But we do not believe that the Englishman has decided on any such task, that he sees in the least whither he is being led, that he has even a glimpse of what a separate English Protectorate over Turkey must shortly mean. He sees only that he is to gain a glorious diplomatic victory," and that Mr. Layard is to be great in Constantinople, and as he mistook Plassey for a mere victory, mistakes a Protectorate for a grant of more power, without more work, more responsibilities, or more taxation. If the Tory papers, with the Times at their head, are not talking nonsense, he will soon be undeceived.
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