Sir William Harcourt publishes a powerful letter in the Times
of Wednesday, in which he quotes textually the account of the Bulgarian atrocities read by Safvet Pasha to the European Con- ference. The Foreign Minister of Turkey, after declaring that the Bulgarian insurrection was prompted from without, and that there were no regular troops in the province, says :—" Notwith- standing this, the Bulgarian movement in the countries near the Balkans was repressed with an admirable promptitude, and this without blood having been shed, as people have been wished to believe. Quite on the contrary, if the vast scale on which the conspiracy was organised is taken into consideration, the many modes of action which were at the disposal of the conspirators .... we shall be astonished that an insurrection which had desired to convert the whole peninsula of the Balkans into a vast field of carnage could have been repressed and completely brought to nothingness in so short a time, and without a greater sacrifice of life to be deplored." This, as Sir W. Harcourt observes, is an unflinching avowal that all that was done in. Bulgaria was done by the Turkish Government, and an implied,threat that should need arise, it will do the same again. The question, as he also says, naturally follows,—"Is Lord Derby, who demanded epecific redress, prepared to put up with this answer ?"
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