TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD DERBY'S "SUCCESS."
THE "policy of common-sense" has not succeeded, and we are rather curious to see the next ground which the admirers of this Government will take up for their laudations. Hitherto their cue has been to extenuate the misgovernment of the Ottomans, to assume the treachery of Russia, and to extol to the uttermost the "masculine," "unsentimental," and " common-sense " character of Lord Derby's diplomacy. He was not moved, they say, by the popular outcry so wickedly fomented by Mr. Gladstone. He was not deceived by Russian professions of pity for the South Slays. He saw through the shallow ambition of Prince Milan and his Servians. Above all, he kept steadily before him the interests of his country, and undeterred by clamour or threats, he marched straight on to the end, which, in his judgment, was best calculated to secure the direct interests of Great Britain, and the highest interests of the world. He had secured at least one great ally, and if Russia proclaimed herself the "enemy of Europe," she would, in the last resort, be opposed by forces which she, " honeycombed " as she is with secret societies, could not resist without peril to her very existence. It would be found, when the momentary fervour for humanity had passed, that Lord Derby, with his serene common-sense, had saved Turkey, and raised his country to the pinnacle of European reputation.
How do the facts stand ? Has Lord Derby succeeded in stopping by peaceful diplomacy the advance of Russia ? It is admitted that he has not, for the journals which extol him incessantly repeat that Russia is already at war ; that her generals, officers, and soldiers are attacking Turkey ; that "there is no Servia ;" that the landing of 4,000 Cossacks at Deligrad is an invasion of Turkish territory of the most open kind. They assert that Russia is ready to occupy Bulgaria and invade Armenia ; that the Russian army is moving southward ; that Russia is raising a war loan, as before the Crimean war. If there is exaggeration in these state- ments, the exaggeration is theirs, and it does not rest with them to deny that Russia is at war ? So far, then, Lord Derby has admittedly failed. His diplomacy has proved sterile for its first object,—the prevention of actual war. There is war, according to his admirers, and those who do not believe in him cannot deny that if war is not yet declared, it may be expected every day, and that a state of affairs indistinguishable from war already exists. Then there is the second object, the maintenance of an attitude which should enable Great Britain to dictate, or at all events, to strongly influence the ultimate settlement of affairs. How has that been secured ? At this moment, as the result of Lord Derby's diplomacy, Great Britain is probably more isolated than at any period in her political history. She has no one Power on which she can rely as an ally. Prance, as was, of course, to be expected, is unwilling to affront Russia. Germany maintains complete reserve, beneath which it is not difficult to perceive a certain pleasure that Russia should occupy her- self in exhausting work which is not unbeneficial to Europe, and which allows of no alliance with France and no inter- ference with Germany. Italy is, on the whole, Russian in sympathy, hating and dreading Austria, disliking the Turks, and wishing, above all things, not to move unless secure of German support and favour. And Austria, on which Lord Derby so relied that Count Beast was for months a sort of Familiar to the Foreign Secretary, how does she stand ? Ready, according to the last accounts, to remain neutral, or even to assist Russia, if only the Hapsburgs may be allowed some portion of the spoil,—a portion which they covet, because besides its own value, its possession will impart value to all their estates on the shores of the Adriatic. Bosnia in Austrian hands doubles the value of Dalmatia. It was nearly certain from the first that the Hapsburgs would take this line. No doubt it was not Count Andrassy's or Count Beast's, for the Austrian Chancellor is Magyar before all things, and Count Beast is a faithful representative of his official superior, but the policy of the two-headed Empire cannot be fully learned from its official representatives. With a majority of their population across the Leitha Slavic to the heart, with a majority of their officers sprung from the military colonies— which are all Slav—and with an immense proportion of their army of the same race, a war for the hereditary op- pressors of the Slays would always be difficult to the Hapsburgs, and in the present instance the difficulty was increased by every accidental circumstance. The Emperor has not forgotten 1848, or the way his Slav subjects saved his House. He is not ready to rouse Poland, as he must do if he fights Russia. He distrusts the policy of the rival Emperor, who once, as Prince Bismarck himself confessed, in 1866 pressed so strongly the advisability of retaining Bohemia, twice con- quered by the Hohenzollerns. He would declare war on Russia with extreme reluctance, and if neutrality were benefi- cial to his Empire and his House, and if English support were not absolutely certain, he would greatly prefer to remain neutral. There remains no Power which were the struggle to come could support us with a regular army, and for an irregular one, the chance of such aid has been thrown away by the refusal of the Cabinet to demand from the Turks autonomy for the- Christian Provinces. Lord Derby's diplomacy, distasteful to the Ottomans, detestable to the Christians, successful nowhere, has left Great Britain to her own resources, which cannot be used with effect, because the Cabinet, as Lord Beaconsfield fully admitted, is not at one with the country. If Lord Derby had demanded autonomy in full sincerity he would not have had to fight Russia, because Russia would not have coerced her Czar ; or if he had found it necessary to resist Russian ambition, he would have had the hearty support of the English people, whose conscience, and whose pride' and whose jealous distrust of Russia would then have been i).11 on the same side. As it is, he has literally no popular force at his back, no alliance, and no hearty friends, except it be the Turkish Pashas, and those holders of Turkish and Egyptian Stock who fancy that a reinvigorated Turkey might be profit- able to them in the end. Is this diplomatic success ? Is the Government which has landed affairs in this muddle, which has failed to check Russia, which has been, to all appearance, bamboozled by Austria, and which has wilfully put itself out of accord with its own people, a great or even a creditable Government ?
But at least the English name is great at Constantinople. Is it ? Sir Henry Elliot has, it is stated authoritatively, de- manded the punishment of the Pashas most deeply implicated in the Bulgarian outrages, has named them to the Sultan in a personal interview, has used language about them "such as is. almost unknown in diplomatic intercourse," and what is the result That the Turkish Special Commissioner is the guest of the man, Achmet Aga, whom it is his especial business to punish, that the men used for such massacres are transported into Thessaly to recommence them, that the official inquiry is- almost confessedly a farce. The great English Government, which alone keeps Turkey alive, presses with undiplomatic vigour for the punishment of a few criminals—whom the- Divan, if it disliked them, would execute without a reasons —and obtains nothing but fair words. The head of English diplomacy has contrived to create the impression that England must defend Turkey, whatever happens, and even Turks see no particular necessity for conciliating her when she asks disagreeable things. In the immediate- crisis of the straggle, when the keenest interest of Turkey is to conciliate England, the English Ambassador is powerless to obtain a concession essential both to justice and to the strengthening of his chief's hands. Is that a position whicha of itself proves the greatness, and the success, and the calm, immobility of British diplomacy It certainly proves that it is unsentimental, as dead to the sentiment of national pride as- callous to the demands of national humanity. That Conserva- tives should be angry with Mr. Gladstone we can well understand. They would be angry whatever he did or left undone, but that they should extol Lord Derby, that they should think this feeble attempt to avoid war by pottering with Pashas, instead of avoiding it by dictating to Pashas, is a strong and splendi& policy, is to us almost inexplicable. England stands alone, so. lowered in influence that she cannot even secure the fair trial of a Turkish criminal, and if she resists Russia, must resist her alone,—and the statesmanship which has produced that egregious result is extolled as the perfection of calm new It was all Mr. Gladstone and the sentimentalists? Nonsense.. If Lord Derby had done justice to the South Slays Mr. G4- stone would have been as powerless to resist war with øe North Slays as Mr. Cobden was before the Crimean w4 It was because he thought he could make adroitness oompe4- - sate for injustice that he has made a discreditable failure of his diplomatic campaign. We are not sorry that he has failed, for success would have given the Ottomans a new lease of life, however short ; but though failure was best for the world, to fail is not the first business of statesmen.
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