THE POSITION IN MACEDO T HE condition of affairs in the
Near East b4omes more and, more threatening. Amidst the shower of lies— most of them deliberate—which arrive daily from Con- stantinople, it is becoming clear that the general insurrec- tion in Macedonia so long predicted has at length broken out, and that the Turkish Government is approaching the end of its resources. It wastes men lavishly, filling their places with repeated levies of its Reserves; but those Reserves are not innumerable ; the insurgents, especially the Bulgarian section of them, fight with the stubbornness displayed at Slivnitza ; and the Turkish troops, unpaid, scarcely fed, compelled to fight in scattered detachments, and owning no ground except that they stand on, make no headway. They do not create the impression that victory over them is impossible. When they capture a village they resort to extermination • but most of the young men are in the mountains, and the massacre of old men, women, and. children only increases the energy of the resistance. Death is much easier than submission to hordes of Asiatics maddened by privation, by overmarching, and by Mussul- man pride. The pressure at Constantinople, therefore, becomes terrible, and the Sultan may be offered at any moment the option of war with Bulgaria or deposition. The absence of Prince Ferdinand from Sofia, whether due to his personal fears or not—and cowardice among Princes is so rare that we are slow to believe the imputation— renders the crisis more acute, for the Bulgarian "states- men," who are half frenzied by the accounts which reach them every day from Macedonia, where their own kinsfolk are being murdered and tortured wholesale, may think war safer than popular insurrection, depose their Prince, find some one of the Stambouloff type for virtual Dictator, and add fifty thousand brave and drilled men to the force of the insurgents. It is this danger, as we conceive, which has induced the Czar to order a squadron "into Turkish waters," and keep the crews of his fleet of transports ready in'Odessa. It is Bourgas, not Constantinople, which is Count Lamsdorff's objective, the Government of St. Petersburg not being willing either to lose its veto on proceedings in Sofia, or to see Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Roumelia, free themselves without its armed assistance. The Russian people, too, are already beginning to stir. They, know very nearly what is going on, the experience of ages prompts them to disbelieve all Turkish dgmentie, arid already their voices are so audible that the Russian Government, besides warning the Press against free dis- cussion, has demanded of the Sultan the punishment of the officials responsible for atrocities in Monastir and two other vilayets, or counties as we should call them. There is at the same time much unrest in Vienna, partly caused by fear lest the Servian Army, which is at loggerheads with Sing Peter, should rush into Old Servia, and partly, perhaps, by urgent advice from Berlin, where the Emperor, in pursuit of his world-policy, is anxious that the Sultan should for the present be protected. The Greek Govern- ment also sees hope in the confusion of putting in its historical claim to Macedonia; and altogether the welter is such that a single diplomatic blunder, an " incident " at Cpnstantinople, or the appearance of a leader among the insurgents may produce a great, and at first very con- war,—to end, in all human probability, in a par- tition of 'European Turkey. It is possible, of course, that matters may go far otherwise, the two Great Powers who, as Mr. Balfour says, are most nearly interested being afraid of the "compensations" which Germany would assuredly demand ; but there are no signs of com- promise as yet, and no compromise which does not make of Macedonia a principality of some sort has any chance of durability. The Powers, be it understood, are not acting on principles of humanity. They are seeking their own interests; but it is not their interest that the Turks should crush out the Bulgarians, while a. "joint occupation" of Macedonia would be a, most serious undertaking. The Austrian statesmen had quite enough of "joint occupa- tions " in Schleswig-Holstein.
If foreign affairs were settled by considerations of prin- ciple instead of considerations of interest, it might, no doubt, be our duty, as we, or at any rate we chiefly, renewed the slavery of the Macedonians, to compel the Sultan to set them free in consideration of a tribute. We can do that if we please, for, as Mr. Gladstone once pointed out, the Turkish Empire is cloven by a waterway, accessible after one sharp struggle to the British Fleet; but the world is not so governed, nor are our people prepared for a crusade. Apart from philanthropy, we have nothing at stake in the movement. If Turkey wins, we may grow pale at the vengeance which will follow ; but the international situation will remain as before, St. Petersburg and Vienna both being sure to insist that Bulgaria shall be evacuated, on payment of an indemnity. If, on the other hand, the Turks, with their exhausted Treasury, rusted Fleet, and disheartened Reserves, finally withdraw and. leave Macedonia free, that will be only one more province of the old domain of civilisation restored to European rule. Or if the hour for the great partition has arrived, nothing will be lost that we need care for. We have Egypt ; we need consent to no arrangement which does not leave King Edward virtual or acknowledged Emperor of the Nile; and Egypt, be it remembered, can be defended or garrisoned by Great Britain from both sides. The Western side of the Balkans might be governed despotically by the house of Hapsburg, and the Eastern side oppressively by the house of Romanoff ; but neither will inflict the ghastly oppression which for five hundred years has crushed out life and progress throughout the peninsula. There is no reason, except the philanthropic one, why we should sacrifice a regiment or a ship in the quarrel, and a hunded reasons in our internal position why we should. abstain from an itterference about which our people are certain not to be united.
That disunion is to us a subject of deep regret, for we think that, owning so much of the world, we owe to it compensation in aiding the spread of civilisation— and by " civilisation " we mean just government, and not merely railways and light tariffs—but it is not unnatural. Much of it is traditional, a section of our people feeling that not to fight for Turkey is to acknow- ledge that the Crimean War was a great political mistake. We do not know that it was, for Russia did not at that time propose to enfranchise any Turkish subject, but only to obtain indefinite and far-reaching opportunities for interference. Another section, from a defect of imagina- tion, cannot realise to itself either Turks or Macedonians ; and because the former are brave, and the latter deficient in self-confidence, sympathises with the Asiatic against the European. It holds that the massacres are provoked. by the risings, and does not understand. that the charge against Turki when governing Christians is their govern- ment in peace, not their conduct in war. Those who think thus have never seen white populations among whom no one is secure of property or honour if a. Mussulman official or general or noble thinks fit to deprive him of either, or, in fact, has a right to exist except as the most submissive of slaves, and at heart they do not believe that such a state of things exists. They accept Turkish promises of reform as realities, and do not recognise that where Mussulmans are free to speak, as in Albania, they denounce these very reforms as insults alike to themselves and their faith justifying rebellion. This section regard the moderate Protest just published by the Bulgarian Ministry, with its hideous narratives, as a " fake " got up to arouse the " sentimentality " of Europe. Their opinion is perpetually supported by the widely diffused Jewish Press, which all through Europe, in its justifiable hatred and dread of Russia, and possibly from a quite inapplicable tradition of the position of Jews in Mahommedan. Spain, always upholds Mussulman authority against Christian rebellion. And lastly, there are the older politicians, who cannot rid themselves of the belief that Russia is the enemy, and must profit by every acquisition, even if it brings her out of her two sheltered seas within the range of the British ironclads. They regret deeply the mis- government of Turkey ; they attempt no defence of the Pashas ; but they hold that the Sultanate is a barrier to Russian ambition, and ought, therefore, to be defended without reference to any other consideration. They per- ceive, it is true, that the conditions have been changed since 1855; but they do not realise the extent of the change, but continue to hold that, happen what may, Constanti- nople must not fall into Russian hands. They have, too, Unconsciously, some of the sympathy of a dominant race— so marked in the Magyars—for another race which dominates, and will read this article not so much with dis- belief in its arguments as angry annoyance that they Fihould be put forward. We understand their annoyance well enough ; but it will be a grand misfortune for this country if it induces the people once more to hold up a throne which has no resource against a just rebellion but an exterminating war.
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