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TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE UTTERANCE OF THE ORACLE.
TILL the end of last week, everything was waiting for Lord Salisbury. When he entered the Free-trade Hall at Manchester yesterday week, he might well have been greeted with the cry which meets everywhere the hero of one of Lord Beaconsfield's novels, "You have been long expected." Ac- cording to previous Conservative rumour, Lord Salisbury's speech was to be the turning-point in the politics of the year. Even the Liberal orators felt that they were groping in the dark till after the Foreign Secretary should have unburdened himself of his political secret. The hour came and the man, but the issue was a disappointment. The only sensation of his speech was the violent anti-Russian temper which pervaded it, and which culminated in the parody on the words of the angelic host ushering in the birth of Christ. The relief to Lord Salisbury's overburdened heart in hearing of the asserted defensive alliance between Germany and Austria was 80 impossible of utterance in any but the most sacred words that this Chatham of the nineteenth century was compelled to com- pare the great tidings of divine love to man, with the hope that had just been born in him that Germany and Austria would combine to solve for us in the East of Europe that problem which the British Government had hitherto been posing as all-sufficient to solve for itself. It was the Liberal, and not the Conservative contention that Germany and Austria had far more interest in keeping Russia from exerting a predominant influence on the Danube and in the 2Egean Sea, than the United Kingdom. It was the Liberal, and not the Conservative contention that we might fairly rely on Germany and Austria for doing this part of the European duty for us, and might rest contented if we could but forward the good work of securing independence to the oppressed sub- jects of Turkey, and turn our own power to its more legitimate use, the early and effectual securing of our road through Egypt to India. But to these contentions the present Government had hitherto turned only a deaf ear. They posed as the political Titan on whom the mighty work of recon- structing the politics of the East of Europe in a sense hostile to the great Colossus of the North, was resting. But all the time, evidently, they were consumed with a profound anxiety. They knew well that they were pretending to do what they were wholly impotent to do. And now, when Lord Salisbury sees a good ground for hope that two more competent Powers have taken the duty off his hands, we see the inexpressible character of his relief. He falls into a sort of ecstacy of politi- cal gratitude, and gives thanks for the alliance of Germany with Austria, as if a burden beyond his endurance were sud- denly rolled away from his soul. There was but one thing wanting. He should have added to the song of Lord Beacons- field's angels, the" Nunc Dimittis " of Simeon. But for that he was not prepared. His inference was not that now at last he might depart in peace. On the contrary, now at last he feels that he may remain in peace, since Germany and Austria are about to do what he was well aware that it was mere boasting to pretend that Great Britain could do at all.
For the rest, with these big brothers coming to his assistance, Lord Salisbury does not stint in the defiance which be casts at Russia. He does not conceal his hopelessness of Turkey. In the frankest way he tells his audience :—" I do not wish for a moment to deny that there is in the internal condition of Turkey much that we must regret. I fear that in high places there is feebleness, and fanaticism allowed an influence which ought to be denied to it, and that Turkey may be entering on a path of resolute resistance to reform which can only ultimately end in her ruin." Nevertheless, bad as Turkey may be, she may be useful to spend in resisting Russia. "The question of a reformed or unreformed Turkey, does not affect the necessity of keeping Russia from Con- stantinople and from the ./Egean.' Any stone is good enough to cast at a dog. "If you do not trust the Turk, who is on the rampart of the fortress," still it may be well to use him up, before you call upon the Austrian Sentinel at the door to pour out his more valuable blood in the cause of keeping Russia out. All that the Government really did object to, if you tnartake Lord Salisbury as their exponent, was trusting any Slavonic people to vindicate their own independ- ence against Russia. The British Government broke, he says, the big Bulgaria into two, because so large a Slavonic State could not be trusted. And then they declined to trust these fragments, because they were not strong enough for self-dependence. First, carefully break your rampart in two, and then insist that it will not serve your turn as a rampart,--that is the key-note of Lord Salisbury's diplomacy as to the nationality of the Balkans. He tells us that Roumania had every reason to fear Russia, and yet at the most important crisis of the war, she supported her.. Well, Roumania had some reason to fear Russia, but she had) very much more reason to fear Turkey. It was Turkey's yoke, not Russia's, that she had so recently cast off. If Russia had recrossed the Danube, foiled in her attempt to set Bulgaria free, Roumania would have been the first Power to feel the miserable consequences. Roumania could trust Germany and Austria to defend her against a Power like Russia, which they both feared. She could not trust either to defend her against Turkey, which they both knew to be incompetent to threaten them. Roumania feared Turkey as Bulgaria fears Turkey. But neither Roumania nor Bulgaria believed that Russia would be allowed to make the Danube into a Russian river, while Germany and Austria could prevent it. And now Lord Salisbury announces as "good tidings of great joy" what the Liberals maintained all along that Germany and Austria were bound by their own interests to do, if we would only let them do their own work. Mr. Childers will not find that the opinion of the Liberal party goes with him, when he admits that the Treaty of Berlin is a great improvement on the Treaty of San Stefano. On the contrary, we have always held that the big Bulgaria would be as much more self-dependent than the two Bulgarias, as the big Roumania is more self-dependent than the divided Wallachia and Moldavia of the Peace of Paris. If Lord Salisbury prefers to use up Turkey first, and to lean on Austria next, rather than trust any Slavonic people to vindicate their own independence, he is quite right in saying so. But it is rather feeble, first to boast that we broke up Bulgaria in order that Turkey might not have too strong a neighbour, and then to plead that we were obliged both to bolster up Turkey and push on Austria, because otherwise, in Roumania and the Bulgarias, Russia would) have had neighbours that were not half strong enough to hold their own against her. "You may admire a horse very much," says Lord Salisbury, "but if you are going to ride it, what you would ask is, not whether the horse is beautiful, but whether it will carry you." No doubt. But if you first deliberately throw the horse down, and break its knees that it may not be strong enough to carry you, you will hardly be listened to when you plead afterwards that now, with its knees broken, it is not up to your weight. The Afghan part of Lord Salisbury's speech is pervaded by the same sort of logic as the Turkish part. Throughout it he demands vast credit for overcoming, at great cost and ex- pense, the obstacles which in previous years at great cost and. expense he had himself painfully reared. He begins by point- ing out that the attitude of Afghanistan in refusing to receive. an English Envoy was " something startling in itself." It was possible, he says of the late ruler of Afghanistan, "that all the time he refused to receive our emissaries, he was receiving the emissaries of others. We very early came on indications- which assured us that this view of Shere Ali's conduct was the correct one,"—and so it was so soon as Lord Salisbury's own conduct had made it the correct one, and not before. Lord Salisbury perfectly well knows that more than twenty years ago Dost Mahommed, himself thoroughly friendly to us, warned us against exciting the deep jealousy of the Afghans, by attempting to send Envoys among them, or to interfere in their concerns. There was nothing" startling" to Lord Dalhousie, Lord Canning, Lord Mayo, or Lord Northbrook, in this refusal of Afghanistan to receive our envoys. It is completely untrue that the reluctance to receive our envoys ever indicated a de- sire to receive the envoys of another Power, until we had our- selves produced this desire by the triumphant policy of Lord Lytton. No doubt, when Shore All had been informed that he was the clay pot between two iron pots, which would crush him between them if he did not avert his fate by submission,. --no doubt, then he was willing to seek the shelter of the iror. pot which he had least reason to fear, against the impact of the iron pot which he had most reason to fear,—and which it has now been abundantly shown that he had most reason to fear. But Lord Salisbury conceals from his audience that the panic which threw Shere Ali into the arms of Russia was of his own making,—that Lord Lytton did all in his power to create it, in the conferences of Simla and Peehawur, before he made the results of that panic the ground of his invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 1878. "It is defence," says Lord Salisbury, "not dominion, that we seek." Well, if he can say that without inward laughter, with Candahar, Jellelabad, and probably the other fortresses of Afghanistan, in our power, how much more truly might the unhappy Share All have said the same thing, when he merely invited the Russian Embassy to come to cheer and comfort him in Cabul, after the long string of menaces which he had received from our Native Envoy after the discussions at Simla, and from his own dying Minister during the Conferences of
Peshawur. First spur your horse till he is unruly, and then spur him all the more till he stands quiet, is neither a very wise nor a very humane rule. But it is Lord Salisbury's, apparently, for the treatment of Afghanistan. And it is one which we trust the British people will indignantly resent and condemn.
In relation to Home politics, Lord Salisbury is very naturally reticent. But the little he does say is of a piece with his disserta- tions on Foreign policy. He laments bitterly the policy which struck off without compensation so many duties on foreign pro- ducts during the ministries of Sir Robert Peel, Lord Russell, and Lord Palmerston, instead of making these abolitions of duties the price of similar abolitions of duties by foreign States. In a word, Lord Salisbury would have had tie wait for the benefit of Free-trade till we had persuaded all the rest of the world to accept the same benefit for itself. You might almost as reasonably say that a man, anxious to amend his own moral conduct might, not merely pardonably, but even meritoriously, delay this change for the better till he had got some other sinner to consider it the equivalent for a similar change in his own demeanour. In both his speeches of Friday, Lord Salis- bury, in fact, takes a thoroughly theatrical view of our national life. Whatever we do, we must make it our first ob- ject to do what will produce a great sensation in the rest of the world. We must not even consult our own interest, unless consulting our own interest revolutionises the mind of some other nation. In the most rhetorical part of his speech on foreign policy, he put out the following apology for our occu- pation of Cyprus :—" Men are very much more readily per- suaded by acts than by words, and therefore we occupied the island of Cyprus, to show our intention of maintaining our hold in these parts. There has been a very great deal of absurd criticism upon the occupation of Cyprus. Some in- genious people think that they have entirely disposed of the policy of the Queen, by finding out that in a very rainy year fever prevailed upon its coasts. Fever prevailed in Malta, on the coasts of Greece and Africa, and it prevailed through- out the Mediterranean in that year, but the occupation of Cyprus was merely following out the traditional policy of the English Government for a long time past. When
i the interest of Europe was centred n the conflicts that were waged in Spain, England occupied Gibraltar. When the . interest of Europe was centred the conflicts that were being waged in Italy, England occupied Malta. and now that there is a chance that the interest of Europe will be centred in Asia Minor or in Egypt, England has occupied Cyprus." In the Marquis's mind, we observe that the use of Cyprus to us has nothing to do with the matter. Its occupation is a demonstration,—a dramatic act. Cyprus helps us as little to reform Asia Minor, as Nova Zembla would help us to reform Russia. i
But if the interest of Europe centred in a conflict raging n Russia, we suppose Lord Salis- bury would have us occupy Nova Zembla. Nay, if the in- terest of Europe centred in an eruption of Hecla, we are not sure that he would not advise England to occupy Heda. And in precisely the same spirit are his lamenta, tions that we did not injure ourselves seriously by retaining a vast number of prejudicial duties on foreign products, just for the sake of an effective moral demonstration against the similar i follies of other nations. Yet f the interest of the maritime world centred in a whirlpool or a sunken rock, it would be very bad policy to occupy that whirlpool or sunken rock. Neverthe- less that, apparently, is what Lord Salisbury advises, when he says that because it is for the interest of Europe to get rid of Protection, we ought to have kept to Protection for ourselves till we had been able to sacrifice it on the altar of international goodwill.
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