TOPICS OF THE DAY.
ENGLAND AND THE TURKISH -QUESTION. THAT, according to all the probabilities of the case, the Memorandum to which England was invited to assent was one containing most impracticable and injudicious proposals, no one, we think, who has carefully studied all the accounts hitherto received, either of the Memorandum itself or of our reasons for rejecting it, will doubt. Lord Derby will be sup- ported, we imagine, by the English people almost unanimously —by sympathisers with the Christians of Turkey, no less than by sympathisers with the Turks—in his refusal to concur in a proposal at once dilatory and mischievous, which can have no result except to keep the Turkish Question open for an inde- finite time, and that without affording any substantial relief to the Insurgents. Whether the tone and motive of Lord Derby's refusal, when once it becomes known, will be equally popular, we have the greatest doubt. The protest which he is stated, on apparently good authority, to have made against the breach of her neutrality by Montenegro will, for instance, of course be viewed with anything but favour, by those who believe that in point of fact the oppressions of the Turks in Herzegovina were at least as serious as any of the Neapolitan oppressions in the kingdom of Naples in 1860, and who can no more see the evil in violations of neutrality' under such emergencies, than they could in the violation of neutrality in Naples by Garibaldi and the English volunteers in the year we have named. We greatly fear that though Lord Derby's practical course has been indisputably right in refusing to become what, we fear, Austria has made herself in this matter, the cat's-paw of the Russian desire to gain time and unsettle everything, he has manifested a motive in the negotiation with which Parliament will be by no means inclined to sympathise. As far as we can judge at all of a matter on which more or less authentic rumours are • our only informants, Lord Derby has correctly discerned the impracticability and the thorough ungenuineness of the pro- posal for an armistice and foreign intervention, but has not opposed these proposals, as they ought to have been opposed, in the interests of the Insurgents themselves, but solely in the interests of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire,—which we regard as little more than a dream of bygone times. If Lord Derby has really, as it is stated, professed his belief that the Porte might ultimately carry out the recommendations of the Andrassy Note, he has shown himself more of a dreamer than we could ever have suspected. The Andrassy reforms can only be carried out by help of such a revolution in the nature of Mohammedans and of the rude Christian races who live a cat-and-dog life with them, as would be something more than supernatural,—a positive suppression of the ingrained • and inherited characteristics of two very different species of barbarians. It is as wise to hope for the Millen- nium, as for reforms without reformers. Yet this is what the Andrassy Note really recommended. How are the laws to be justly enforced, without a sufficient supply of Turkish officials who have no deep-rooted preferences for Mohammedans over Christians, or Christians over Mohammedans ? How are the assessments of property to be justly made, without a sufficient 'number of persons who really believe that a Mohammedan should not pay less to the State because he is a Mohammedan, nor a Christian more because he is a Christian ? If Lord Derby has, as is positively alleged, founded any of his ob- jections to the new course agreed upon at Berlin upon the hope that the recommendations of reforms contained in the Andrassy Note may yet be efficiently carried out, he has advanced as dreamy objections to the proposal as the proposal itself was dreamy. Only, the proposal is probably dreamy by design. Russia knows perfectly well that no recon- ciliation can come of an armistice, and of the intervention of a foreign Commission in the pacification of the disturbed provinces. But she desires to gain time, and to promote the disintegration of Turkey,—which the mere lapse of time would itself bring, even without this very powerful artificial stimulus, —and she calculates that some event will issue out of this tentative process which will justify, and even compel, much more active measures. It is perfectly impossible for so shrewd a man as Lord Derby not to see the significance of such a policy. But if he is really opposing it by the old, traditional Palmerstonian policy of asking new chances for Turkey, and insisting that time should be given her to carry out the recommendations of Count Andrassy's Note, he is opposing a policy no doubt deliberately chosen because it is impracticable, by a policy which is equally im- practicable, but which he recommends for its greater practicability. It is neither more nor less hopeful to expect that a Mohammedan Government will suddenly become tolerant to other faiths, just to Christian peasants, and wisely economical in its fiscal expedients, than it is to expect that a body of Commissioners, deputed by States which have inconsistent views and aims, and deriving its only power from a Sovereign who hates them and their interference, can set to rights a misgoverned province. The first suggestion is a mere dream, and the second is "a dream within a dream," since, after all, its practicability vir- tually assumes the practicability more or less of the former ; but then the difference is, that Lord Derby tries to believe in his dream, while nobody tries to believe in the dream within the dream, but only tries to get it accepted by neutral Powers as a basis for preparing to do something quite different.
There can be no doubt that if the Sultan values his throne at all, he will reject the proposal agreed upon at Berlin, and it is greatly to be regretted that England is not prepared to offer some very different proposal, which might really hold out respectable chances of a solution, instead of clinging to the still- born hopes of Count Andrassy. We have often pointed out the only feasible middle course between very drastic and dan- gerous experiments, and the hope-everything, do-nothing, suggestion that the Ethiopian shall be pressed to change his skin, and the leopard to abjure his spots. That the Herzegovina and Bosnia might have been given their independence under some Prince in whom Europe might have had confidence, and that this would really have staved off the great catastrophe, we sincerely believe. We strongly suspect that Russia has not proposed this solution for the very reason that it is to a considerable extent remedial, and would tend to diminish the magnitude of the catastrophe, whenever it comes. To such a scheme, if the Turkish suzerainty had been maintained, Turkey, by a really united pressure of all the Powers, might have been got to submit. And we cannot help thinking that Great Britain, if she had taken up the subject in the right manner, would have found, not only at Vienna, but at Berlin, very efficient help for such a solution. Even Russia, though of course she prefers a much more ambiguous and open policy, richer in great pos- sibilities of future coups, would have found it very difficult to resist a course so welcome to her clients. We greatly fear that when Lord Derby's share in the negotiations comes out, it will please no one, except so far as it was certainly right to refuse concurrence in a sham Memorandum. He can hardly satisfy the pro-Turkish party, without having done something to avert the impending catastrophe in Turkey, which certainly cannot be done by indulging hopes of Turkish reforms. He can hardly satisfy the pro-Christian party, without having done something to secure the independence of the Herzegovina and the security of the Christian provinces from Turkish misrule, and this, apparently, he is unwilling to do.
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