THE " GREEK " BRIGANDS AGAIN.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.]
SIR,-It is really too bad that the much-abused Greeks of the Hellenic Kingdom should be made in any way answerable for the doings of certain Turkish subjects of Western Roumelia. An English officer in the Turkish Service is captured by brigands, in a Turkish province, which the wisdom of her Majesty's advisers has secured to Turkey. The said English—or, rather, Turkish—official is engaged in a work of charity, at the instance of our Ambassador at Constantinople. So far, the story is clear enough and respectable enough, for all concerned, except, of course, for the brigands. But when gunboats are sent to Salonica in hot haste, and an outcry is raised by English journals that our countryman must be rescued or avenged, there is surely some confusion of ideas as to the true nature of the case. The brigands are not Greek subjects, nor even, it may be, Greeks by race. They are, most likely, Christian Albanians, of the Greek Church ; or possibly, mere Mahommedan Albanians, of gener- ally grasping tendencies. Whatever they are, they have nothing to do with Greece as a kingdom, and the ludicrous suggestion of one of your contemporaries, "that King George's Govern- ment should be asked to check such outrages in future," shows what vague knowledge our Conservative friends possess of Greek affairs. Do they suppose that the Treaty of Berlin gave Western Roumclia to Greece ? Are they prepared to save or to avenge all Englishmen in a foreign service, especi- ally officers of gendarmerie, as against audacious brigands? The whole story reads like a burlesque, and it is only to be hoped that Colonel Synge and his wife will not be sacrificed to the foolish zeal of their so-called friends. In dealing with brigands who hold their prisoners for ransom, there is nothing so dangerous as a display of force. The very presence of gunboats at Salonica will make the rascals in the mountains suspicious, and the least sign of an advance up country will cost the prisoners their lives. If England goes in for paying ransom, she should do it quietly and frankly, with a maximum price named from the first, and no further con- cession. But it is a bad look-out for other English officers in the Sultan's Service, if once the brigands get hold of the notion that the purse of John Bull is behind each possible captive. Our gunboats may help us to frighten the Pasha at Salonica, and to rouse him to action on behalf of his reforming friend of the gendarmerie, but beyond this their presence can only do harm. We are not dealing with independent and constitutional Greece, in this case, but with a province of Turkey ; and the whole of these sensation measures seem to be the height of
folly, in the actual state of affairs. We are bullying a Power already, it is said, devoted to our interests ; we are sending gun- boats to threaten either the sea-side Turks or the distant moun- tain-tops, and we thereby endanger our luckless countryman. What more can folly do, unless it be presently to disregard Colonel Synge's own most earnest request, and to urge forward soldiers to attempt his rescue ? With the heartiest wishes for the escape of the prisoners, I cannot help protesting against the absurd turn which Sir Henry Layard's misdirected energy has given to this incident, and protesting also against the theory that the failure of the Turks to keep order in Western Roumelia is any argument as to what the Greeks themselves might do, if their territory were enlarged.—I am, Sir, &c.,
AN Our PIIII.IIELLENE.
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