ONE WAY OF SAVING MACEDONIA.
IS it quite impossible to employ the one irresistible weapon of civilisation, the Concert of Europe, to pre- vent the catastrophe impending in the Near East ? We fear it is, for the Powers appear more divided than ever, Austria evidently distrustmg Russia because of the despatch of her squadron to Turkish waters, and Germany through her Press insisting that Bulgarians and not Turks are to blame, while Great Britain and France are so afraid of intervention that they profess to be shocked at the "equal balance of criminality" among the local creeds. We cannot, however, bear to abandon hope, for in per- mitting the event now anticipated Europe gives up its moral claim to the general control and disposal of the world. There is really danger that the people of Mace- donia may cease to exist, and that the great cities of Turkey may all be scenes of massacre. It is not merely that the Macedonians, driven mad by oppression— which, as Mr. Brailsford shows in the Fortnightly Review for September, is organised and maintained by the Turkish officials for purposes of plunder—have risen on their oppressors, and are being put down with horrible slaughter and outrage, but that the Mussulman population, wounded in its pride of ascendency, threatens to meet attack by the slaughter, not of the insurgents, but of all their kinsfolk within reach. The officials, even if willing to protect the Christians, which is improbable, are powerless to restrain the populace, which, being without discipline or officers, is when excited under no kind of restraint. It is believed that in Salonica and Adrianople the massacres are already planned out, and that even in Constantinople the Bulgarians will on the first rumour of .attack be slaughtered to a child: The insurgents will, of course, retaliate, and the result may easily be that the population of Macedonia will be extinguished, and that magnificent province reduced to a desert without towns or villages or people. That such a catastrophe should occur in the twentieth century and in Europe with the whole civilised world looking on seems incredible; but the accounts grow worse and worse, and are coming in by degrees from official sources, the Russian, Austrian, and Italian Consuls, all of whom are in danger of being murdered by the angry Mussulmans, beginning at last to break their carefully arranged silence.
We are not prepared to say that Great Britain, which in this matter is moved by philanthropy only, she desiring nothing in this region, not even a railway concession, should take the tremendous risk of acting alone, or even with the support of France. She might bring Germany to the defence of the Sultan, who has still territories and claims with which to pay for protection, and so produce a war that would cost more lives than there are in Macedonia; but if the Concert could be induced to act as they did in Crete peace might still be preserved and Macedonia saved. It would not be necessary for the Great Powers to move armies. A combined fleet anchored off Yildiz Kiosk would at once reduce the Sultan to sub- mission, compelling him to recall his troops, and agree to the appointment of a Christian Governor-General in Macedonia responsible to the Powers alone. This arrange- ment would in a way save the honour of the Sultan, and less than this it would be futile to demand. Reforms in Turkey are rubbish, for no one will carry them out. It looks very well to select picked and plausible Pashas like Hilmi Pasha, but they will obey Abd-ul-Hamid under threat of Tripoli orYemen ; and officers of gendarmes from Belgium would simply be disregarded, or if they were obstinately officious, put to death. Belgium cannot shell Constanti- nople. The more complete arrangement would, however, work. The Asiatic troops would at once obey an order of re- call, for if they did not they would starve, and the Governor- General could in a mouth raise a body of gendarmes sufficient to maintain external order. The peasan Mahommedan or Christian, do not want to fight merely for fighting's sake, and the agreement once signed, neither would have anything to gain by fighting. The Christian object, which is liberation, would be attained, and the Mussulman object, the restoration of their ascendency, would be seen even by themselves to be unattainable. It is doubtful, if the Governor-General were a competent man, whether the latter would even emigrate, for they have not emigrated either from Bosnia or Bulgaria, and would have no immediate cause for flight. It is a habit in this country to assume that all inhabitants of the Near East are desperadoes intent on sacrificing comfort to some " fanatical " or racial idea, but as a matter of fact the agri- culturists of the Balkans, unless driven to insurrection by Turkish exactions, are as quiet, as industrious, and as greedy of money as any other peasantry. Nor are they seeking for any wild or anarchic liberty. They are quite resigned to live under a despot if only he is a decent one, who will protect their lives and their women, be content to receive the taxes he imposes without endless surcharges, and arrange, as Baron Kallay did, for some endurable compromise with their Turkish landlords. The people, in fact, are not asking to be raised to the level of Londoners or Parisians, but only to that of Bengalees or the Chinese in Singapore, and surely that is not an unreasonable or excessive prayer. It can be granted at once if the Concert will but act, with no further disturbance of the existing situation, and we ask, therefore, once again whether it is quite beyond the resources of diplomacy to set that great taachine in motion.
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