An influential public meeting—the first, we hope, of a series—
was held at Willis's Rooms, on Thursday, to express the feeling of the public against lending any support, material or moral, to the Turkish Government. The meeting was addressed by Lord Shaftesbury, Mr. Lewis Farley, the Rev. W. Denton, Mr. E. A. Freeman, Mr. R. S. Poole, Mr. A. Arnold, and others, all espe- cially acquainted with Turkey, in favour of a policy which may be beat described as neutrality, tempered by a fervent hope that the Turks may be defeated. All the speakers expressed their full belief in the atrocities reported in the Times and Daily News, declared that —4 it was useless to expect reform from Turks, and defended the eman- cipation of the Christians from the Turkish rule. The best speech was that of Mr. Freeman, who advocated the total independence 1
of the Turkish provinces, and who pointed out, as the governing fact of the matter, that while Mahommedan government is not neces- sarily bad where the subjects are also Mahommedans, it ceases, where the subjects are Christians, to be a government at all. "Government implies protection, and protection the Christians had none." Revolts against such a government would be per- petual, and "the Eastern Question would never be solved while the Turk was allowed to bear rule over Christian peoples."
