TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PROGRESS IN BERLIN.
THE business of the Congress has advanced this week very satisfactorily. Lord Beaconsfield, who has, among his many labours, to pacify the fire-eaters of his party at home, has induced the Special Correspondents to help him, and they have flashed to London descriptions of his proceedings in Berlin almost worthy of " Alroy." In these narratives, in which the modesty of history and the laws of English grammar are alike contemned, Lord Beaconsfield appears as a sort of Chatham- Turveydrop, making speeches which overawe opponents, silencing rivals by the majesty of his deportment, and paralysing even Prince Bismarck with the blustering epigram,—" I did not come here to yield." Rather than give way one jot or tittle, he is ready to,—go home. It is very improbable that Lord Beaconsfield, fond as he is of display, has made himself ridiculous by pompous acting of this kind, as it is also improbable that Prince Bismarck, a German Junker "dyed in the wool," is immensely impressed with the heroic greatness of the English representative ; but the Correspondents' stories have kept a great party quiet, and enabled Lord Beaconsfield to consent to a working plan for a momentary pacification. The adroit use of a word has done it all. "Bulgaria " was to have been freed to Adrianople, and it has been reiuced, "by gigantic efforts," and "splendid manifestations of the Character and Intellect" of the British Premier, to a territory north of the Balkans. The territory south of the Balkans has been "restored to Turkey." That is, explain writers whose con- fidence in British stupidity may be just, but is certainly per- fect, South Bulgaria is to be formed into an autonomous State, under the Sultan's suzerainty, but to be called, for the benefit of English fire-eaters, "Eastern Roumelia." "Bulgaria" will be quite independent, under an elected Prince, approved of by the Powers ; will have her own army, will garrison the Danubian fortresses and Schumla and Varna, the gateway of the pro- vince on the Black Sea ; and will include the district of Sofia, the road by which Tchernaieff calculated on turning the Balkans, and by which General Gourko and the Russian Guard did turn them. Eastern Roumelia, on the other hand, is not to be inde- pendent, but is to be ruled by a Hospodar, appointed by the Powers, aided by a popular Assembly—in which, we may remark, it is certain that Greeks will exercise all influence—and guarded by its own native militia. Eastern Roumelia stretches west- ward from Bourgas on the Black Sea to the Karasu, avoiding the coast-line,—that is, avoiding any danger of menace from the strong Turkish Fleet—and northward to Sofia and the southern slope of the Balkans. So far, the arrange- ments, though of course not perfect, may be accepted by Liberals—who will one day have their own Ambassador at Constantinople—as reasonably just, the whole of the populations outraged in 1876 receiving, though not freedom, emancipation from the hated presence of Turkish officials, who are marched, as Mr. Gladstone advised, right out of Turkey, from the Danube to Adrianople. Those least injured among the Bul- garians receive full independence. Those most injured among them receive security against massacre and a guarantee for decent government, which, if Sir John Strachey or Sir Richard Temple is to be the new Hospodar —quite a possibility—will be ample for the time during which they will be content to remain nominally in vassalage to an Asiatic Prince. At this point, however, a grand "rider "has been inserted in the Agreement by Lord Beacons- field. It was just possible that Bulgaria, being independent, , would not rely on Russia, and that Eastern Roumelia, being' deeply penetrated with Greek feeling, and about to be ! thrown open to Greek enterprise, might find some ; modus vivendi with Constantinople, and therefore it is arranged that to keep up the sacred flame of hostility to Turkey, the Sultan shall always appear to be threatening both. The eagles are invited to post themselves in sight of the sheep upon the mountain-tops. The mountain range, with its Heyduc villages, full of men whose one dominant passion is hatred of the Turks, is restored in full sovereignty to Turkey. The Sultan is at liberty to build as many forts as he pleases in the Passes, and to place in them all the troops he can to defend "the impassable mountain barrier" against Russia, and keep down any idea of insurrection in Eastern Roumelia, which will, in consequence, always be as expectant of war as Cumberland was when the Borderers made their annual raids. This transfer is declared, by Lord Beaconsfield's organs, to be "a triumph of Character and Intellect," a grand humiliation inflicted on Russia, a permanent and final barrier built up against her advance. It is quite in vain that the Pall Mall Gazette, which is honestly in love with a bad policy, and not dishonestly devoted to a person, sneers audibly and effectively at the scheme ; quite in vain that the military critic of the Tele- graph mutters below his breath that the Balkans and the Quadrilateral might have been a defence for Turkey ; quite in vain that German soldiers, who know their business, smile at strategy which, closes the Shipka and leaves Sofia open. The "Balkans are closed," and the British public, which understands only Straits, throws up its cap in a fever of exul- tation. It boasts that not only has the Sultan regained the mountains, which produce nothing, not only may he close all passes—except those known only to the Heyducs—not only may he build fortresses on the hill-tops, but he may place there as many troops as ever he likes. So may we in Heligoland. Troops have to be fed. Every shot and shell used in the fortresses, every pound of flour, every ton of forage, will have to be transported across Roumelia, at rates which will not be reduced by any privilege of requisition. The forts will be intensely disagree- able residences to Pashas, the men will be utterly useless for their true function as revenue collectors, the ex- penses to be met in direct cash will worry the Trea- sury, and in a few months the garrisons will dwindle down to 5,000 men. The whole arrangement, in fact, considered as a strategical defence of Turkey, is grotesque. If Russia is as unscrupulous as Tories believe, she will in the next war buy a pass, march through it in perfect comfort, and turn all the rest of the Turkish defences even if they have not been seized in advance by Roumelian insurgents. The only effect of the retrocession of the Balkans will be to keep up an irritation from Adrianople to Salonica which will prevent the population, once armed, from forgetting to carry weapons.
For the rest, the Congress settles in informal meetings arrangements which, whatever else they may secure, will not secure the independence and integrity of Turkey. Austria, fortunate as usual, whenever she is not crossing swords with a Napoleon, obtains the mighty slice of the cake with which we have said every week for the past two years that her Emperor would ultimately retreat. Under cover of an occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, sanctioned by Europe, the Hapsburgs obtain the Eastern Switzerland,—the one country which can make their straggling possessions on the Eastern littoral of the Adriatic an invaluable appanage of the throne. As they are, on the whole, approved in Bosnia, they obtain an ample compensation for the loss of Venetia, and a point d'appui from which, when Turkey finally disappears, they may protect the Southern Slave,, and if they are wise, the Greeks, from any Russian encroachment on their independence. As the Hapsburgs will govern the pro- vinces fairly well, and maintain external order, Europe need not complain of the arrangement, except, indeed, as regards the fiction of occupation," which may for many a year to come prohibit the calling together of a Provincial Diet.. There is no fear of Hapsburgs voluntarily giving up anything they have got, and in a few years Fiume will be a great maritime port, and the astute Italian traders introducing commercial prosperity into the valleys of Bosnia and the broad fields of the Herzegovina. Montenegro is to have Antivari, in which war steamers cannot lie, and to be enriched, and ruined as a fighting Power, by a broad tract of land to the South, and it only remains to decide upon the fate of the Greek provinces. The Turks say they will keep them, and that if they are handed to Greece they will, like Lord Beaconsfield, go home ; but the fates are against the Turks. The English stopped the Greek march into Thessaly by pledges which must be kept, the Russian Czar, though justly furious at the Greek failure in August, is still anxious to conciliate the only capable class in Constantinople, Italy is strenuously on the Greek side, and has Prince Bismarck behind her, and the Athenians have, at least, one heavy bolt to throw. If they are betrayed, King George will be sent home, Prince Amadeo will be elected King by a popular explosion, as a bid to the House of Savoy, and the dangerous conflict of the Powers will be resumed around the vacant throne. The Tin kophiles threaten Europe with a new war, but that would be over in ten days ; or with an alliance with Russia, but Russia has little to gain from them. They are powerless without England, and what Eng land thinks they may study with advantage in a letter from a friend. In the Standard of Thursday, a Tory journal, ap- pears a telegram from the Berlin special correspondent of the paper, perhaps the most determined friend of Turkey in Europe, not excepting Sir Henry Layard, and even he, though exulting in Lord Beaconsfield, cannot keep his patience with the
Pashas, declares that the "Sublime Porte ought to be called a government of Fools by Favourites," and proposes to super- sede the Sultan by a European Prince. If Turkey resists Europe, that will be the course adopted, the Sultan going to Broussa ; and consequently, as the Pashas, above all things, desire to remain on the Bosphorus, we believe they will not re- sist. The Greeks will not acquire their full rights, or fulfil all their wishes. But they will, we still believe, be compensated for their forbearance in August at least by such a preparatory enfranchisement of their countrymen as will prepare the way for ultimate independence. There are times when nations grow without merits of their own. Nothing at one time could happen in Europe, not even a quarrel between the King of Prussia and his Parliament, without Italy gaining a province ; and though the grasp of the Turks on Janina seems tight, England was unassailed in Corfu when the Seven Islands passed almost in silence over to the Greek Kingdom.
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