THE HELLENIC "FermmENT IN rilie, EASTERN PROBLEM.
rpHE last contribution of Mr. Gladstone—contained in his article in the December number of the Contemporary Review —to the discussion of the Eastern Question is well calculated to add even to the reputation he has already gained, as the leading advocate of the policy which is best both for humanity and for the interests of the British Empire in the East. It is with satis- faction that we recognise how the principles which we have maintained for months past in these columns, as the only true ones in relation to the Hellenic side of the Eastern difficulty, are supported in every detail by Mr. Gladstone, and further corroborated by fresh authority and enlarged experiences. The culminating point in Mr. Gladstone's argument, as in ours, is contained in his appeal to such Englishmen even as are influenced by a preponderating dread of some indefinite injury to England arising out of any resettlement of the position of the Christian races in the East of Europe, not to cast away the opportunity of attaching the powerful aid of the Greek race to the side of England. " To them," he writes, 64I desire to point out that if they think it urgently required for England, in the face of Russia, to establish an independent position and influence in the Levant, by some more enduring means than vaunting menace or mere parade, or proclaiming schemes of the most unmiti- gated selfishness, they have now such an opportunity as never before was offered. Of that people who still fondle in their memories the names of Canning and of Byron, there are in the Levant, we may safely say, four millions, on whose affections we may take a standing hold, by giving a little friendly care at this juncture to the case of the Hellenic provinces. They want, not Russian institutions, but such a freedom as we enjoy. They want for their cause an advocate who is not likely to turn into an adversary ; one whose temptations lie in other quarters ; who cannot (as they fondly trust) ask anything from them, or in any possible contingency, through durable opposition of sympathies or interests, inflict anything upon them." If proof were required of the thoroughly patriotic point of view from which Mr. Gladstone looks at the situation in the East, the proof would be here. He does not believe, indeed, as he observes elsewhere, with justifiable emphasis, that a policy of merely selfish professions is a justifiable or reputable policy for British statesmanehip. He holds that the right thing should be done, even at the cost of some apparent clashing with an exaggerated conception of national expediency. At the same time, the interest and the honour of England are continually present to his thought, and he is happy to find that, in the redress of the grievances of the suffering races crushed by Ottoman oppression, the course which is best for England's honour is also best for the selfish and utilitarian objects of cautious and unenthusiastic citizens.
In the course of the observations which lead up to this con- clusion, Mr. Gladstone takes occasion to notice, briefly but suc- cinctly, the chief phases of Hellenic nationality through all the chequered history of two thousand years—from the fall of ancient Hellas beneath the domination of Horne and its resurrection to imperial rank and power in the Byzantine epoch, to its new development in spite of all the unspeakable evils and wrongs of Ottoman barbarism. Much of this part of the article belongs more to the sphere of historic criticism than to that of contemporary politics. It is not, however, without its relevancy to the question of the hour. The Turcomaniacs who affect to believe, or who really believe, that the Greek Revolution was a mistake because Greece has not be- come at once all that ancient Hellas was, are more than answered, so far as their reproach contains any portion of truth, by the recollections which Mr. Gladstone evokes. Greece has not been everything which the Philhellenic enthu- siasts prophesied. Granted. But Greece has been everything that could have been reasonably expected after such a past spent under the despotism of Turkey, and after the short- sighted and unjust curtailment of the fair proportions
of Greek nationality sanctioned by the grudging founders of the Hellenic kingdom. The revolted Hellenic population had for four centuries been crushed and ground down under a system far from uniform in a thousand points, yet uniform only in this,—that it was fatal to the growth of the highest excellence. It is in and through freedom only that preparations for fuller freedom can be made. Of the arbitrary limitations imposed upon free Hellas Mr. Gladstone writes with a directness as wise as courageous,—" An error " most " grievous in its consequences was the narrow amount of territory accorded to the new kingdom, as if at once to abate the high hopes and rebuke the noble daring of its people, and to condemn the infant State to a deplorable weak- ness and perpetual tutelage." In spite of the persistent taint of foreign enslavement, in spite of the artificial pettiness to which the new Hellas was condemned, the nation which has doubled its population in less than two generatione„ which has quintupled the number of its school-children and raised the number of its schools seven-fold, which has quadrupled its revenues and its trade, and which within the last decade alone has raised the value of its trade with Great Britain from £923,000 to £2,332,000, cannot be described as a State which has " gone back," or an experi- ment in liberty which has " failed." Would to Heaven that the unemancipated provinces of Hellas, still crushed beneath the yoke of Turkish barbarism and bankruptcy, were similes " failures," and had an opportunity of " going back " in a similar fashion!
The question of the day as regards the Hellenes un- doubtedly is whether the Hellenic provinces shall or shall not be admitted to all the advantages which the concert of the Powers or the Slavic sword is likely to obtain for the Sclavic provinces. Upon this point Mr. Gladstone adopts, from a speaker at the Athenian public meeting at the Pnyx a few weeks ago, the account of the only real distinction, so far as such a distinction can be called real in its bearing 'upon justice and reform, which exists be- tween the Hellenic and the &levies plea for redress of grievances. " The 8clava have risen this year ; the Greeks have not." Mr. Gladstone admits that there is a material difference between "those who show that their enfranchise- ment is required by the general tranquillity and those who do not." He takes note, however, of the statement advanced authoritatively by the representatives of Greek opinion, that the reason why the Greeks have not risen like the Sclays was because they had •received assurances from the great Powers that the "Greek nation,, wkioh for the time refrained .from com- plicating the situation, should at the settlement obtain the same advantages as the Sclays." This is undoubtedly an import- ant matter, if it can be substantiated. Of the duty of doing the Greeks justice there can be no question. Why should the Man be exceptionally favoured ? Is it merely because they have a Russian protector ? It is not the business of Europe or of England to admit this plea ; neither can it be the wise policy of Turkey to refuse concessions to her less dangerous subjects which she may be forced to grant to her more dangerous ones,—and in fact, the Porte has repeatedly professed its desire to make its reforms general, and to draw no distinctions. Let Turkey be kept to her word. Let Hellenes have the same opportunities of progress as Sclays. If no other Power be the champion of Hellenic freedom, let England be that champion. The Hellenic nation, the natural rival of Muscovite preponderance and Pansclavist propagandism, will repay that protection a thousandfold. If England rises to the height of her duties and her interests in the Hellenic Question—even as Lord Palmerston desired fourteen years ago—we may be certain that the confidence of 1825, so honourable and so advantageous to our nation, will be renewed, and that a larger Hellas will again proclaim that " the Greek nation places the sacred deposit of its liberty, independence, and political existence under the absolute protection of Great Britain."
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