TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE MISUNDERSTOOD GOVERNMENT. THIS Government poses as the grievously misunderstood Government,—le Gouvernement inconzpris. It is always declaring, with its hand on its heart, that never was government so little understood. But unless it be Lord Derby, who wanted to go,—and Lord Carnarvon, who has gone because he took the proper means to avoid being misunderstood,—not a Minister speaks who does not add to the misunderstanding, in the very next breath to that with which he reproaches those who misunderstand him. It was so with the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Monday. It was so with the speech of the Home Secretary on Thursday. Both of them took great umbrage with the House and the country for the misconstructions put upon the acts and words of the Ministry. Both of them added a great deal more to the grounds of what they call these mis- constructions, than they did to the grounds for accepting as faithful the picture of their collective aims and motives which they attempted to paint for us, but which they kept wiping out with one hand as fast as they painted it with the other. Now, take first the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer's speech on Monday. The key-note of that speech was distrust, suspicion, precaution against Russian designs, and worse still, against Russian designs in respect of the dissolvent effect which they would have on the present Ottoman Empire. It is perfectly true,—and there, too, Mr. Cross's speech agreed with Sir Stafford Northcote's,—that both of them repudiated most emphatically the slightest desire to encourage the further resistance of Turkey. But then both of them were full,—not of what Mr. Beresford Hope characterised as the true spirit for a diplomatist, "courteous distrust" of every country's designs but your own, but rather of a distrust that had no courteous reticence in it at all,—and in this respect Mr. Cross far outdid even Sir Stafford Northcote. We have no wish at all to preach confidence in Russia, except so far as the stubborn circumstances of the case compel Russia to do just what England ought to desire. But we do maintain that when the Ministers make the most bitter outcry precisely because they fear that Russia is doing the very work we ought to wish her to do, and to support her in doing, they have no right to whine out that they are misunderstood when they are told in reply that they are playing the part most likely to embroil us in a contest with Russia on behalf of a bad as well as of a losing cause. The first part of Sir Stafford Northcote's speech on Monday was occupied with suspicious conjectures of the probable causes of the delay in the negotiations, and with emphatic remark on the continuous advance of the Russians during this delay. Then he went on to criticise the terms of peace, as far as they are known. He described those relating to the autonomy of Bulgaria, the independence of Servia and Monte- negro, the reforms in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and the Christian provinces of Greece as, "whether good or bad, of a very sweeping character." He criticised unfavourably the great extension given to Bulgaria, and said that the case might be illustrated "by supposing that you were to take England, and set apart that portion of it beginning, say, at Northum- berland and Durham, and coming right down to Devon- shire, cutting off Wales almost, and perhaps Middlesex and the eastern angle of England, and you were to erect this into an autonomous tributary principality." He called this a "very serious condition, raising very serious considerations." He then suggested, quite of his own free-will, that a Russian Prince might be proposed for this new State. He further invented, for his own, torment and that of the House, the suggestion that Russia might wish for the port of Smyrna or Salonica. And again he insisted on the danger that Russia might so safe-guard her rights in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles as to endanger our interests there. Having made all these suggestions as to the hypothetically dangerous character of Russia's demands, the Chancellor of the Exchequer went on to declare categorically that though there was no intention of fighting for Turkey, it would not be decent or right to use English influence in a sense unfavourable to whatever residuum of the Ottoman Empire might remain after these great changes. "One thing, I think, we may very distinctly say,—we must not now push forward and sacrifice the Turks for the sake of European objects." Why not? Here you see as clearly as possible the master-mind of Lord Beaconsfield at work. If the Turkish Empire has been sustained hitherto in the supposed interests of Europe, and not for its own pernicious self at all, and if it is now seen that those supposed interests were a delusion, and that to keep a weak and crippled tool for other and greater Powers to use, will be a standing menace to the peace of Europe, what but the foregone conclusion that all the influence we do exert must be exerted on behalf of Turkey, should prevent us from saying frankly to Russia and the other Powers of Europe,— 'This caput mortuunt of the ci-decant Ottoman Empire is no longer a reality, it is a mere seed of future wars —let us take such measures as will replace it in Europe by something with real life and growth in it ? However, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is completely com- mitted against that view. The one thing he" distinctly says is that that view is to be decisively and almost indignantly rejected. Next came all the explanations about the order given to the Fleet and its recall. Sir Stafford North- cote stated on Monday most expressly, what Mr. Cross on Thursday endeavoured to make doubtful again, that the Fleet was recalled from the Straits, in part at least, because Mr. Layard had sent what on Monday was regarded as a mistaken telegram, assuring the British Government that the Straits question was to be reserved for a Congress, whereas the fact subsequently turned out to be,—so Sir Stafford Northcote on Monday assured the House on his own "personal authority,"—that it was to be privately arranged first between the Sultan and Russia, and the solution so arrived at only submitted to a Congress after- wards. But Mr. Cross saw that this reason—Mr. Layard's asserted telegraphic blunder,—for recalling the Fleet, really made the sending of the Fleet to the Dardanelles an open menace against Russia. And consequently he tried to put a, very different face on it. He asserted that it was only because the interests of British subjects in Constantinople might be threatened by insurrection, that the Fleet was sent, and that it was recalled only because, when the terms of peace had been signed, the fear of that insurrection was removed. He must settle that question with his leader in the Commons as he can. It is perfectly certain that Sir Stafford Northcote assigned the fear of apiivate understanding between Russia and the Porte as to the Straits question, as one of the reasons why the Fleet was sent, and the removal of that fear by Mr. Layard's telegraphic blunder, as one of the motives for its recall. Further, he certainly gave- the House the impression that the information which he then declared that he could guarantee on his own "personal authority,' —that Russia and the Porte would come to a private under- standing on this question,—furnished a most important reason why we should strengthen the hands of the Government for the European Conference by granting the vote of six millions.
And inconsistent as the Home Secretary was, in passages of his speech, with himself, the general effect of his speech was certainly to strengthen immensely the idea that the money vote was called for to brandish in the face of Russia, in the diplomatic struggle which he expected. "The Russians are still advancing 1" was the tocsin-peal of his speech. It rang out every five minutes, to the cheers of the Tory party, and was indeed the refrain with which Mr. Cross filled up every in- terval of failing argument or oratorical impotence. It was used like the slow music at a theatre when the emotion of the audience is to be tuned up to tragedy-pitch. The speech of Mr. Cross was made up of warp and woof. The warp was an almost fretful complaint that no one would give the Government credit for really desiring peace. The woof was a tissue of reasons for be- lieving that Russia was deceitful, treacherous, and hatching conspiracies against our interests, which could be defeated only by preparing for war and placing implicit confidence in the Government, who were to make use of those preparations as might seem best to them. But then, as Mr. Forster powerfully put it,have the Government in the most recent past given us the least reason for placing implicit confidence in them for the immediate future ? On the contrary, they have given us every reason for distrusting them. We had no great confidence in them before Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon resigned. We have none at all now that Lord Carnarvon is gone, and Lord Derby left alone to contend with the master-mind in the Cabinet,—the mind of Lord Beaconsfield. If anything at all is clear from the speeches of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary, it is that they do not understand themselves,—that they are under, as Mr. Laing said, the mesmeric influence of a more potent mind,—that they defend all that tends to war, and claim for it that it tends to peace. The truth is the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary have not in the least made up their minds what it is that they fear from Russia, and against what schemes it is that they consider this vote of money to be a precautionary measure. If they fear the complete break-up of the Turkish Empire,— and this is what their speeches seem to point to,—that is pre- cisely what they have no business to fear, and no sort of means of preventing. They ought to hope it, rather than to fear it. And if they fear it ever so much, they cannot do anything in the world to prevent it. If they fear the permanent occupa- tion of Constantinople by Russia, then they have, against that, infinitely better guarantees in the interests of Austria, and even of Germany, than a vote of six millions will ever give them. Indeed, such a vote is but a feeble threat, which is far more likely to provoke opposition than to deter it. If they fear the demand for the opening of the Straits to Russia alone, there, again, they have allies who will never desert them in their resistance to so unprincipled a demand,—a demand which will not, however, be made. In short, there is nothing to fear,—except what they ought to desire,— which Russia is at all likely to ask. And that which ought certainly to be resisted, but which she is most unlikely to insist on, will not be resisted any the better for this paltry vote, which divides the country and weakens the Government. The true object of the Liberals' distrust is, however, Lord Beaconsfield, who hardly ever opens his lips without a threat which gives everybody the impression that he seeks to humiliate Russia if he can,—in other words, makes the very attempt which is most likely to drift us into a cruel and unnecessary war. If Lord Beaconsfield were out instead of Lord Carnarvon, the Government would never have asked for this silly money vote,—and if it could have been made plausible to ask for it, no one would have feared granting it. But with a Cabinet deprived of its most trustworthy member, and with speeches such as Sir Stafford Northcote's and Mr. Cross's to explain, or rather to becloud the demand, opposition to this vote becomes the duty of all patriotic English- men,—of all who do not wish to see us attempt to humiliate Russia and achieve humiliation for ourselves, by what Sir Wilfrid Lawson justly called the snob's device of brandishing our purse in the face of a poorer opponent.
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