MR. GLADSTONE'S LETTER ON ARMENIA.
MR. GLADSTONE'S letter to the Daily News of Tuesday last will not be pleasant reading for the most influential of his political lieutenants, Mr. Labouchere. Mr. Gladstone thinks that the Government ought to exert themselves to probe to the bottom the accounts of the outrages committed by the Kurdish chiefs, especially Moussa Bey, in Armenia, and to point out to the Turkish Government, that under the "Secret Treaty" made known in 1878, we have the right to insist on the reform of the abuses in the government of Armenia. Indeed, as we have given Turkey a guarantee to protect her territory in those parts,—a very wild guarantee,—on condition that she does reform these abuses, it is reasonable that we should remind her that there is a Power with more opportunities of in- terference at Erzeroum than England can pretend to have at her command. Lord Salisbury would have done well, we think, to have published in the Armenian corre- spondence recently issued, some rebuke to the shame- less remark of the Turkish Minister, which he him- self records, that there is a close analogy between the " legends" now reported of Kurdish atrocities in Armenia and the Bulgarian atrocities of thirteen years ago. If there be really any such analogy, the Kurdish atrocities of to-day are not legendary at all, but only too historical, for nothing can be more certain than that the Bulgarian atrocities of thirteen years ago were not legendary, but were attested by the best European evidence. And if Rustem Pasha meant, as he doubtless did mean in his interview with Lord Salisbury on June 26th, to assert that the Bulgarian atrocities inflicted under the direct responsibility of Turkish officers who were promoted instead of disgraced for their share in them, were legendary, Lord Salisbury can hardly have let the innuendo pass without some indignant rebuke. We could wish that at least some trace of that rebuke had been recorded. It is not at all in the interest of Ministers that the evidence which Sir William White is accumulating of gross misgovernment in Armenia, should be regarded as putting a burden of unwelcome responsibility on the British Foreign Office. It is very true that we cannot directly do much to reform these abuses, but indirectly we might do a great deal. If Turkey cannot reduce the Kurds to order and protect the Armenian Christians from outrage, Russia can ; and if Turkey is really impotent in the matter, we ought not to throw over Armenian Turkey any longer even the appearance of a shield against the interference of Russia.
All this is true ; and thus far we agree with the drift of Mr. Gladstone's letter, that the Government should probe these Armenian wrongs to the bottom, and let Turkey know pretty clearly what will be the consequence of their being unredressed. At the same time, we must not ignore the great difference between the Bulgarian outcry of 1876 and the Armenian cry of the present day. In 1876 the outrages were not only on a much greater scale than any now taking place in Armenia, but the Turkish Government was proved to be directly responsible for them. Our own Government, again, was interposing to throw dis- credit on the allegations made of Turkish misgovernment as mere coffee-house babble, and to shield Turkey from the very right and justifiable interference of Russia. Further, there was in Bulgaria a sufficient unity of feeling and purpose to render Bulgarian autonomy a remedy for the iniquities that were going on, a remedy which was eventually applied by Europe, though for some time Lord Beaconsfield held out against its application. In Armenia at the present time, the conditions are all different. The outrages, fortunately, are not as yet on anything like the scale of the Bulgarian horrors, though they are, apparently, bad enough, and will certainly grow, and grow rapidly, if some sharp spur is not applied to stimulate the energy of the Turks. In the next place, it is not, so far as can be judged, the authorities at Constantinople who are stimulating these outrages, but the lawless Kurdish chiefs, whom Turkey has always found great difficulty in governing, and perhaps has hardly the power to govern. In the third place, our Government, far from interposing to shield these outrage-mongers, is using its best influence at Constantinople to get them punished. And, in the last place, we fear that the Armenian Christians are too weak numerically, as com- pared with the Kurds, to render autonomy at all a proper remedy for this misgovernment.
Thus, all the circumstances of the case are at present quite different from those of 1876, and we trust that the Government will do all in its power to prevent them from ever approximating to those of 1876. Lord Salisbury, as we all know, is at heart as anxious to protect the Christians of Armenia as Mr. Gladstone. Indeed, in 1876 it was Lord Beaconsfield's cynicism on the subject of the Turkish atrocities which caused the agitation of that year, Lord Salisbury himself having done all that he could do at the Conferences in Constantinople to compel Turkey to amend her course, and having especially pointed out very clearly, that the one powerful weapon in the hands of the European Powers was the demand of Russia to be allowed to intervene in case those representations were useless. At the present time, Lord Salisbury is his own master. He is not under Lord Beaconsfield's government, and we trust that he will use prudently in 1889 the powerful weapon which he himself regarded in 1876 as the only one by which Turkey could be compelled to protect a Christian population against its oppressors. Probably, indeed, he has used it already, though diplomatic eonvenances do not allow him to pa- lish how freely he has used it, and though his speeches in the House of Lords might suggest doubts whether, publicly at least, he does not accept too easily the conventional Turkish denials that there is any cruelty to repress. Moussa Bey, the great offender in Armenia, is by this time, we suppose, in Constantinople, and Sir William White will, we trust, use all his influence to see that this apparently cruel and violent Kurdish chief is con- fronted fairly with the evidence against him, and receives a thoroughly adequate trial, and if found guilty, sentence. We have no hope at all that such a trial could be secured, were it not in Sir William White's power to convey to the Porte that if a signal example is not made of such outrage-mongers, we should be compelled to refrain from resisting the interference of Russia at Erzeroum. That seems to us to be the way, and the only way, to stimulate the Turkish Government, we do not say to be just to the Armenian Christians (for being just implies a principle of action in which they are utterly deficient), but to act, out- wardly at least, as if they wished to be just. But Lord Salisbury has still that powerful weapon in his hands, and however anxious he may be, in the present delicate state of international relations in Europe, not to flourish it in the face of the world, it is a weapon which he certainly ought to use. We think that he has rather overdone the reticence which up to a certain point is properly observed by the Foreign • Office in this matter. It would have been well, we think, to make it clear to the British public that he was at least not credulous in the matter of Turkish denials, as against such British authorities on the other side as are contained in • the correspondence presented to Parliament. We have every confidence in Lord Salisbury's aims as well as in his prudence ; but sometimes prudence in these matters may be overdone, especially when the power of a State is founded, as ours is, on popular sympathies, and where the State upon which we have to put pressure is as anxious as Turkey is to let smooth words do duty for just deeds. We do not expect any recurrence in 1889 of the agitation of 1876, because we have confidence in Lord Salisbury, and no fear that he will ever repeat the blunder of Lord. Beaconsfield. However delicate the situation in the East of Europe may be,—and it is very delicate,—nothing is more likely to aggravate it than to let Turkey live in a fool's paradise in relation to her power of screening such offenders as the Kurdish robbers. If she cannot control them, it will not be possible for democratic England to repel the interference of a Power that will and can.
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