LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
ONE WAY OF SAVING MACEDONIA.
(To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIB,—I am emboldened by your article, "One Way of Saving Macedonia," in the Spectator of August 29th, to appeal to you to strike the same note again, but with a firmer hand. Yours is the only paper, so far as I know, which, while taking in general a sober and conservative line in politics, has not banished every political principle, except political economy, to Saturn. I obtain-my information about the horrors which are now happening in European Turkey from the Times. The Times is justly proud of the range and accuracy of its foreign
news. It cannot be merely for the purpose of harrowing our feelings, or of tickling the curiosity of the lower part of human nature, that it allows its correspondents to describe, with a sobriety of language far more horrible than the most florid eloquence, so many villages destroyed with their whole popu- lation of old men, women, and children, so many prisoners murdered by their escort, so many women violated with cir- cumstances of indescribable cruelty. But the Times records with equanimity the remark of one of iti'correspondents that England is regarded as a negligible quantity in the Near East, and endorses it by observing how much nearer affairs in China come to our business and bosoms. It is because you speak, though despondently, of the moral responsibility of civilised Europe in this matter that I venture to ask you to publish this letter.
A few years ago similar scenes were enacted in Armenia, with this difference, that the Armenians were more or less passive victims. Massacre and lust were described in the newspapers with equal power, and without result. We Englishmen could not act without the Concert of Europe, and it happened that the German bandmaster was flirting with the lady whom the band should have been serenading. A scratch Concert was got up, chiefly by those interfering Americans ; but by that time the Turkish Government was willing to be played to sleep. It was then glutted with blood and rapine. It has now slept off that debauch, and its appetite is as vigorous as ever. This is the third of these cannibal feasts, not to mention occasional stimu- lants taken between meals, which the Sick Man of Europe has enjoyed during the lifetime of the present generation.
We all know that the problem of interference is a difficult one. There are two main objections to interference, of quite different kinds. The first is sentimental. There are very many among our more highly educated classes, and also among the military, who admire the Turks and despise their subjects, whether Jews, Armenians, Greeks, or Bulgarians. This is perfectly intelligible. The majority of travellers find the individual Turk a digni- fied, sober, and even truthful person, far more attractive to our Western ideas than his money-making, supple, often cowardly subjects; and if the Bulgarians and Macedonians do not come under this definition, still we have no great respect for those Danubian populations with their constant political unrest and their wild excitability. Further, in this particular case there is undoubted flagrant insurrection. The victims of Turkish massacre are dangerous rebels. "Why," asks the highly intel- lectual Turkophil at his club in Pall Mall, "why will the unruly devils rebel" ? The answer is not far to seek. But granted that Turkish rule does not justify rebellion—which is false—and granted that the individual Turk is a fine soldier and a man, in some circumstances, of fine character—which is true— still, all this does not make the Turkish method of suppression less of an outrage against God and man. Gentlemen who airily express the wish that all Jews, Armenians, Greeks, and now Macedonians, might be extirpated like vermin may plume themselves as men of the world, as superior to old-fashioned ideas of humanitarianism; but let not the rest of us, less afraid of ridicule, be enamoured of their polished cynicism.
But the second objection to interference is more plausible. It is political and diplomatic. What would happen if we did inter- fere? Perhaps there would be a great European War. Turkey is a powder-magazine which, if rudely handled, may blow up the peace of the world. Why should England volunteer for the duty of universal policeman? We have our own interests to look after all over the world. We have our Empire to consolidate. We are busy with our fiscal inquiry. I am no politician or diplomatist, and I am not so foolish as to suppose that, without political and diplomatic knowledge, I or any other man in the street or in the office of a newspaper can advise his Majesty's Government as to the right method or the right moment for interfering in foreign affairs. But no one can read history or observe contemporary events without realising that the divided responsibility of Cabinet government is very apt to breed apathy. And the very abundance of knowledge, unless controlled by an active and resolute will, produces nothing but timidity, and timidity blindness.* No one eats or drinks or walks, or even breathes, without innumerable risks; yet nobody but a madman would refuse to take them. The diplomatist may easily foretell a thousand different, and not all mutually exclusive, dangers of interference with Turkish misrule; but it may be that a great statesman, like many a great captain in similar circumstances, would put his finger upon the weak spot in the diplomatist's calculations, would strike home, and by opposing end a system of misgovernment which has been for centuries the curse of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
But why, since I have no practical measures to propose, should an obscure individual like myself make himself an object for the sneers of cynics ? For two reasons. Firstly, because in the long run this is a matter for nations rather than Governments; for public opinion rather that diplomatic finesse. At the present day one has to be careful how one advocates any cause which is tainted with those unpatriotic notions of liberty and philanthropy. Liberty is a mere dream ; philanthropy is sickly sentiment. Imperialism based on no illusory ties of blood or religion or civilisation, but on hard cash, which is the genuine and only • Since writing the above I have read the Report of the evidence given before the preceding cycle, 1871-1881, we should then only have an the War Commission as abridged in the Timis. It is scarcely necessary to re. mark on the sptntss of the illustration. exodus in the thirty years of less than sixty-two thousand
summum bonum,—this is the only gospel which a man must preach, in Parliament, in the Press, or in the pulpit, if he wishes to be called a patriot. But we have not so learned Christ,—and some of us have not so learned Imperialism :—
" Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento aka tibi erunt axles), pacisque iniponere morem, Pursers subiectis, et debellare superbos."
Which is the prouder, the less Little Englander, Imperialism ? To exercise our Imperial authority over its utmost scope, to insist to the utmost of our power upon the peaceful progress of civili- sation, to bring mercy and justice to the oppressed and to put down the oppressor,—or to be dragged at the tail of Russian or German diplomacy while we spend all our energies in trying by the manipulation of statistics to squeeze more than two-and- sixpence out of half-a-crown ? I have no doubt what the people of this Empire would really think, if once they could be roused into thinking at all. And surely the people of other countries, of America, of France, of Germany, Austria, and Italy, of all countries where public opinion exists, would be at one in saying "Turkish tyranny must cease," if only their Governments could lay aside their mutual distrusts in a cause which would be for the benefit and honour of all alike. This is not a question of a vague and platonic Peace Conference. It is a definite piece of work— dirty work, perhaps—which the European Governments have failed to carry out during centuries of unnecessary wars. It could be done, if they would do it together, without a single gun being fired except in salutes, by merely requesting an elderly despot to pass the remainder of his days, free from all fear of assassination, in some more salubrious city than Constantinople, and by establishing a government, still in harmony with Turkish ideas, but with the unwonted stimulus of the fear of Europe before its eyes. It can be done, and it will be done, if even one or two Governments can be stirred by the public opinion behind them to take the risks of interference.
But, secondly, I venture to court ridicule because, even if nothing can be done on this occasion, even if the Turkish Govern- ment is to be allowed to sink back gorged with blood and lust into a further period of lethargy, I believe it is the duty of any one, however insignificant, to speak up for the political faith that is in him. Only in this way, feeble as the means may be, can public opinion be formed and nourished. Thousands of humane men and women read every morning descriptions of these horrors. But every day on which they read them, and then turn to their work or their amusements without reflecting that the responsibility for these horrors is spread over the whole civilised world, they both dull their own imaginative power of sympathy, and add their own contribution to the sum of human suffering and cruelty. If even the humblest of writers can bring home to a few such men and women the truth that responsibility for crime is not lessened by division, and that other thoughts should inspire their politics besides the parish pump, and even besides the Imperial tariff, it may be worth doing. Our genera- tion has seen a steady reaction from the humanitarian ideals of the last century. Material success and the pursuit of pleasure have become more and more the avowed objects of public policy, of private energy, even of education. No Empire can stand the stress of storm on such foundations. If theory of the slaughtered children and the violated women can rouse no more than a shrug of the shoulders and an "Am I my brother's keeper?" heaven help us when our pinch comes ! For the purely selfish can never help themselves.
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