THE GREEKS AND THE TURKISH MISRULE. T HE great meeting at
Athens on Sunday last has happened very opportunely to impress upon forgetful or inobservant Western politicians the wrong and folly of neglecting the in- terests of the Greek Christians in the pending settlement—if we may use so hopeful a word—of the Christian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The Greeks have displayed wonderful patience throughout the whole of the present disturbances. in Turkey. Perhaps even worse governed than the Bulgarians and Bosnians, the Hellenic inhabitants of Epirus, Thessaly, and Macedonia have refrained from insurrection, both from the hope that their good-conduct would receive a correspond- ing recognition from the Powers, and from a well-grounded distrust of the friendliness of the Belay propaganda. In fact, the Greeks have done just what our Tory politicians keep on assuring us is the true and certain way to obtain redress for all grievances in Turkey. They have fought shy or Russia, and they have confined themselves to peaceful remon- strances and representations. The only result down to the present time has been that the Greeks have seen their respectful petitions consigned to the waste-baskets of the Turkish Home Office, and that they are fleeced and oppressed with tenfold rapacity, in the endeavour of the Turkish officials and tax- gatherers to force them to make up for the diminished yield of the revenue in the insurgent provinces. At the same time, all the old forms of insult and outrage have been continued and extended, as the intoxication of fanaticism has steadily increased among the Mussulman population. A Reign of Terror of the most frightful kind exists in the Greek districts, and the only gain which the unfortunate Hellenes have de- rived from their peaceful behaviour is that, while they are as miserable as ever, they are utterly disregarded by European public opinion into the bargain. The Athenian meeting was, in the best sense of the word, representative of independent Greek feeling on the matter. It was presided over by the Rector of the University, and a num- ber of the ablest and most influential of the Professorial body united with members of more popular organisations in pressing a policy of action upon the Government. Men of all political parties were equally prominent in the demonstration, and not a trace of mere party spirit is perceptible. The University Professors Paparigopoulo, Bokinos, and Damalas were the most applauded and effective speakers. The principal portion of their oratory was directed to a description of the intolerable condition of the Hellenic population of Turkey, and to scornful denunciations of the bitter fruits which the Greeks have reaped from the policy of quiet and peacefulness. The Greeks had been advised by European public men to avoid all further complications of the Eastern difficulty, and the consequence was that, for having followed this advice, it was only too probable that Hellenic interests were about to be neglected altogether. In vain had the Servians called on the Greeks to make common cause with the Sclays in a decisive struggle against the Turkish oppressors. Faithful to the engagements which they had taken with Europe, the statesmen of Athens and the leaders of the Hellenic community in Turkey had refrained from every armed demonstration, against that Power which was the curse and the bane of all peaceable communities alike in the East. The Greeks had stood calmly by, in well-maintained neutrality, while their Christian brethren were being butchered in Bulgaria, and while atrocities similar in kind, though happily less in degree, were being hourly practised upon the defenceless Hellenic people of Epirus and Thessaly. In return for their ungenerous stoicism they had been rewarded with some plaudits by the philo- Turkish party in Europe, and their non-intervention in the strife had been misquoted to imply that the Greeks had nothing to complain of from their Turkish rulers. This was not, however, the return on which the Hellenes counted, and which they had a right to expect. When they tried by force of arms, as in Crete, to gain some alleviation of their innumerable burthens, they were reproached with being the disturbers of Europe, and they were lectured on the duty of presenting their claims for the removal of grievances in peace- ful and moderate fashion. It now appeared that when a Christian people asked for reform in a peaceful manner, they were not attended to at all, and that the only way to the sympathy of Europe was through violent means and open insurrection. In not one of the proposals put forward by the Great Powers for the pacification of the East was there any provision for the Hellenes, and if the Hellenes did not help themselves first, it was plain that no help would come from the Powers. As things had turned out, the Belays had been abused for rising in insurrection, but were going to have their case remedied ; while the Greeks had been praised and encouraged for keeping quiet, and were now going to be passed over in silence and neglect. While the Sclav provinces of Turkey were for the future to have their
condition placed beyond the reach of Turkish oppression, the Hellenes were to be condemned to bear all the aggravated burthens of Turkish misrule and Turkish decrepitude and decay. Was this a situation which the Hellenes of the Hellenic kingdom were tamely to endure ?
This just and unanswerable reasoning resulted in the unani- mous passing of two resolutions, which fitly betoken the sen- timents of all Hellenes on the subject of the present position of the Greek question. By the first resolution, the Hellenic Government was urged to protest against the contemplated abandonment of the Hellenic populations of Turkey, evidenced in the various propositions of the Great Powers. By the second resolution—and this strikes the key-note of the agitation—the Hellenic Government is assured of the universal desire of the Hellenic nation that the land and sea-forces should be placed in the best possible state for active service. A Commission, consisting of the Metropolitan, the Rector of the University, the Mayors of Athens and the Pirwus, and Professor Damalas, was chosen to convey the resolutions to the Cabinet. We are thus placed in view of a fresh aggravation of the Eastern situation —an aggravation which the wanton tyranny of the Turk; has solely originated, and which can only be removed by the extension to the Hellenic provinces of Turkey of some of the guarantees certain in one form or another to be granted to the Sclavic victims of Ottoman brutality and despotism. The best- informed journals of the East of Europe contain numerous accounts of the increase of Greek insurgent bands in the Hellenic provinces, and there can be little reason to look for- ward to a speedy pacification of those portions of Turkish territory, as the Turks are capable of nothing but the methods essayed with such horrible vigour in Bulgaria. At the same time, as we pointed out in previous articles, there can be no
serious difficulty about the extension of some sort of substan- tial reforms to these afflicted countries. No Power except Russia has any desire to secure to the Sclavic provinces an isolated and special degree of development. The Turkish Government should, last of all, wish to subordinate its Hellenic subjects to its Sclavic ones, and the promised" general reforms applicable to our entire Empire," which represent the latest effort of the Porte to throw dust in the eyes of Europe, might, under proper pressure, be made to fructify in real concessions to Hellene and Sclav alike. This would be taking the Turk at his word in the best way, and if we had a Government that was truly a Government, instead of a poor echo of untenable traditions, we could look forward with confidence to the opening of a new era for all the Christian populations. As, however, Lord Derby always waits to be urged on by Russia, the Hellenes are not likely to have friends in Downing Street.
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