NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 683, 28 August 1876, Page 3

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

THE SERVIAN WAR.

The London correspondent of the Argu s writes on July 7th : The month, which began with assurances of peace, has closed in war, Mourad was by common consent to have been allowed an interval in which to have established his throne, and to shape his policy, but he has been summoned to a task still more difficult. The diplomatists have been pushed aside. The Servian army has crossed the Turkish frontier in three divisions ; Montenegro also ha* declared war, and all the efforts of Constantinople must be concentrated on the defence of the empire. There is an end, for the present to all projects of reform. The policy of the great Powers is to localise the struggle which has now commenced, but nobody can say whereto events will grow. The attitude of Europe is one of anxious suspense, for the atmosphere is charged with dangerous elements. Circumstances may arise suddenly which may make neutrality impossible, and in the conflict of interests the area of the war may be greatly extended. Not a few conjectures must have given place to facts before this letter reaches you. The policy of our own Government must come immediately under review. Now that negotiations between the Porte and its subjects have come to a close, Mr Disraeli has promised the production'of the necessary papers as soon as the consent of other countries can be obtained. The reticence of the Government has been generally accepted as a prudent reserve, but in view of the presence of our fleet in Besika Bay, the country is growing impatient to know more. The statement of Lord Derby, to which I recently referred, is still the fullest we have had, and fairly represents the general drift of English opinion. “We would gladly reunite, if we could,” said the Foreign Secretary, “the Porte with its insurgent provinces, but we have, as I conceive, no right and no wish to take part with one against the other in a purely international quarrel; and, again, no one supposes that the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire in any form within Europe is possible.” More explicit, though briefer, was the answer of Sir Stafford Northcote to a question in the House of Commons, that Her Majesty’s Government observed a strict neutrality, and expected other powers to do the same. Mr Bright, a few nights later, however, while declining to pronounce an opinion on the policy of the Government, strongly expressed the general view of the gravity of the crisis. Looking back to the Crimean war and the discreditable manner in which we had “ drifted ” into it, he urged that the country had a right to be taken into the confidence of the Government before it was committed to a policy of which it might not approve. If the policy of the Government were to give its countenance, even its moral support, to the Turks in opposition to the efforts that were being made by some of the subjects of the Porte to free themselves from its dominion, the people of this country would not support the Government. So far as they were neutral in the struggle, so far as they left that great contest, which was inevitable, to be determined by the forces on the spot, in all probability the great bulk of public opinion in this country would support them. The whole question would be earnestly debated within the next fortnight, when the course of the recent negotiations is more fully known.

There have been rumors on the Continent of disagreements between Mr Disraeli and Lord Derby, of which we know nothing, but it is in the latter rather than the former that the country now reposes confidence. Mr Jenkins, In a somewhat irregular discussion, had referred to the Vienna correspondence of the Times as a proof that though Parliament was kept in ignorance, the policy of the British Government was thoroughly well known in Vienna, and Mr Disraeli had answered with some sharpness, that he hoped the House would form its opinion upon authentic documents laid before it by the Government, and not upon anonymous newspaper articles or communications from our own correspondents, so generally sprinkled about the seats of diplomatic negotiation, To this the Times replied the next morning by the publication of the exact text of the famous Berlin memorandum, which has thus seen the light for the first time in its entirety. We have drifted far beyond that document now, yet scarcely a month ago England was credited with ;haying checkmated Russia by her refusal to sign it. There can be po doubt that the country will thoroughly sustain the action of the Government in that matter, for the document points to ulterior measures, which would have involved the gravest responsibilities. But there is some danger lest the praise which has been bestowed in certain quarters on the Continent upon our spirited foreign policy should have undue weight in the judgment of the events to which it was directed. There can be no greater mistake than to view them simply in relation to Russia, and to allow our decision of all points to be governed by jealousy or fear of that power. Apart from Russia, common prudence would have sufficed to keep this country out of the entanglements of the Berlin note. In regard to things as they have since shaped themselves, the Spectator puts the case strongly. The point on which Englishmen have now to decide, and to decide at once, according to that journal, is whether they will fight Russia in a great war, because from selfish motives she is helping to emancipate 13,000,000 of Sclaves. That is the issue now presented to them in the most direct and concrete form, in such a form, indeed, that unless they speak out strongly and at once they may find themselves this year embarked in a second Crimean war. On the other hand, great stress is laid in some quarters upon the treaty obligations which were the result of that war, and which bind us to maintain the integrity of Turkey. The alternatives of the struggle which has already commenced are not pleasant to contemplate, A victory of the Turks may mean such a massacre as will inflame the Christian populations of the adjacent countries ; a great defeat that drove them back upon Constantinople, might kindle such a flame throughout Islam as would not easily be extinguish'd. Already we have excitement among the Mahommedans in Jerusalem and in other places, and several fanatical out* rages have occurred. t