The Hastings Standard Published Daily. THURSDAY, SEPT. 17, 1896. A ROYAL CRIMINAL.

Hastings Standard, Issue 123, 17 September 1896, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily.

THURSDAY, SEPT. 17, 1896. A ROYAL CRIMINAL.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that we can do.

Abdul Hamid, the Sultan of Turkey, the Crown of Ages, and the Pride of all Countries, as Turkish rhetoric describes him : the Shadow of God on Earth, the Esteemed Centre of the Universe, at whose grand portals stand the camels of justice and mercy. This wretched little pinched - up, mud colored Royal scarecrow has been fitly termed by an English poet as " Hell's regent," while Lord Salisbury, who is not remarkable for any prodigality of epithets, publicly compared him to Tamerlane, the ferocious Mogul conqueror of the fourteenth century, of whom it is recorded that, by way of celebrating his capture of Bagdad, he erected above its smoking ruins an interesting monument in the shape of a pyramid of 90,000 human heads. Sultan Abdul Hamid must wear the aspect of a sort of Human Satan to the friendless and unhappy Armenians, ■while to the rest of the European nations this Royal butcher is an unmitigated nuisance. For many months past this merciless tyrant has been the pivot of European politics; he has been scolded and threatened by all the Great Powers, but he has made their mutual jealousies his tool, be still reigns triumphant. His diplomatic victories will be brief. The British lion is roused, Ms toil swttetat? in aagiy cadence, bis

body swqys, and presently his roar i will be btiferd by the prisoner tyrant in the Yildi*£Kiosk, and the grip ©I the Lion will squeeze the Turkish Empire out of existence. The British people are indignant beyond expression ; their, entreaties, their prayers, and supplications have had not the slightest effeqt. The statesmen of England lpok op powerless; the statesmen of Europe gaze with indifference on the slaughtered innocents. The British nation ha| grown weary of appealing for mercy* and now threatens action. The agitai|on in England, we are told, is growing fast and once the nation is thoroughly roused the consequences may be well imagined, There is a limit to patience—the patience of a Britisher—as the Royal Turk will soon discover. There are only two arguments understood by the Turks, bribery and bayonets; the British nation is not likely to use the former. That the Eastern question will be forced to a solution seems apparent. The sensitive money market, more accurate in its warnings than any barometer, indicates that a storm is about to burst. The advance of the discount rate by the Bank of England was the first sign, the heavy fall in the price of consols, the finest of giltedged securities, but serves to emphasise the imminence of danger. The warning of The Times of the danger of provoking war is characteristic of the great English journal, and from its utterance it will be seen that it is impossible to touch the Eastern question without causing a European war. The death of Prince Lobanoff, the great Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, has, we fancy, caused a breach in Russian diplomacy, and through this breach England may be able to get in and throttle the Turk. The news of the next few days should be particularly interesting.