WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH TURKEY IN EUROPE?

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 169, 8 July 1876, Page 4

WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH TURKEY IN EUROPE ?

(From the New York Herahl.) In their dealings with tbe problems presented by the condition of Turkey, the Great Powers in Europe make haste Blowly. Occupation of all the Provinces north of Balkan by the troops of Russia and Austria is the objective point of the diplomatic game now on hand in the various capitals; but the parties to tbe game, for reasons doubtless satisfactory to themselves, choose to contemplate the case as if such a consequence were to be deprecated or regarded with dismay. Russia, however, is rather franker in this respect, than her neighbors and allies. She does not pretend to respect the Ottoman Power, nor fo believe that it can maintain itself, or should be assisted or encouraged by Christian governments in its oppression of a Christian people. It is true Russia has two aspects in the case. She runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds. Rightly typified for once by ber Imperial eagle, she has one eye on the round of secular sovereignty, and another on the emblem of ( Christian faith. In the confabulations of diplomats she seems to recognise the Sultan's rights aa she might those of any other potentate, and to deal with them strictly oh political grounds; but when sbe turns to tbe. down-trodden Slavs on the Danube, she speaks like a crusader. Constantinople is the capital city of the Russian religion. Just as the Christian people of all countries in the ages before Luther turned their eyes to Rome, just as the Catholic people of every country ptill turn their eyes thither, so the Russian people turn their eyes towards Constantinople as a sacred city — the Rome of the Eastern Church — and they regard the presence of the Moslem there precisely as the crusaders regarded his presence at Jerusalem. Although tbe crusading spirit has been dead in Western Europe I ever since political economy has been I studied, and though religion in our part ] of the world is in a great degree free from all the deep attachments of locality —since Catholics regard the head of the Church, and not so much the city in which be dwells — it must be remembered that the primitive condition with respect to ideas of tbis class persists io Russia, and that the people there are emotionally and intellectually very near what the people of France and England were in the Middle Ages. Every Russian Government, therefore, that would not entirely cut free from a sympathetic relation with the people must keep tbis fact iv view, and must respect the prejudices and the passions io the light of which the nation regards the intruding infidel with his foot on the necks of men whom the Russians contemplate as brothers because they are both Christians and Slavs. It is not strange, therefore, that the Russian Government speaks encouragingly to the revolting people, and lets the Russian nation hear only menaces of its wrath at Moslem misrule, while in Berlin and Vienna, where it must remember that a balance of power is still believed in, it adopts a different tone and demeanor. Tbat the St Petersburg government plays tbis role of necessary and perhaps unwilling hypocrisy on a grand scale is ona of tbe evident facts of European politics. Doubtless every Government assumes in the presence of other Governments a very different attitude from that it holds before its own people, but this is only flagrant iv the case of Russia. Austria is no fonder of tbe Sultan than Russia is ; but her assumption of faith in his future possibilities, her superserviceable readiness to construct protocols and programmes of reform, to put him in the moral straighfjacket of Western political ideas, is ber admission that she is not altogether ready to meet the case of his final fall in any other way. It is her cue to stand as the Sultan's next friend. Every power Bituated as Austria is must have peace on her frontiers if possible ; and with this necessity guaranteed, it is her interest to bave for a neighbor just such ft Stats as Turkey. At least, this is the interest of a nation as viewed in the light of the policy that governs monarchical States in Europe, where the prosperity of the people is less regarded than the contingency of foreign | war. At the time tbat Louis Napoleon assented to those projects of Cavour, which resulted in the unity of Italy, M.Thiers pointed out tbat the sovereign of France was constructing on his frontiers a power that might prove dangerous. In the progress of the warlike and diplomatic dramas that ended in putting the armed force in Germany at tbe command of Berlio, the old politician continued his admonitions on tbis key, but was answered with rubbish conceived in aßpirit of sentimeatal politics, until the Empire and France fell in a common ruin. Sj long as States must have more reason to fear tbe growth of their neighbors than to desire the advancement of their own people, thiß policy will be a good one ; it is therefore the naturul policy of every monarchical State that has sot gooe ao far in the development of restraints, limitations, and other constitutional contrivances as to approach the republican system. Austria, therefore, acts naturally in her assumption tlat ali that the Sultan's Government needs is a little patching vp — a, few paper programmes— a little reform in the collection of the taxes. If by this friendly altitude towards the Sultan she oan secure bis assent that she shall have the right at all times totranquilise the trontier by marching her troops into f^volted districts on the border, aud if

by the pretence toward Europe that the Sultan's Government still has all needful vitality, she can keep the Moslem for a neighbor rather than have the Tartar too near her, she will have escaped very handsomely from a great crisis. But it appears very unlikely that she can secure this result, for the facts of the case are against her in the country in revolt ; and a point of perhaps still greater consequence is, tbat in the complication of general European politics this difficulty may become an important makeweight. Austria cannot smuggle out of sight in ber own interest a fact that may incline a doubtful balance in which is the interest of several other nations. As to tbe condition of the revoked provinces, it is impossible to conceive it worse than we know it to be. In Bulgaria, tbe Turkish authorities take away the children of their Christian subjects and hold them as hostages for advanced payment of the taxes. Cruelty, more heartless and horrible than this, was never practised on any people in the name of Government. The poor Moslems are scarcely less oppressed and wretched thaa the Christiana , and if the threat to arm the Moslems is acted upon, it will not be so much the launching their ferocity against their fellow sufferers, as the giving up of the whole country to brigandage, murder, and barbarism. With all, the absolute bankruptcy of tbe Government will be evident at an early day. The SuUaa will die this summer, his physicians say, and his nephew and heir-at-law is regarded aa even less fit for a throne than the present ruler. It is a political cataclysm, therefore— a case that the Vienna diplomatists cannot cover up with reams of parehmeßt. In the scheme of Continental politics the consequence of these facts is, that Prussia has the opportunity to give away this coveted territory on the Danube. Though she will hardly offend Russia, 6h. seems to coquet with Austria. The Berlin Government has aspirations for colonial development. It has its agents in Abyssinia, and it will scarcely permit Egypt, if the Ottoman Empire is to fail altogether, to pass into the hands of Eogland. If England is to be made an enemy by such a dispute, it would not do to put Austria in such a position that England, France, and Austria would be tempted to act together against Germany and Russia, for that would not be a one-sided conflict. Perhaps a great independent Bulgarian State may prove the only solution of tbe difficulty.