New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1877.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5072, 26 June 1877, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1877.

The last despatch from Prince Gohtchakoff, the substance of which has been telegraphed to New Zealand, brings the “Eastern Question” to a somewhat definite issue. Whilst plainly disavowing any designs against Egypt or the Suez Canal, the Russian Government, it is evident, take views as to the fate of Constantinople, and the control of the navigation of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, which are at variance with those held by the British Government, if recent and frequent utterances in and out of Parliament are to be trusted. From the first it has been pretty plainly declared that England will not permit a Russian occupation of Stamboul, and will maintain the status in quo so far as the navigation of the Bosphorus is concerned. Now Russia makes no secret that she is prepared, if necessary, to carry her arms into the city of the Sultan, and as for the navigation of the Bosphorus, that is a matter to be arranged by the nations of Europe, and not = to bo settled by the dictation of Great Britain. In so far as Prince Gortchakoff’s despatch can be interpreted, the above is what it means. This being so, there is more than a probability that a definite understanding will be arrived at whether England means to defend Constantinople or not. At the same time despatches, though apparently meaning everything, very frequently are explained subsequently to their publication to have really meant nothing at all, so that it would be impossible to say that a week or two may not bring about a very extensive modification of Russian views on the question of Constantinople and the entrance to the Black Sea. Still on the face of it matters have now reached a point at which England must announce a concluaion one way or the other, and which may involve her armed intervention in the present struggle at some future stage of its progress. The question is, will a conclusion in exact opposition to Russian intentions induce a modification of those intentions, or will it bring about hostilities in which the Great Powers of Europe may be engaged. That a modification of Russian intentions may ensue upon a particular declaration by England is not impossible. Should, however, the worst come, the great danger to be found in an armed intervention by England is in the position occupied by France and Germany. For it is notorious that the intrigues and alliance consequent upon or preceding a general European war, are thought to present extraordinary advantages to France for regaining her lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. And all newspaper readers know that recent telegrams have pointed, if not u, a tnreiuenetl war between France and Germany, at least to speeches and movements on either side which raised apprehensions of hostilities. Under these circumstances it may not bo inopportune to direct attention to a paper in “ Blackwood’s Magazine,” on the French army of 1877, which we have the testimony of the Spectator for saying, is evidently written by a very careful and competent military critic. The writer concludes that since the last military panic two years ago, when Germany was believed to be so near attempting what Prince Bismarck ridiculed as a precautionary assassination of a suspected assassin, France has made so much progress, though very slow and painful progress, that it would be a matter of the utmost peril for Germany to attempt a now invasion. In addition, however, the writer in “Blackwood” is of opinion, so we learn from the Spectator's review of his article, that France is not only not strong enough for any attack on Germany, but that there is no prospect within any limited time of her becoming so. He holds that France could within three weeks mobilise and concentrate an arlny of 990,000 men, with 310,000 men more remaining disposable at the depots to fill up gaps as they rose, and this without calling up the “ territorial army and its reserves.” Of these 1,300,000 troops, 730,000 would, according to the writer, bo really disciplined soldiers; 300,000 more would have had six months’ drilling, and 250,000 more would be quite undisciplined. The writer holds that these armies would be ample, and could be mobilised in ample time, for the purpose of defending France against invasion, though they would not be adequate, and could not be mobilised in time for an attack on Germany, who mobilises quicker than France. What further renders any- invasion of Germany by Franco quite impossible is, according to this writer, the fact that the now German strongholds between Franco and the Rhine, heavily garrisoned as of course they would be, could not be invested without, at least, an army of 400,000 men for that service alone, while an attempt to penetrate into Germany would be madness without a highly - disciplined army of 800,000 men more. Add to this, that the now fortresses command all the railways available for moving troops across the German frontier, and that the supplies for these 800,000 men wontd have to be carried daily to increasing distances in carts, and the writer thinks, not apparently without Justice, that ho has completely shown how desperate a task it would bo, in the present state of the Gorman army and fortresses, to use the now French army for an attack on Germany. All the frightful odds, however, against which the French would have to fight in case of an invasion of Germany, the Germans would have to face in case of an invasion of Franco, with such an army and such fortresses as the French • now have for their own defence. Hence the critic in “ Blackwood ” says emphatically that the military party in Germany have lost any opportunity such as they had two years ago, for breaking up France before France could oppose anything like equal resistance. The work of military reorganisation, though it has been clumsily and slowly done, and though, many grave mistakes have been made, which it has been necessary to repair at the cost of groat trouble and expense, has so far been achieved, that any attempt to invade France, even by such a Power as Germany, would now be one of the most serious and conspicuous peril. Though Franco is helpless for a spring on Ger-

many, Germany is now almost as unprepared for a successful spring upon France. Prince Goetciiakoit’s despatch winds up by declaring that Russia will demand guarantees for the security of Christians in Turkish provinces. There is something inexpressibly nonsensical in this anxiety of Russia for the security of Christians. As a recent number of the Pall Mall Gazette points out, the correspondence recently produced “respecting the treatment of the members of the United Greek Church in Russia ” shows the Russian Government to have followed the precedent of Louis XIV., and to have anticipated the Bulgarian atrocities with the most exact fidelity. No doubt the prejudice of the Imperial Russian authorities against the United Greeks, like that of the French Royal persecutor against the French Protestants, was at first and at bottom political. The Uniat Greeks were suspected of Polish sympathies, as indeed is everybody in Russia who belongs to a religious community connected, however remotely, with the western branch of the Christian Church. The first measure taken against them, and prompted by this suspicion, was a close counterpart of the earliest aggressions on the Protestants. The Uniat Greeks were declared to have innovated on their primitive religious usages and ancient ritual ; they had borrowed from the Latins such damnable inventions as organs and benches; the iconostasis in their churches exhibited heterodox features; there was no “Imperial door.” Accordingly' a peremptory order was received from St. Petersburg that the ‘ ‘ Graeco - Uniat rites 'should be cleared from everything Latin.” .... Such an ordinance, begging as it does a most prodigiously difficult historical question, is in eifect a mere violent piece of oppression ; and as such it was regarded by the Uniat Greeks. They displayed, the Russian Minister of the Interior puts it, ‘ 1 religious fanaticism and stubborn resistance ; ” like the French Protestants, they went out into the desert. Then followed the persecutions which Colonel Mansfield, writing as Consul-General from Warsaw, called “massacres.” “ The mortality among the peasants bivouacking in the forests in the severe weather was frightful Orders have been given to the Cossacks to hunt them back into 'the villages, so that the peasants bivouacking have been constantly on the move, retaliating by hanging the Cossacks hero and there when in isolated parties.” In one district, the peasants defied the military to introduce the strange priest. As a measure of repression, fifty blows with the Cossack whip were given to every adult man, twenty-five to every woman, and ten to every child, irrespective of age and sex ; one “fanatical” woman received a hundred blows. Following the French precedent with the utmost exactness, the Russian Government joined proselytism to chastisement, and effected its conversions by dragonnades. “ Having exiled the bishop to Viatka,” says 'Vice-Consul Webster, “and deported some 20,000 of his followers to Saratoff and other provinces, the Government sent Russian priests to proselytise the rest. . . . There now remain about 60,000 Uniats, all of them small landowners ; as they will not change their religion, this Government persecutes them by putting them in prison, by flogging them, and by billeting Cossack troops, who commit every license, in their villages.” And the tragic-comedy ends, precisely as did the French preface to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by the return of the UuUcJ Grades in a mass to the bosom of the Orthodox Church. The Official Gazette described the ceremony of readmission with pompous solemnity. The United Greek clergy of Chelm, with the Archpriest Popiel at their head, were received at the Winter Palace by the Emperor, who had just attended divine service. They presented their humble petition, soliciting reunion with the Holy Orthodox Eastern Church, “ which was the Church of their fathers.” The Emperor replied in an address which, now that the whole history of the previous transactions is before us, it is difficult not to call blasphemous. “ Having listened with peculiar pleasure to your declarations, I above all thank God, whose ineffable goodness has inspired you with the wholesome thought of returning to the bosom of the Orthodox Church. . .

I thank you for the consolation you give me, I believe in your sincerity, and I pray God to support you in the course which you have just deliberately adopted.” Our telegrams received at an early hour this morning coincide with the views expressed above. In face of the definite issue, England has shown her teeth, the Cabinet asking tor credit in order to take precautionary measures of armament in case of war. On this Prince Gortchakoif has at once disclaimed any intention on the part of Russia to acquire Constantinople; but this declaration does not do away with the tenor of that portion of his despatch which made the possession of Constantinople and the passage of the Dardanelles a question for all the European Powers to decide. The Turks, as is usual, have been successful in Asia. They have retaken Bayazid. This town is so near the frontier that it is plain the left wing of the Russian army, previously supposed to bo advancing victoriously on Erzorum, has fallen back beaten and discomfited, as we yesterday anticipated 'would be the case. In Europe the Russians have .crossed the Danube (no doubt in force this time) at Galatz, or almost at the head of the Dobrudscha. As our San Francisco correspondent anticipated, the Turks are retreating before them ; but this merely means that the Ottomans leave the forces of the Tsar a weary waste of desert, swamp, and sand to pass over before they can attempt a real invasion of Turkey from so near the mouths of the Danube. The probability is that the crossing at Galatz is only" a feint in force, and that the passage of the river by the main body will be attempted much higher up. Under any circumstances, the Turks seem not unprepared for either event.