POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5179, 27 October 1877, Page 2 (Supplement)

POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT.

(From the London correspondent of the Melbourne Argus, October 12.) The Government is strong in Parliament, and the country is on the whole prepared to give them a steady support. Is there not, therefore, a chance that Dizzy may yet surprise us all with one of his coups de thiatre ? That is the tone now adopted, and a policy of constant vigilance is everywhere proclaimed by the leaders of the Opposition. It is strange now to look back to this time last year, when wo were in the full swing of Bulgarity meetings, and the leas thoughtful maintained that, any display of sympathy for Turkey in the future would be impossible. The danger now —and, strongly opposed to Russia and Russian intrigue as I have been throughout, I feel it to he a danger—is that the rapidly rising feeling in favor of the Turks, by reason of their brave and determined defence against such an enormously greater Power, may yet encourage —or even force— the Government into unnecessary interference. Polly of this sort every sane man must deprecate. The extraordinary successes of the Turks, both in Europe and in Asia, have shown that they are by no means the played-out race that it had become the fashion to represent them. But for years they refused to pay the slightest attention to our remonstrances, and the very success of the Russian intrigues proved at least that they had not the strength to put them down. It is no time, therefore, to sympathise either with the organised or disorganised barbarism. Russia has been cajoled and o.'ged on into a war which at any rate must cripple her powers of mischief for a quarter of a century, and which, probably, no man now so much regrets as the Czar, except, perhaps, the Czarewioh, but yet a war undertaken in the interests not of humanity but of ambition. Let ns stand raids and tako no hand in this competition of atrocity, nor even try to act ns mediators, until both patties are thoroughly exhausted with tho fray. That is Lord Derby's policy just now, and though his want of firmness at an earlier date may be regretted, it seems difficult to suggest a better course for England under existing circumstances. Tho people most to, be pitied are tho wretched Bulgarians. Tho proportion of them who joined in Russian intrigues, or who have aided the Cossacks in their hideous massacres of Mussulman families, must be in reality very small. Yet now their fields are laid waste, their villages burnt, and their women and children ravished and murdered by brutal Bashi-Bazouks and Circassians. Whatever may be tho end of tho war, rich, prosperous Bulgaria, which the Russsan soldiery have been so much surprised nt, will be loft little bettor than a desert. Verily those who connived at this frightful war have much to answer for, and the more because what is now taking place was so plainly foreseen. Philanthrophy started on a strangs errand when she made herself the advanceguard of the Cossacks of the Don.