The Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1878.

Oamaru Mail, Volume II, Issue 557, 13 February 1878, Page 2

The Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1878.

The intelligence of a probable alliance ] between Russia and Turkey h:a further complicated the appearance of the struggle that has now lasted with unabated pace for nearly a year. Even bad this item of news not reached us, it would have been a task too difficult for us, at this distance, as it is, indeed, for those on the spot, to foretell the course warlike events were likely to take. But, when the bitterest foes, whose religions are totally opposite, and the wrath of which nothing but each other's blood has been effectual in appeasing for ages past, consent, as the finale of a long and sanguinary struggle, to bury the hatchet, nothing is improbable. It is, however, difficult of belief that the

irrepressible Turk would permit the Russian forces to congregate in great masses within the fortifications of the heart of his empire without making it uncomfortably warm for them, unless some secret understanding had been arrived at. It is scarcely likely that Great Britain and those other Powers that have of late been jealously watching the encroachments of the " Russian Octopus " upon the Ottoman Empire will give their unqualified consent to any arrangement that Turkey may choose to make in order to get herself out of her present scrape. The question with them has been from the first, "Are our interests menaced, and is the international treaty of Paris being violated I Until those interests were in jeopardy, Great Britain and those who were willing to support her in case of necessity deemed it to be none of thenbusiness to interfere. The question now is whether there has not been too many despatches written threatening what would be the result should international rights be trampled upon ; and yet it is very difficult to arriveat any correct judgment of the wisdom or otherwise of the policy of delaying action in the hope of averting war and its terrible consequences. It is a matter of very serious moment that Great Britain should act with caution at the present critical juncture ; and there is no reason for supposing that because she has delayed until the eleventh hour the manifold evils of war she is not as able and willing as ever to assert her rights when she thinks that the time has arrived to do so. Mature consideration invariably begets firmness; and, although rousing the British Lion may be a tardy process, when he uses his teeth, he does so with a resolution that renders them incisive. If Turkey has shaken hands with Russia, the event i 3 ominous, and will prove to be the worst day's work the I Mussulman has ever done.