THE SAMOA TIMES. "Sworn to no Master, of no Sect am I." SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1878.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 63, 14 December 1878, Page 2

THE SAMOA TIMES. "Sworn to no Master, of no Sect am I." SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1878.

What now inJEurope goes.by the name of the Secret Treaty involves Great liritain in a huge responsibility. In another ■ column \vc give a condensed account of it as seen from the .Spectator point of view. This paper is strongly opposed to the treaty of the 4th June, and therefore it may he.token for granted that there is no exaggeration in this picture of the great ifiefil..opened up for Anglo-Saxon enterprise and the extension of the British Empire. .Had the Spectator been a journal friendly to the Government now in power in England there might have heen grouukls for a suspicion that the sketch wfli over-coloured. The gist of the article is that England has entered upou.certain duties before the eyas of the ■world, and thus,retreat is cut off. Come what .may, she must advance. Unable to effect, through the present .agents, the reforms she is pledged to, she will change the agency and .undertake the administration herself. According to Mr. Forster ■this means annexation pure and simple ; to those ,iuinds that can look a little ahead it means the same thing. The Spectator, while disapproving of the whole scheme,' believes that within three years England will bo governing AsiaMinor from Constantinople. .If this .view bo correct, the only debateable point is England's ability to carry th affair,to a successful issue. Her Standing army is a very small one, ami it already acts as a military police in every quarter.of the globe. Its hands are therefore full. How then is AsiaMinor tij.be controlled, and, it may even . be, defended P Undoubtedly the bulk of its defenders must bo drawn from the country itself. The question of providing lenders,for these troops would then arise. And happily for England she has no hick of the right stamp of men, Tbeiv arc at tho present moment hundreds of officers who, having completed their twenty years' service in the Indian Native Army, now Hud themselves in the receipt of .a moderate pension, and turned adrift in the prime of life. Here then is the material ready to hand. And no one can doubt but that the Turkish rank and file led by those English officers would give a very good account of any body of Russians brought into collision with them.

As regards tlio future of Asi.vMinnr nml of those regions often sailed the "cradle of thohuman nice," prediction as vet wouhl bo prematura. It is plain, BDWover, that regeneration is near ut hand, ami it is equally evident that England, and not Kussitt, will have tlie nuiin say in the matter. It is clear too tJuit tho Ul.sk will be free from some of tlio difficulties which have beset British rule ,i i India. Thoro is no surplus popula-j .tion to bv dealt with; tho country is dosolutc rather than populous. Famines |

rarapsaesras Una of the State. It is probable that England enters on the task with the goodiriU oi tin- world at large; weexeept oi course Lor hereditary foe, Russia,