THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 1879.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3155, 29 March 1879, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 1879.

The Rev. 8. Edger chose as the text of his lecture last night that very trite theme "The Eastern Question," which he announced as " not yet settled," but which he proceeded to settle in a summary manner. We hare as implicit faith in the ultimate fiulfilment of Biblical prophecy as the veriest ecclesiastic on the face of the globe, but when in the face of all our pious principles, derived from unremitting attendance, in youth, upon Sunday Schools, Bible classes, and such other excellent institutions, a lecturer proceeds to prophecy "the future of Europe," we are forced to conclude that our esteemed authority Malachi was not the last of the prophets, but that a latterday seer was yet to arise in our more favored days. The ambitious title of the lecture in a measure belied the matter since it was but a rechauffe of most of the worn oul arguments of political theorists at home. We were led to believe that this lecture, delivered in aid of a fund,' would be completely devoid of party animus, but we regret to state that it was little more than an attack upon Lord Beaconsfield and his foreign policy. In this article we can do little more than refute several of the arguments brought forward by the speaker. We cannot agree with him as to the monstrous iniquity in Russia annexing Bessarabia, and Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in that these small political States, being incapable of autonomy, and yet utterly neglected until the Turkish Suzerainty really required some more positive possession ; that their internal resources might be developed. Further, the Beaconsfield policy is not a secret bolstering up of an effete Moslem rule, but a vigorous opposition to a treacherous display of statecraft on the part of Eussia. Again, as to militaryism, as the rev. lecturer termed our system of standing armies, coining a word neither expressive nor correctly derived from its Latin primitive, this he characterised as the foe of all liberty, the barrier of all progress, the iron foot crushing down the working man, the death of all natural nobleness —a series of epithets curiously analagous to Shelley's vehement denunciation of the same institution. Now, we strongly suspect our reverend lecturer to be one of those estimable idealists of strongly pronounced Millenium views, who view everything as having direct bearing upon the Second Advent of our Lord. Warfare to such men is a most staggering fact, but they continue to bridge the difficulty by proving it a great evil in the abstract, though a necessity in the concrete, much the same as hanging is an evil in the abstract, though a necessity in the concrete. To such dreamers man is rated, not as he is, but as he might be, and the world considered not in its real respect, but in its ideal. In place of such an anomaly as the beating of our swords and spears into ploughshares and pruning • hooks, the disbanding of our armies, and the learning of war no more, is it not a more likely solution of the problem, that were warfare to disappear from amongst us it would be by the principle of perfect armaments ; or otherwise, that the science and practice of war had reached such perfection that it would be national extinction to attempt it. This same frantic transcendentalism characterised the other portion of the lecture. According to the speaker the civilisation of the world was thrown back by the Berlin Conference, and upon the most patent military despotism rested the Berlin Treaty, whereby the weak werecompelled to exist by dependence on the strong, and, finally, that the Beaconsfield treaties would receive the epithet treacherous from succeediDghistory. WeaskMrEdger.how did civilisation reach Europe save by the sword of the Romans ? How did it permeate the American Continents save from the germ planted by. Cortes and his soldiers P And, finally, are not Alsace and Lorraine more advanced in true civilisation under tbe German dominion than under the Government of France ? How entirely one-sided is the view taken by the lecturer of the Beaconsfield Treaties, when he could apply the epithet treacherous to them, and neglect a similar condemnation of the political jugglery of Eussia. The lecturer based his sentiments upon a system of ethics utterly false. He said, " The common sense of any one will teach them the truth of these things." The term common sense cannot be used with philosophical correctness since it is a varying term, and therefore ambiguous. Is the common sense of this age the same as that of the last? If so, how then do we differ so entirely in our received opinions in philosophical matters P Ethics cannot in any way be foisted upon politics, i

I save at the risk of chimerical conclusions. Perhaps, since our possession of (xibralter, Malta, and Cyprus constitutes such moral iniquity the British Empire had better be broken up and the world bit by bit restored to his pristine state. We fear in that case the civilization regarding which Mr Edger is so solicitous would bo throw-i further back than by a dozen wars, wfrea the moral influence of the Mother-lc.- i ceased to havo power in her depei I dencies.