THE EASTERN QUESTION.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3161, 5 April 1879, Page 3

THE EASTERN QUESTION.

(To the Editor of the Evening- Stab.) Sib, —Will you do me and your readers the justice of inserting these few lines P With almost the whole of your leading article of last Saturday on my lecture I am not at all concerned ; but there is one sentence in it which not the least considerate reader could pass unnoticed. You say—" Ethics cannot in any way be foisted upon politics, save with the risk of chimerical conclusions." Earl Carnarvon, whom you will admit to be no mean authority, in the Fortnightly Review for December, 1878, page 762, says : '• We cannot with impunity divorce our system of politics from our system of morals. There are not two sides to that shield ; or two codes to be observed as convenience may dictate. But this is an unfashionable doctrine ; it is even occasionally denied ; and I have lately read with amazement in a periodical of high repute the proposition laid down with regard to one of the most unspotted characters of the Italian fourteenth century, that he failed as a statesman because in his political conduct he paid obedience to the laws of morality. Bat such a doctrine contains all that is detestable and abhorrent to public virtue, and though it may find a sanction in Machiavel, it will find no echo in the great body of the English people, until at least they depart further than they have yet gone from the political faith and practice of their fathers." Which of these two sentiments, I would ask, is the most honorable, just and true ? Which is most worthy of a civilised and Christian people (such as I assumed I was addressing in my lecture) ? Which is most beneficient and advantageous for mankind P I think the answer of your readers will be the same as mine.—l am, &c, Samuel Ebgee. Auckland, April 2nd.