The Press. — London, England, 1858-05-29 00:00:00

! Christians from the patronage of Russia and to place them under the patronage of Europe. Accordingly, the Treaty of Paris is as careful to oclaim the engagement entered into by the proclaim the engagement entered into by the Western Powers to watch over the interests of the Christian subjects of the Porte, as it is to establish the fact that a check had been given to Russian ambition, and limits fixed to its progress. In pursuance of the Treaty, a firman was issued by the Sultan, in which, after expressing his desire to effect the happiness of all his subjects, " who," he says, " are all equal in my sight, and " equally dear to me," he proceeds to enact : " The guarantees promised on our part by the Hatti-Humayoun of Gulhane, and in conformity with the Tanzimat, to all the subjects of my empire, without distinction of classes or of re ligion, for the security of their persons and pro perty and the preservation of their honour, are to-day confirmed and consolidated, and efficacious measures shall be taken in order that they may have their full and entire effect. " All the privileges and spiritual immunities granted by my ancestors, ab antiquo and at sub sequent dates, to all Christian communities or other non-Mussulman persuasions established in my empire under any protection, shall be con firmed and maintained." In order to effect this, a Commission was to be appointed to examine into the actual immunities and privileges enjoyed by the Christians in Turkey, and to discuss and submit to the Sublime Porte such further reforms as were required by the progress of civilization and the age. In the meanwhile, every sect was promised entire free dom in the exercise of its religion ; all classes were placed on the same footing as to civil rights, and declared equally eligible for public employ ments ; equality of taxation was decreed, in order that no unfair pressure might be laid on any man on account of his creed ; and, for the impartial administration of justice, mixed tribunals were to be established for the settlement of civil and criminal suits between Christians and Mus sulmans. These various measures for the amelioration of the condition of the Eastern Christians were to be carried out by the Porte under the superintendence of the Western Powers. Two years have passed, and what has been th e practical result of these promised reforms ? If we did not already know that a firman almost invariably becomes a dead letter at the very gates of Constantinople, recent events would have shown that such has been the case in the present instance. All the Western provinces of the Ottoman empire are in a ferment. In Herzegovina the rayahs have risen, and organized a positive insurrection ; battles have been fought, towns captured, and all the horrors of civil war revived. Similar agitation prevails in Bosnia, though there the revolt has not yet assumed so definite a shape. Albania is convulsed by the same movement ; and on the frontier of Monte negro, actual war is carried on between the inhabitants and the Turkish soldiery. As to the character of this rebellion there can be no doubt. It is the desperate struggle of an oppressed race whose burden has become too heavy for them to bear. The wretched and forlorn condition of the Christian populations of these provinces is set forth with painful vividness in every line of a petition which has been for warded to the Sultan by the Christians of Bosnia, through Prince CALLIMAKI, the Ambassador of the Porte at Vienna. Their lives, their property, and their labour are all at the mercy of the Turkish authorities, whose only care is to enrich themselves, and who laugh at firmans, knowing that they can evade them with impunity. To fill their coffers, in( spite of the proclamations of the Sultan, the beys grind down their unfortunate subjects by excessive taxation ; and they not merely fix the amount of the tax which they levy, but they assess the value of the property on which it is levied, so that by over-estimating the worth of a crop it often happens that the price for which it is sold in the market is scarcely sufficient to cover the tax upon it. Borne down by these exactions, and harassed by continual violence, the wretched rayahs are frequently driven by hunger to sell their children in order to rescue themselves from starvation ! It is evident from this state of things that the stipulations of the Western Powers on behalf of the Turkish Christians have been nugatory ; and that the only consequence of the temporary sup- THE PRESS, MAY 29, 1858. pression of the Russian protectorate has been to render the power of their Mussulman governors more absolute. As a necessary result, Russia is rapidly recovering that position in the eyes of the Oriental Christians which she occupied before the war. They regard her as their staunchest and sincerest protectress against the Turks. They desired nothing better than to obtain patrons who they believed would be at once more powerful and more disinterested than the Rus sians, and they accordingly hailed with eager gratitude the promises that were made to them by the Allies. But now that they find that these promises are vain—that the war which was undertaken to check the ambition of Russia has merely ended in rendering Turkey more powerful to oppress them—they are returning to their old belief, that, as Turkey is their nearest and most serious danger, so Russia is their nearest and most reliable defence. The Cabinet of St. Petersburg is naturally dis posed to encourage and profit by this feeling. A dignitary of the Austrian Church, Mgr. MisuN, who travelled through these provinces during the last year, thus sums up his observations on the subject : It is a great delusion to imagine that Russia has lost her influence in the East in consequence of the late war. Her armies merely took the road to Constantinople too soon and too suddenly, and were repulsed by a coalition which until then no one had deemed possible. But Russia will never desist from her pretensions upon the East. Re ligion is the instrument of her ambition, and she uses it skilfully—holding herself out as the pro tectress of the Cross against the Crescent The Greek Christians, scattered in small numbers over this vast empire, accustomed during centu ries to regard the Turks as their oppressors, see ing real aid arrive from no other quarter, are naturally disposed to lend a ready ear to those emissaries, laden with gifts and promises, who point out to them the Czar as the avenger of all their wrongs, and bid them rely in all things on Holy Russia." Such is, unquestionably, the general policy of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg in reference to Turkish affairs. Let us now see what has been its course in respect to the late insurrections. It has issued a circular despatch, ascribing the dis turbances in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the non-fulfilment of the provisions of the Hatti- Humayoun, and demanding that the question of the condition of the Christian subjects of the Porte shall be brought before a European Conference. So far we entirely agree with the Russian Minis ters ; but when they go on to protest against an isolated intervention of Austria in the matter, and to suggest that, in consideration of the analogy of religion, an intervention of Russia would be better justified, our suspicions are aroused. The settlement of this question—so necessary to the regeneration of the Ottoman empire, so impor tant to the progress of civilization in Europe— must be left neither to Russia nor to Austria. It is the duty as well as the interest of the Western Powers who signed the Treaty of Paris, to fulfil the obligations into which they entered, and to pursue, in spite of all difficulties, the gradual but decisive amelioration of the miserable position in which these Christian populations of the East have hitherto been placed. Unless they will do this, they must be content to sacrifice all the dear-bought results of the Crimean campaign, and to prepare for another Russian war at no distant period. WHIG DEVICES. ONE very transparent sophism of the Whigs, is that which would set apart " Independent Li beralism" as a " dependency" of Brookes's Club. They hold Messrs. BRIGHT, ROEBUCK, and Co. as irregular tribes of their empire; and they seem inclined to resent the slightest inter ference with these tribes, on the part of the Con servatives, as not only a hostile step, but a step of unfair hostility. Now all this is mere party faction and manceuvre. In one of his speeches at Liverpool in 1816, GEORGE CANNiso described the Whigs as " a " party, whose birth and growth, whose essence " and element are Coalition—a party which sprung " from the coalition of Lord NORTH and Mr. Fox, &c." Thus, what they denounce in others, s a part of their political system. As CANNING suggested, the Whig party lives in politics by " coalition." One time it relies upon the Peelites, or the Irish Brigade ; at another time upon the Dissenters, and again upon the Radicals. The secret by which the Whigs have always gained their power was disclosed by BURKE, when he was acting as political attorney for the Marquis of ROCKINGHAM. "The Whigs," said BURK; " were never the strongest party in the country; " it is only by the able use of opportunities that " they have gained their ascendancy." And this phrase, like many others of BURKE'S, requires translatimi into plain English. It simply means, what is the fact, that the Whigs have a peculiar aptitude in the art of using demagogic power, and acquiring influence by illicit intrigues with parties to which they are fundamentally opposed. But on this occasion it is to the duplicity, and not to the demagogic artifices of the Whigs, that we desire to call attention. The Whigs never lose an opportunity of catering either to the caprices or the interests of the extreme Liberals. They neglect no means by which they can retain an underhand communication with the performers on the popular platform. Yet if any Conservative gentleman presumes to converse on political affairs with an " Independent Liberal," whether Mr. BRIGHT, or Mr. ROEBUCK, or Mr. GIBSON, there is a cry of affected horror. The taunt of " compromise,' or " intrigue," is at once heard. A member of the Whig Oli garchy can pretend in public to be anti-Radical, while retaining emissaries for the purpose of in flaming popular animosities; and he may do this without damage to his consistency. But a Conservative politician must not presume to com municate on current affairs with any Liberal poli tician in the House. Talk, forsooth, of the question "How is the " Queen's Government to be carried on ?"—it will soon come to be, " How is the intercourse of the " House of Commons to be maintained," if Mem bers of Parliament cannot freely communicate with each other ? Take the case, for example, of Mr. BRIGHT. The Hon. Gentleman has many years standing in the House of Commons, and has represented important constituencies; and when, after a long absence on account of ill-health, Mr. BRIGHT took his seat, the Times recorded that it was done amidst " cheers from all sides." And, is nobody to venture to converse with a gentleman of this degree of consideration, unless he be of the same colour and connection in politics ? It cannot be denied that many independent Conservatives gave much support to Lord PALMERSTON during a portion of his Pre miership; and was any charge made against Lord PALMERSTON because he may have held com munications with some of them ? Was the Noble Lord followed into the lobby, and were his steps dogged around the es of the House ? It was not denied that the No ble Viscount, though leading the Liberals, had a perfect right to con verse with any Conservative Member; and surely there must be some strange timidity in the Whigs, when they pretend to be shocked if a Conservative is seen in friendly converse with a Liberal politician. It is evident that the W hi g s are as much opposed to a really Independent Party as they are to the Conservatives. We remember well that, in 1835, when Sir ROBERT PEEL was for a few months in office, from which he was soon ejected by Lord JOHN RUSSELL, a countryman in the gallery was struck one afternoon by the stern and earnest gladiatorial strife of these two leaders, who were then in the midst of the contest for pre-eminence. He said to a friend who sat near him, " How " would they behave to each other, if they hay " pened to meet over a friend's dinner-table ? " Behave!" said his friend, "why I happen to " know that before they came into the Hou " this afternoon they had a quarter of an hour 's " private conversation alone in the little room " behind the Speaker's chair "