The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-10-03 00:00:00

eorresponoence.

THE TURKISH ATROUITIRS.
REV. T. HEAVE'S REELT TO THE VICAR OF HIOARVIDISOR.

To the Elitor.

Sir,—lt is somewhat unfortunate for the cause
which the Vicar of linsulaindsor has no courageously,
if unwisely, espouse!, that he should be guilty of the
very sin which he lays with such ostentation at
the door of others. His letter in your contemPerary
of lad week, in which he falls foul of the English
people in their magnificent uprising on the feerful
atrocities in the East, which he regards as simply the
cunning work of political schemers and fiendish
designers, against our heaven-sent Government, is
surely. from beginning th its melancholy end, but a
sad illustration of how far even a good and excellent
man (for inich Mr. Malan at club dinners has often
been ileecribefl) may suffer himself to be carried away
by political feeling and partisanship. Mr. Malan
clearly discerns the .lifficulties of the present Govern- '
merit as beset with a popular enthnsiwrin and
passionate earnestness with which it does not sympa-
thise, and which it can hardly adequately grasp, and
which unless it is quickly seized and guided, will
shatter the Government to atoms, and instead of '
calmly looking at the phenomenon and endeavotuing
to ascertain its true cause, he rushes madly to the
conclusion that it is but the work of political
incendiaries and demagogues, who for party endasare
simply trading on the honourable, if ignorant, im-
Pulses of the British people. This is all that the
Vicar of Ilmalwindsor can see in a movement, which
even the Prime Minister acknowledges to be worthy
of the English nation, although even he, no less than
his meek awl feeble imitator, has suffered himself to
descend to imputations, which the Times newspaper
characterised as of the most serious nature and such
as no leading statesman should prefer against a rival.
The words of the Prime Minister at Aylesbury last
week, speaking of the enthusiasm of the English
People, whom he described as the most enthusiastic in
the world, were, in reference to the present feeling
of the country, "There is something abstracted and
absolute in the benefit of that national enthusiasm,
because it is a sign of the vitality of a country; and
that a great community that is influenced by an over-
powering feeling, which though it may be impolitic
and though it may be founded on erroneous data,
still aims at generous and admirable objects, is a feel-
ing that elevates a country." (A. sentiment which, as
we read, elicited "cheers.') Earl Beaconsfield regards
the enthusiasm as ill-timed, though had it been on the
side of the Government as vigumusly as it is against
it, we should have heard no end of praises on the
sensible English people who up till now have not
forsaken that good and sensible course which led them
to supphint the Liberal Government by a Tory
administration • the Earl is very sorry that it should
be forsaking that wise path on which, with the best of
expectations it entered so lately when it embraced and
folded to its heart its present Rulers. But let that
To the same effect spoke Sir Stafford
Cthcote to the Conservative working men of
Edinburgh. Said the Chancellor of the Exchequer—
" There are occasions on which the mind of England
Is drawn to foreign politics by an irresistible impulse,
and the present moment is one of them, and I say that
It is highly creditable to the people of England that in
• moment like this, when the national heart has been
dirred and when the national indignation has been
aroused by the proceedinp of which we have read
with so much horror, it is highly creditable to the
people that they should come forward, and, setting
aside for the moment everything else, they should give
their hearts and their attention to foreign politics."
What Sir Stafford Northcote, as the chosen leader of
the Conservative party, regards as "highly credit-
able" to the people of England, the Vicar of Broad-
vrindsor regards as highly discreditable, and compli-
ments Dorset, with one exception," at the expense of
all England. If Dorset, with the one slight exception,
be worthy of the Vicar's praise, England at large in
her great cities as in her smaller, is most unworthy of
the praise bestowed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
repeated by the Earl of Beaconsfield, and echoed by
Conservatives of all shades and of all positions. But
who will for a moment hesitate in his choice as
between the Vicar of Broadvrinsor and the eminent
Conservative names just mentioned? Will not the
irresistible feeling with every one who reads the
vicar's diatribe be to commit it to the waste basket,
as an unworthy exhibition of a poor, stunted, heartless
cynic? Ido not say that such things are true of Mr.
Milan; fortunately, he is a much worthier man than
his letter would lead a stranger to suppose; but he
must bear the odium which his rash and ill-judged
sentiments must bring upon him from all thoughtful
and humane readers. I should deem it a most
flagrant waste of time to follow him in his line of
argument, if argument it can be called to fling
together a few disjointed sentences, hashed up with a
few reminiscences of Eastern travel and anthropo-
logical observations; nor shall we follow him in his
unenviable task of exhuming out of the loathsome
grave of the past the memories of crimes which stain
the annals of our country's fame, as if such deeds,
which all parties agree to condemn and abhor, could
be any excuse for neglecting the claims which a
higher civilization and a truer humanity have thrust
upon us, and which, at our utmost peril, we dare
neglect; but when the reverend scribe tells us, in
palliation of the brutal crimes of the Turkish
linthorities and Government, that such crimes were
committed by "irregular troops," without " sena.
ment " or "fear," men, in short, in" their natural
state," and "who acted up to the light that was in
them," as I suppose Mr. Malan does to his! he forgets
to mention the damnatory fact that the wild hordes
were let loose by a so-called civilized Government,
which was reckoning al the while English
help and countenance, as Mr. Malan implies
they had a perfect right to do, and who regard/
the English people as little else than fools
for withholding it; and further, Mr. Malan forgets to
mention that the prime-movers and abettors in these
massacres were afterwards decorated by the Turkish
Government for their humane and laudable efforts to
crush a rebellion which had no substantial existence,
but whom they have since determined, in all proba-
bility, to hang by the neck for their misdeeds! These
are (acts which the Vicar of Beadwiusor omits from
the count, but which hived his letter with a
notoriety which I, for one, had much rather should
belong to him than to me. It is nothing to him,
evidently, that these worse than savages should have
been let loose "in a corner of Europe," on a
peaceful and industrious peasantry, who do not seem
to have the elements of insurrectionary movement in
them, that they should have been subjected to the
mod hideous and disgusting of crimes which savages
in the South Sea Islands would shudder at, and then
murdered in cold bled by so many bell-hounds; all
this is nothing in the eyes of Mr. Milan: and all
this storm of national indignation is an unworthy ex-
hibition of a" Munanitarian sentimentalism." Happily
for the credit of our English humanity, the Vicar
stands pretty much alone, and while others, who at
the beginning of this business espoused his cause, are
getting ashamed of it, he has the foolhardiness to
continue him protest ; but it does strike 1114 that if a
menagerie were let loose in Broadwinsor, and if the
animals in their "state of nature," and acting up
" to the light that is in them," were to begin opera-
tions on the vicar and his parishioners, not to mention
nearer members of the family, I guess it would
be a very different epistle he would indite to our
friend over the way, if he survived the ordeal, that is
to say, and if the menagerie in question had chanced
to travel from Turkey under the protection, not to
say auspices of the British Government! Oh! Mr.
Malan, put yourself in the position of these=
Bulgarians, think of their undeserved wrongs;
of the bitter and awful memories which must haunt
the survivors, and of the horrid sufferings inflicted on
their dead' think of the 'perpetrators as hounded on
by a so-called humane Government, and one that still
claims to take its place among civilized Governments
claims which England at least can no longer, and
will no linger, ailOW ; and then think of England as
committed to the protection of such a Government,
and would not every generous impulse, every humane
and Christian feeling, inspire you to do what England
as a nation has done, rise in stern and unrelenting
condemnation, and to say, "Come what will, this
thing must end, and England must wash her hands of
this foul alliance, and conspiracy against humanity " ?
This is what England has done, what England will
not repent of, what England shall as surely accomplish
as that the sun rises; and for the doing of which she
has earned her old fame and glory as the friend of the
. .

oppressed and the wronged, and she will wring out of
the Tory Government a charter for the rights of these
oppressed states, as surely as &he wrung out • true
charter for the rights of the slaves in our ships of war;
she has won, moreover, the admiration of the world,
if we bracket a few exceptions such as S. C. Milan,
whose absence does not greatly detract from the
honour of the list. Happily even he does not stand as
in the least degree representative of his class ; for with
• singular courage and surrender of party interest, they,
many of them at least, have espoused the cause of
humanity, anal have scattered party considerations to
the wind, who in this matter, however, have been the
saviours of their party, and have emphatically told the
ministry that unless they move with the will of the
people they can no longer reckon on their allegianixs
and support. It hut remains for me to add that,
while as I have said these " indignation meetings,
which have raised Mr. Malan's indignation to white
heat (let him keep cool hi:Jesuit before he imposes
calmness on others!) have been attended by all demo!!
of the community, including Liberals and Conserva-
tives, even the Prime Minister in declining the invita-
tion to attend the meeting in the Guildhall,
_London,
presided over by the Lord Mayor, and addressed by
Conservative members of Parhau:ent, writes to say,
"That he is sorry that his absence from town
prevented him from having.the honour of attending."
Earl Salisbury, though declinmg to attend, exuresses
sympathy so far with the feelings which pmmpted the
Lord Mayor to call the meeting. Thus it is seen that
while Dorset with " one exception " supports Mr.
Milan, as be thinks, though in my judgment he is
mistaken, in so thinking, yet no worthy name in the
great Conservative party even seems to he with him,
and therefore it may reasonably be concluded that
Mr. Milan speaks simply for himself. When it is said
Dorsetshire has had no meetings, a fact which is
much to be regretted, anal I sincerely congratulate the
county town in its public spirit on this occasion and
hope better things ad it even in the future, still it is a
very large inference which our vicar thence draws
when he supposes the people of Dorsetahire have been
oppoeed to them. Why, in Mr. Milan's own neigh-
bourhood, petitions have been signed and sent up to
her Majesty praying her Majesty to take the case of
these sulfenug Christi= stxtes into her must august and
sovereign cosusialeration, so that even Mr. Milan's own
neighbours are opposed ta a him in his sentiments. Ile
is wrong, anal England is right; anal the Net that the
polity which the Government is shaping so tardily, is
unquestionably on the lines indicated by the will anal
vokn, „f the p„,ple proves that their meetings have
had the most sadut:u-y inthiesux, on the Government,
anal hove been dictated not only by the nurest
patriotism anal humanity, but, au In such cm" always
hair"' by the highest political insight and whehon.
.tam eying taken part iis the meeting which Mr. Milan
has unjustly censured, I a..oulal nut refrain from
stating the other side of the qua.astion.
I WU , &C..
Mouse Nuys,
Dorchester, September 26th, 1e76.