The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-03-02 00:00:00

"THE PATHS OF HONOUR AND OF

SHAME."

Mr. Gladstone contributes an article under this
heading to the March number of the Nineteenth
Gent cry. After urging that a war undertaken with-
out cause is a war of shame and not of honour, Mr.
Gladstone maintains that since the British Govern-
ment wisely determined that the question respecting
the passage of ships through the Bosphorus should be
left to the decision of Europe, there has not remained
the shadow of a plea for separate war or separate opera-
tions in the Levant Interests we have, but special inte-
rests we can hardly be said to have. Mr. Gladstone lays
down these two propositions as undeniable—first, that it
is neither within the duty nor the right of England to
take into her own option the enforcement by arms of
the general interests of Europe; secondly that since
the Government decided to leave to Europe the ques-
tion of the freedom of the Bosphorus for ships of war,
which had been held by so many to be a special and
separate British interest, the twin question of the
possession of Constantinople has lost every trace of an
interest specially or separately British. It follows, in
Mr. Gladstone's opinion that the present "situation,"
the vis-a-vis of England and Russia in the Levant, is
among the strangest which Fortune or Folly has ever
brought about. Touching the questions which may
be expected to come up for settlement in Congress
or Conference, Mr. Gladstone says it is evidently
part of the proper work of England to look closely
to the matter of equality, or rather proportion, of
treatment, as between Greek and Slav; and in this
he remarks we have a legitimate opportunity for a
tree and generous rivalry with Russia. The only hope
of solving the serious instrinsic difficulties of the
Eastern Question must lie, he says, in the sincerity
and moderation of the Powers in the endeavour to
meet on the common ground of justice and of
European interest, and in thA steady avoidance of all
partial combinations for secret and selfish purposes.
Such combinations are, at such a juncture, no better
than conspiracies. If unhappily it should prove that
there exists a combination of this nature between Ger-
many and Russia, the only way to neutralize it will
be, not by forming a weaker counter combination
or conspiracy, but by meeting it with clean
hands and bringing to bear against it the general
sentiment of the Powers who speak as a whole for
the civilized world and the interests of man at large.
The writer is far from saying, however, that we have
as yet any proof of danger from this quarter. After
pointing out the dangers which would attend a com-
bination between England and Austria, Mr. Glad-
stone refers to two points in the alleged or possible
conduct of Russia which appear to him to call for
notice. He thinks we should co-operate with any
and every body against any mutilation of Roumania,
and he trusts that no attempt will be made to cut
short the existence or to mar the, perhaps, ambiguous
promise of the Turkish Parliament. In conclusion he
hopes that in the approaching Conference or Congress
we may have and may use the opportunity of acquiring
the goodwill of some nation—Wednesday's Times.