The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-13 00:00:00

Turkey ! Oh, what a shower of malediction will at
once fall upon the memor:v of certain names. But what
do they care about it ? They believe to have a little
lessened some momentary difficulties ; as to what follows,
why, let those who are the last behind shut the door.
That's expediency—good ; be it so then. (Laughter and
cheers.) Having defined this meaning of the political
axiom, that Turkey is necessary to Europe, there are but
few words wanted about the meaning of the Oriental
question, which hung, hangs, and, if not solved, will con-
tinue to bang over Europe, like the sword of Damocles.
The Oriental question is simply the problem how to put
the territory of Turkey in such a position that it should
not be under the constant danger of being occupied by
such a powerful neighbour, or partitioned by such
powerful neighbours, who by this accession would dis-
turb the equilibrium of reciprocal independence of the
European states, and would become dictators in Europe's
general policy. That is the Oriental question. Having
it thus defined you can but agree with me that the
Oriental question is not a question of the internal affairs
of the Turkish empire, but exclusively a question of her
position to her neighbours. Who are to be her neigh-
bours ? What are they ? Are they to be such as are
necessitously led to wish to spoliate her of some pro-
vinces, or absorb her territory ? or are they to be such
as will he necessitously led to do her no harm, but to
leave her intact, from community of interest ? In a word,
are they to be neighbours who must have the will, and
the power to conquer her territory, or neighbours who
cannot have the will nor have the power to harm her,
but must have the will and have the power to aid her
against foreign ,encroachments ? (Hear, hear.) That
is the Oriental question, the internal condition of
Turkey ; whether there be peace and tranquillity, or
disturbances and revolutions—whether it progresses or
decays ? All this can have an European bearing, and
European importance, only with reference to that con-
sideration of neighbourhood. Any internal convulsions
of Turkey are dangerous to Europe as long as there is a
powerful ambitious neighbour or neighbours to profit by
them ' - bit as soot' as this is no more the case, no in-
ternal convulsion in Turkey can affect in any way the
general interests of Europe, in a political point of view, of
course ; and you know that, to speak of sympathy in
politics is a cant of the vilest hypocrisy. (Hear, hear.)
This assertion is strikingly illustrated by the case of
Mehemet Ali formerly, and Bing Otho now. In both
cases Great Britain interfered. Why ? Is it because
you preferred Mahmoud to Mehemet, or Abd-ul-Medjid
'to Otho !—the Turk to the Egyptian or the Greek ?
Let us do away with hypocrisy. Great Britain did not
care a bit about all of them. It interfered in the first
casesimply because the convulsion caused by the progress
of Mehemet Ali would have thrown Turkey a ready
prey into the hands of the Czar, who would have finished
with her by a partition between himself and Austria,
leaving Egypt and Syria for the moment to Mehemet.
And in the second case, Great Britain interfered because
the Greek movement, if allowed to take consistency,
would have assisted the Czar in his aggression. The
neighbours ! always the neighbours ! The danger im-
minent from the powerful neighbours,—there was, and
there is the Oriental question. It is this question,
which, with dangers accumulated since the first partition
of Poland up to the present day, at last has "drifted"
Great Britain to a war, to use the ingenious word of Lord
Clarendon. What is the proposed aim of the British
Government about this war? This is the sovereign
question on which everything depends. Once the aim
defined, the logic of appropriate means becomes self-
evident. And a positive definition of the aim I believe
to be due to the British nation, or else the Government
may expect the blame from history that, by undefined
generalities in the statement of the object, they meant
to screen themselves from responsibility for a wrong
choice of means. And the precision of the aim is like-
wise due to Turkey, as also to some other nations whom
Great Britain, .by her ambiguous position, _has drifted,
partly to expectations, partly to exaggerated fears. To
come to an exact understanding about the real intentions
of the Government, we must look to the official
declarations of the Ministry, and to diplomatic
documents. There we have, first, the declara-
tion of Lord John Russell, the President of the Coun-
cil, at his late re-election. Hespoke thus: "No insufficient
peace ought to be made ; we ought not to lay down our
arms until we have obtained security for the future.
Having made the great exertions that we have done, and
having our eyes open to the designs of Russia, we should
be the most silly of mortals if we were to sign an inse-
cm e peace, which would leave it to our greatest enemy
to hide his time, until, by the dissensions of the other
powers, until by weakness of some of those powers, he
should find a better opportunity of accomplishing his
design." Now, gentlemen, there is such a manly Bri-
tish spirit in this declaration of Lord John as would
lead the world to believe that the British Ministry is
bent on a definite solution of the Oriental question, the
nature of which I had explained. (Cheers.) I would
only like to know by what uninvented logic Lord John
can conciliate this declaration with the Vienna Proto-
cols, signed by Great Britain, and with the enormous
political crime of allowing Austria to occupy the Danu-
bian Principalities ? I say.boldly it is a politicel crime
—no softer word can suit the fact. Secondly, there is
Lord Aberdeen, the Premier. He, with very curious
eulogies bestowed on the moderation and good faith of
Russia towards Turkey, declares, that he also would
wish, as far as reasonable, what is called the security of
Europe, which, however, lie cannot say he feels to be
very much in danger by the chance of Russian aggression
—and referring to the effect of the treaty of Adrianople,
that "lamentable as else it nsay have been, still it had
secured the integrity of Turkey for the last 25 years,"
his lordship declared, that if the British Government
could secure peace and the integrity of Turkey for 25
years to come, they would not do amiss, and that was
the object which they had in view. (Laughter.) The
worst enemy of Lord Aberdeen's political reputation,
though endowed with the tongue of Demosthenes, could
not thunder down upon the head of the noble lord a
sharper philippic than he himself did by this his speech on
the 19th of June. So I will not add any little blue flame
of my matches to his own thunderbolt. I will only ask,
Why has his lordship slept the sleep of Endymion these 25
years, that he believes the integrity and independence of
Turkey has not been violated since the treaty of Adri-
anople ? Does he not know that Russia has occupied
Moldo-Wallachia in 1848 ?—that she has usurped Turkish
territory for making war on Hungary from it?—that she
has commanded the money, provisions, and means of
transport of Turkish provinces, for a foreign war, to which
Turkey had been no party?—that she has blocked up the
free navigation of the Danube, exclusively a Turkish
river from Ada-Kale to Galatz ?—that she has exercised
the most odious police measures against Turkey on Tur-
kish territory, under the pretext of guarantees ? He
knows nothing of all this. (Hear, and cheers.) And
again, I would ask, if there is no danger to what is called
—only think ! something of so-called—security to Europe
from the chance of Russian aggression ? Then, in the
name of common sense, why go to war at all ? In fact,
so strange were his lordship's declarations that they
nearly have been about to raise a storm in the Pacific
Ocean of the British House of Commons in the year of
our Lord 1854. But no storm in the P,scific, gentle-
men. It was like the Prussian of world-wide renown,
who, pulling up his sleeves in the beer-shop, cried out,
"Keep me back, or I will fight him." (Laughter.) The
motion has been withdrawn, the winds went to sleep,
and the inexorable pen of history twice underlined the
words already upon record —" In that year 1854 the
British Parliament was particularly conspicuous by un-
precedented lameness of energy. Oh ! for one man
with one spark of the Chathams or Foxes in his breast !
What a great man he could make himself in three weeks
—the sound, honest, comprehensive common sense of the
British people looking about with anxiety for a leader, as
it is looking indeed. (Cheers.) Still the murmuring of
the winds elicited an explanation from Lord Aberdeen.
I have read it with great care, but I confess, in honour
and conscience, I have seen the strange assertions of his
first declaration rather explicitly confirmed than other-
wise by his explanation. The question is not what has
he written in secret about the treaty of Adrianople 25
years ago ? but what is his proposed object in the pre-
sent war ? (Cheers.) His lordship confessed that should
Russia take Constantinople there may be some danger
to Europe, but not without this. From this we must in-
fer that anything short of the occupation of Cons-
tantinople would appear to his lordship perfectly
satisfactory. Russia not dangerous to Europe unless
she took Constantinople ! Why is it via Constan-
tinople that Russia took Poland ? Is it via Constan-
tinople that she tore Finland from Sweden? that she
got hold of the future of Denmark ? Is it via Constan-
tinople that Russia attacked Hungary ; and, mark the
word, is it via. Constantinople that Russia occupied Geor-
gia, the high road to Great Britain's heart—lndia ?
(Hear, hear.) And then if the occupation of Constanti-
nople be a danger, then Lord John Russell is right in
saying that the future must be secured permanently
against this danger, and the enemy not left in power to
bring that danger down upon Europe at the first better
opportunity. But Lord Aberdeen is eminently wrongfee
years' peace to Europe. Why, how can a gra.vteisn
nay
verywh when
much
uh reiteratessatisfied
if, his h
by
explanationth ie
war, thhea tee lieu d wouldgivtstates-
man, t
e255.l
man, and a peaceman, too, think to involve Britain,
the Orieatal question, of which his lordship.
pEousreopofe,piantcahwinagr,upperaha2pss
yae2asr
a years'
truce,
a.
that if not definitively settled now,
wi
with increasel
ten years, twenty-five years again
hrecuera,ceman,
so little
dangers and difficulties ? Is be,
coming generation, the
in his political testament, to the
—oas
tfocotuhres eonbjoet,c
tt hoofutghhe
unavoidable positive necessityoquo,t
his lordship was
fa
ewa
ea
wrln
ind fitahvr a,taa tl
years,
ten erbpaoturuhsr
must know,
e
eebxeuintds upon the Czar getting
libaotnunedo contentbt
joweict
acknowledge,
As os nteo war,the
at
th statusasithsetee tdweaesri Prielsasy ebte
e ton beq
declared,eath
thhee statusappeared
to Constantinople, or the allies to St. Petersburg ; there
war, he
is the latitude—the status quo quand memo—something
you are at war about. I beg his lordship's pardon for
o
meat—everything—very or something zsewtellilar tNheowst,atyuosuqukon;—owfiswhhoart
d ege ul
tr ode
do regretethat
h notat more
this,
d p
these remarks, but I, as a Hungarian, am more inte-
rested in these remarks than he, as a Briton, is about
this chapter. I claim the full right of a full word.
After all, whichever of the two Ministers be right or
wrong, so much they themselves have fully established
that there is au irreconcileable contradiction between
their statements ; and, further, that up to this very nay-