The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-01-20
COLUMBIA, S. C..
Wednes lay Morning. January 20. 1869.
The Paris Conferenceand Its Difficulties. <

The Western powers imagined that they
had set the Eastern question" at rest by
their Crimean victories and the provisions
contained in the treaty concluded at Paris
in 1856. Despite those victories and that
treaty, however, the Cretan insurrection
has revived it, and now again we have q
conclave of European diplomats assembled
in the French metropolis for the purpose of
attempting its solution. But, though it is
possible that they will succeed in arranging
the pending difficulties between the Porte
and the Hellenic Government, it does not
seem at all likely that they will be whit
more successful than their predecessors in
effectually settling that ever-recurring diff
Guilty styled the Eastern question" For
as long as the Christian population of Eu-
ropean Turkey-which comprehends, be it
remembered, the great majority of its inha-
bitants-continuess subject to the sway of
an oppressive Ottoman minority, this same
question" will be necessarily turning up
under some phase or other, and all attempts
to exercise it will be in vain. The eastern
question" is, in fact, chronic question.
It started into existence when the Turk first
obtained a foothold in Europe; it will not
disappear till he shall have been expelled
thence. Every province taken from the
infidel and added to the dominions of the
Greek kingdom will, no doubt, shorten the
span OF its being, and draw nearer the day
of its demise; but las the New York Citizen
confidently asserts) while the Moslem pos
sesses one Of the Egean Isles, owns foot of
European soil, or defiles with his presence
the city of Constantine, the eastern ques-
tion" will survive to be source of trouble,
anxiety and perplexity to the statesmen of
Christendom.
The Paris Conference may censure the
Government of King George for having
conniyed Mt the intermeddling of its sub
Jects In Cretan affairs, yet what power had
that Government to prevent such intermed-
ding, when the sympathies of the entire ma
ton were enlisted on the side Of their strug-
Cling brethren? Ifother Governments utter
formal protest against their people partici-
pating in the strife of foreign States, they
are held to have done all that could fairly be
required of them; why. then, should not the
Greek Government be thus charitably dealt
with? For two centuries the Cretans have
groaned under the yoke of the Ottoman,
who, in 1869, expelled the Venetians from
the island, and substituted his own mephitic
rule for the paternal supremacy of the
Dogc. Since that luckless epoch the his
tory of Crete has been merely record of
the wanton outrages of the dominant race
OF the lncessant Instructions of the van
quished. attended by those infallible cvi-
dences of national decline, expiring indus
try, and waning population. The sombre
atmosphere of this dreary period was en-
hVened, indeed, by one solitary CLEAN of
sunshine, which cheered for Il moment the
desponding hearts of the suffering Cretans.
The glorions results of the war of indepen-
dence had led them to hope that they, too,
would be freed from the Moslem yoke, and
united IN destiny, as in sympathy, faith and
consanguinity, with the continental Greeks:
but when they found that they were only to
be transferred from one infidcl oppressor TO
another-from the Ottoman to the Egyp-
tlan-why should we wonder if grief, indg-
nation and despair took possession of their
souls? Their connection with Egypt was
however, of temporary nature, for in 1910
Crete was e-annexed to the dominions of the
Sultan, against whose authority the island
ers have been carrying on desperate strug-
gle for more than two years, during which
they have displayed heroic valor, and in
flicted much loss on their enemies. Now.
the delinquency for which the Greeks have
been arraigned before the present Confer
ence is simply this: that they being, as it
wprn pvn-wifpaccoc of ba unanu,1 ,o.l.I