The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-17
THE EASTERN QUESTION.

The British lion has been aroused at last
He has tamely submitted to many taunts and
threats. He has treated with sublime indif-
ference the appeals for aid made by nations
which had a legitimate claim to his assist
anoe. He b as turned deaf ear to the en-
treaties of France, the remonstrances of
Prussia, and the American demands for JUS
tioe. He has suffered Napoleon to cajole him
and Bismarck to bully him without daring to
give vent to an angry growl. But his slow
wrath has, nevertheless, now been once more
enkindled by provocation similar to that
which has provoked an exhibition of his
prowess on former occasions. Other govern
mental beasts may spit in his face without
having the insult resented; but they must
beware how they attempt, either directly or
remotely, to release his clutch upon any por-
tion Of the prey designed for his capacious
maw. At any cost, and at all hazards, he
must have his roast beef and plum pudding.
of Englishmen must be fsduced to pauper-
ism, so that an abundag6e of cheap labor
may make the selfish Gospel of free-trade
proftable; and millions\ of the unhappy
people of ireland and (of India must be
starved outright. The details of the Eastern
question are so fully described in an elabo-
rate article upon the first page of to-days
TELEGRAPH that it is unnecessary to refer
to them here. The underlying cause of
the intense feeling aroused among the su-
premely selfish governing and trading classes
of Great Britain by the demand for a revision
or abrogation of the treaty of Paris is the
fear that, if the Russian policy prevails, the
British dominion over hundred millions of
Asiatic serfs will be seriously threatened. To
perpetuate her cruel system of oppression
and impoverishment in India she arms at
last to fight nominally in be-
half of the effete despotism of the
Turk, but really to bolster up her own des-
potic power in the East, which is thousand
times more ruinous, oppressive, disgraceful,
and cruel than Mahommedan sway. Spain
became poor in spite of the extortions per-
petrated by her Pizarros upon oompara-
lively few millions of the aborigines of the
New World, but thousands of greedy Eoe-
lishmen have grown rich by infinitely more
cruel extortions practieed against hundreds
of millions of British India, and it is to
perpetuate these robberies that England now
draws her rusty sword. The jealousies' of
Austria and Italy are awakened by the fear
that if Russia acquires firm foothold on the
Mediterranean she will convert it into a
Russian lake, and these jealousies may prompt
them to take part in the contemplated fray;
but England, if she fights at all, will fight fol
the privilege of expressing, starving, and
plundering India. Triumphant in many con-
tests waged to crafty her rapacity,
her murderous selfshness must sooner or
later be fearfully punished and rebuked; and
if she provokes a conflict with Russia now
the beginning of the end may be near al
hand, and the fears of the just Englishmer
who have from time to time spoken of Bri
tish rule in England as Thomas Jefferson
spoke years ago of slavery in America. may
speedily be realized. "The mills of the
gods grind slowly, but they grind very fine.