Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-02-16
ExEUNr OSHANLI.

modern Europe, but can never beso
again. 1t will be preserved in the
written history of the past; it can
never again enter into the acted his
tory of the present and future. End
less intrigues, inextricable networks
of diplomacy, great and terrible
wars, with their deplorable waste of
blood and treasure and of human
industry, have all been transacted
with this as their ostensible preteXt,
but though intrigues and diplomacy
and wars are never likely to come
to end, this phrase will never again
be the text of diplomatic correspond
ence or of parliamentary speeches,
or the watch-word of battling hosts.
1t and the Ottoman Empire itself
are so completely dead and buried
that the loudest war blast can never
awake them again. The era of the
sick man is past and the admins
| tratiOn on his estate has commenced.
We will not speculate now upon the
inexplicable question whether this
administration is to be by war or by
negotiation; whether the admins
tration is to be byRussia alone or Rus
STA with the concurrence of other
European powers for conjecture
with no more basis than we have
now to ground it upon would be a
waste of our own time and that of
our readers. Only we can see this,
that, if it be war, then whatever
may be the result as affects Russia
or England, Germany or Austria,
what is left of Turkey will be ground
to pieces in the conflict; if diploma
cy, then the only question will be
what State or States shall admins
ter that which has hitherto been at
least nOminally under the direction
of the Ottoman Porte.
With a future so utterly beyond
the reach even of conjecture we are
driven back to the contemplation of
the past and are led to enquire
whether the principle or phrase or
pretext with which we commenced
this paper ever was one wisely cho-
sen as a basis either for diplomatic
or military action. We have long
doubted it, and of late years have
been rapidly approaching the full
conviction that it was unwisely
adopted from the first. In estimat-
ing the wisdom of it we have to bear
in mind the real purpose with which
it was put forward, and to measure
its wisdom we have to consider how
far it was adapted to the prosecution
of that purpose. 1t is some relief to
come to realities and to drop pre-
texts. The independence and in
tegrity of the Ottoman Empire
meant in the minds of the British
statesmen resistance to the progress
of Russian encroachment on the
Danube, the DardanelIes, the Black
Sea and Armenia; and the prOtec-
ton of Christian interests within the
| Turkish Empire meant with Rus
sian diplOmatists the advancement
| of Russian interests there behind
that convenient mask. We hardly
think that Canning and PalmerstOn
loved the Turkish Sultan any better
than the Russian statesmen did, or
that GortchakOff and Ignatieff care
any more for Roumanian and Bull
| garian Christians than they do for
the Catholics of Ireland or the Nor
mons of America. When, therefore,
we discuss the wisdom of the Can
ning-PalmerstOn policy, let Us dis
| cusS it in its true meaning as to its
efficacy as bar to Russian encrOach-
ment in Southeastern Europe. We
are going to take it for granted that
resistance to Russia there lCdS an
important object with certain ma
tiOns in Europe and discuss the pol
| icy simply as a means to an end.
! HlOoCI1L lCCIlA W OIo lilS
ton, but we are going to contem-
| plate it in the light of what European
statesmen knew and had before
| them during the first half of the
present century. In Canning's time
the revolt of Greece and its subse-
quent independence was the prob
lem which European statesmen had
to deal with. What was their ac-
ton? The Duke of Wellington was
at that time Prime Minister in Eng
| land, with an extreme reactionary
Tory administration. He and they
only followed the bent of their nat
ural impulses in aiming at making
Greece as small as possible; in cut
| ting her down to the limits of Attica
and BGotia instead of pushing her
| frontiers into Thessaly and Epirus.
This policy, we say, was natural to
English Tories, as twas adopted on
the principle of discouraging all re-
sistance on the part of people to
| their rulers. But when Canning
came to power with colleagues who
avowed a sympathy in general terms
with oppressed natiOnalities, to the
disappointment of all, he and his
friends adopted the same policy on
the principle that to strengthen
| Greece would be to weaken Turkey.
Here is the point, as we think, at
which England and theanti-Russian
powers diverged from sound policy.
Suppose they had devoted them
selves to the establishment of
strong Greek kingdom under a Chris
tian government; suppose that they
had made it their ultimate aim to
push the limits of that kingdom, as
opportunities might arise, north
ward to the Balkan, or even the
Danube, instead of southwark, as
near to the Morea as possible; sup
pose that instead of the hopeless task
of renovating and bolstering up the
diseased and rotten Turkish Empire