Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-11-23

generally recognized that no infringement
of it was to be anticipated So long as
parades of all sorts of orders are permitted,
those who take part in them are entitled
to the protection of the law while OBJ
serving the law.
The Armenian Question.
On Y. SUM-
1t looks as if the necessity of protecting
those Armenian Christians, who still re-
main subjects of the Ottoman sultan,
would furnish Nicholas H. at the outset
of his reign, with a strong moral ground
for the invasion of Asiatic Turkey. The
wrongs suffered in 1876 by the Bulgar-
ians, wrongs which in Mr.. Gladstone S
opinion amply justified the last war OF
Russia against the Porte seem insignifi-
can't compared with the revolving outrages
and appalling massacres perpetrated in
Armenia, not by bands of predatory
Kurds, but by a Turkish governor at the
head of large force of regular soldiers
If the reports of these enormities are con-
firmed in substance and of such confi-ma-
ton there now seems to be no doubt, 1t
will be impossible for Abdul Hamid to
evade responsibility, and it will become
the duty of the powers that were parties
to the treaty of Berlin, or, at all events,
of one of them, to consider what steps
should be taken to fulfil their joint pro-
mise to assure the safety of the Asiatic
Christians whom the Gar was forbidden
to defend by arms. In other words, the
Eastern question seems about to be re-
opened in an aggravated form. European
statesmen, who have tried to shirk it for
some sixteen years, must now face the in
quiry whether they will suffer any longer
their coreligiOnists to be ravished and
murdered because Mohammedan despOt
is either unwilling or unable to control
the malice of his own officers and troops
Although Alexander II. undoubtedly
was prompted in no small measure by a
natural desire to enlarge his dominions,
he was as certainly sincere in his declara-
ton that main purpose of his war against
the Turk was to deliver from intolerable
oppression the Bulgarian and other Chris
tian subjects of the sultan in Europe, and
the Armenians in Asia Minor. So far as
his philanthrOpic aims were concerned,
they were fulfilled to large extent in
the European part of the field of warfare.
The Gar, indeed, although his soldiers
came within sight of the dome of St.
Sophia, gained nothing for himself ex-
cept the recovery of Bessarabia in ex-
change for the Dobrudja. His religion
lists, however, in Bulgaria, Eastern Rou-
melia, Thessaly, Bosnia and the Here
govina, were rescued from the miseries
which had known no respite for upward
of four centuries, and obtained freedom
and the peaceful enjoyment of the fruits
of industry, either as citizens of an in
dependent state or as subjects of the Aus
tro- Hungarian sovereign, or of the King
of the Hellencs. In Asia Minor, on the
other hand not only was the Gar pro-
hibited by the Berlin Congress from re-
tanning all his conquests, but a consider
able section of redeemed Armenia was
given back to the Porte, so that about two
| millions of Armenian Christians saw
, themselves condemned to abide for an in
definite period under the Ottoman yoke.
The case of the Armenian Christians did
not want for eloquent advocates at Berlin,
and it was felt to be a scandal to relegate
to thraldom those who, thanks to the
Cars generals had just been included
within the Russian lines, and We're, there
fore, counting upon deliverance. England,
whose policy it has been for forty years to
prop and whitewash the unspeakable
Turk, quieted the public conscience by
} emphatic protestations that the then new
Sultan, Abdul Hamid, would have both
the will and the power to mete out even
handed justice to all his subjects without
, distinction of race or faith. To make
assurance doubly sure Lord Beaconsfield
and Lord Salisbury proposed that the CO
signatories of the Berlin treaty should
guarantee to the Armenian Christians the
undisturbed practice of their religion and
the secure enjoyment of their personal
and property rights. As might have been
5 expected and was, in fact, suggested at
the time, guarantee binding on half a
dozen powers would not be specially
binding upon any. Outrage after outrage
has been committed in Armenia, yet
none of the continental states has deemed
it its business to interpese with firmness,
and bring the Turks to book. Even Eng
. land, which by promising in return for
Cyprus to defend the sultan's Asiatic
! possessions assumed peculiar accounta.
bility for the right government thereof, has
made no earnest and effective effort to
procure fair treatment for the Armenian
Christians. Russia, which was the chief
victim of the Congress of Berlin, is in nc
/ wise blameworthy for the enormity which
has focused the attention of the world on
, Asia Minor. 1t is the other great Euro
pean powers, and particularly England,
that by their remissness and indifference,
as one revolving crime after another was
, reported, have encouraged Turkish Off
Gals to reach pitch of atrocity that has
shocked the civilized world
What is there left of the treaty of Ber-
lin? 1t has not availed to shield the Arme-
, MAN Christians from Turkish ravishers
; and mans,ayers In the teeth of the
Cars appeal, the central powers and
England refused to enforce it, when the
Bulgarians defied it by annexing Eastern
: Roumelia. If parchment can be torn to