The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-07
AS TOLD BY FOSTER
England's Influence Has
Saved Turkey for
Years.
ESCAPED POLAND'S FATE
Of All Nations the Government
of the Empire Is the Most
Corrupt.
INDUSTRIES HAVE LANGUISHED
Enterprise Appears to Be Discouraged
and in Some Parts Lawlessness
Encouraged.
INDUSTRIES HAVE LANGUISHED

BALTIMORE, MD, Dec. 6.-Hon. John
w. Foster, ex-Secretary of State, addressed
the students of Johns Hopkins University
this evening upon Eastern politics. lie
devoted some time to a discussion of the
Turkish situation, in the course of which
he said:
THE Turkish empire, which few CEN
turies ago bade fair to become the mistress
of the world, has for the past century main
tained its imperial existence only by the
sufferance or protection OF European
powers. 1t would long since have expert
enced the fate of Poland if England had
not stood in the way of Russian, French
and Austrian aspirations. Of all the na-
tlons l visited regard the Government of
the Turkish empire the most corrupt, in
efficient and wretched. Enterprise is dis
couraged; lawlessness is unrestrained in
parts of the empire, except in the few To-
calities where foreign capital and enter
prise have forced an unwelcome entrance.
All industries languish and abject poverty
prevails. The presence of missionaries
has awakened in the authorities some little
is almost universal.
ish Government with the sole responsible
ity of the continuance of this state of af-
fairs because of its protection of the Turks.
But upon the British Government must
rest large share of the responsibility of
the existence and continuance of the re-
cent outrages in Asia Minor, which have
so Justly awakened the indignation OF the
civilized world. But for it's interposition
the Turkish power would have been COM
pletely broken as result of the Russian
war of l877-7S. At that time it ccepted
the session of Cyprus as the price of its
guarantee of protection of the Ottoman
empire against the further encroachments
of Russia.
sit was the controlling party in the
Berlin conference, which exacted from
Turkey a stipulation for the reforms in
Armenia, for religious liberty in its widest
sphere and prot ection to the Christians of
its Asiatic provinces, and it has been the
party most culpable for allowing these
stipulations to be practically unrealized.
do not doubt that the present Govern
ment of Great Britain, stimulated by the
original sentiment of its Christian con-
stituency, has been sincerely exerting its
llH ueuCe dt TIE Z OTtt 10 slOD tue DdTDdrl-
ties in Armenia and to bring about the
long promised reforms, but its relation
with Russia and France in the Levant and
in the Far East are of such a strained and
delicate nature that it dare not press these
reforms to the necessary extreme without
the concurrence of those powers.
There is nothing which illustrates more
vividly the conflicting interests of Eng
land and Russia than the present condi-
ton of affairs in Constantlnople and Asia
Minor. But for these international ieal-
ousies the Christian worl might to-day
hail the expulsion of the Turks from
Europe and the establishment of auton-
omous principalities under European pro-
lection In AsiB Minor, Syria and PaIes-
tine"
Mr.. Foster, however, found occasion
further on to speak in more supplementary
terms OF the British.
No one who has not iourneyed around
the world" he said, "can realize their
power and greatness. They are not with
out their faults, conspicuous among which
are their arrogance and seltishness in gov
ernment and trade, but am proud to say
for l count it a part of our race heritage
that no other nation or people are doing
so much for the worlds good, for the ele-
vation of man, for the enlightenment of
the intellect and the freedom of the soul
from error and superstition"