The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-01
Premier Salisbury Struggling
Stubbornly for a Way Out
Of the Mess.
WAR CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON
Most Burning OF All Problems al
Present Seems to Be the
Armenian Question.


LONDON. ENG, Aug. 31.-There was a
hurried Cabinet council at nearly mid
night a couple of days ago which people
are still wondering about. The fact that
George y. Courzon was sent for is taken to
indicate that its subject was urgent for
eign business. This might have been
taken for granted in any case, for England
in time of peace has rarely had such a per-
picking variety of international complica-
tions on hand, each full of possibilities
which might we'll keep the Ministers from
their beds. Thus far no hint has dropped
as to which particular phase of the general
embroglio has caused this hasty gathering,
but the supposition in Parliament, or in
what remains in London of Parliament, is
that it was Armenia.
Armenia is indeed the greater which in
clude all the lesser problems. Last winter
and spring these dispatches repeated with
perhaps tiresome iteration the grounds for
suspecting that England in this matter has
been decoyed into trap and that Russia
and France, while ostensibly acting in con-
cert with her at Constantinople, were
really holding her powerless in a cleft
stick while they dealt behind her back
with the Pashas surrounding the Sultan. 1t
is now the last day of summer and the
game is still going on. Subterranean in
trigues as subtle and prolonged as those
which preceded the Crlmean war still hold
the whole Armenian question open. The
anniversary of the Sassoun massacre finds
nothing redressed, nothing settled, moth
ing even in fair way of settlement.
Lord Salisbury's position is indeed as
difficult as any that the biggest of his
predecessors in the task of shaping the
British Foreign Office policy since Pitt has
been compelled to cope with. He had no
sympathy with the original agitation
against Turkey, much less with Lord Rose
bery's action IN committing England to
joint action with Russia and France in the
matter, and he said so in Bradford at the
time. Having inherited the muddle, how
ever, he is bound to see it through and if
possible get England out of it unscathed.
How he is going to do it no one pretends
to guess.
Newsfrom Constantinople direct has prac-
tically ceased. We subsist entirely on the
Vienna reports, which contradict each
other day by day. 1t seems admitted that
Lord Salisbury has made a new stipulation
that the proposed committee of Armenian
control must consist of seven instead of
six, of which four must be Christians tits
less certain that the Sultan has appealed to
Russia and France for support against this
demand. AS to the statement that pro-
posals for a European congress have been
already begun nobody knows whether it is
true or not.
All we do know is that the situation Is
extremely confused, complicated and full
Of chances for misunderstanding AID
trouble. The questions at issue between
France and England on the Mekong and
Niger continue to furnish the London and
Paris papers with material for an in
terminable duel of conflicting allegations
and irreconcilable stories, but what the
respective Foreign Offices are doing remains
unknown. Lord Salisbury's brief state
ment in the House of Lords yesterday was
clear enough in the assertion that Kung
Cheng belonged to the British crown, but
there was nothing in its tone to forbid the
idea that he is willing to part with it in
negotiation for value received.
One of the main troubles in the whole
business, indeed, is that the newspapers of
den of the controversy upon their own
shoulders and devoted such time and space
to elaborate research and comprehensive
surveys on all the disputed points, that the
public get the impression that the Foreign
Offices have nothing to do but back up the
editorial contentious of their respective
GOuntries. This is particularly true of the
new and rather vexatious complication
which has suddenly risen to mix up fur
ther the African questions. All that the
Governments concerned know is that a
Belfast ex-missionary named Charley
Stokes, who has long played the part OF a
sort of itinerant combination If Mormon
elder and post-trader in Uganda and the
Upper Nile country, has been summarily
hanged by subordinate Congo officials on
an expedition in the bush.
Ordinarily such thing would be quietly
settled by the foreign offices interested,
but here the Belgian, English, French and
even German papers are deyoting columns
daily to the affair with rival accounts OF
alleged eyewitnesses and violent debates
on Cooks character, until the matter is
lifted to the dignity of an international
quarrel, and men are actually talking
about England se1zing large sections OF the
Congo territory for indemnity. Nobody
viii be sorry when the Sedan celebration
of tomorrow and Monday in Berlin and
throughout Germany will be well over.
The French ambassador left Berlin to-day
to remain away over this unpleasant affair,
and it is now announced, in addition, that
there will be no French officers at the
great Steftin maneuVers beginning next
month. All things considered, these COM
memorations of 1870 passed off with much
less friction than might have been ex-
pected, but they leave a legacy of bitter
ness in France which profitably might
have been avoided.
There is one incident, moreover, which
%nnot be said to be ended. The French
general of division, Munier, printed in LIE
Figaro some grave, sweeping accusations
OF theft-and dishonor against German Off.