Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-11-25
EUROPE,.S SICK MAN.
THE POWERS SEEM TO HAVE AGREED
 ON A DIVISION OF TURKEY.

Russia Has Changed Her Policy In Regard
 to Mediterranean outlet-But For the
 Claims of the Bear and the Lion the Problem Would Be Easy.
 The more one reflects on the simuIta. neous and harmonious utterances of Lord Salisbury and of the French minis ter for foreign affairs regarding the state of things at Constantinople the stronger becomes the impression that an agree ment has been reached between the Flu ropean powers for the distribution of the sultan's dominions
 Of course the Turk, though mortaIIy sick, IS not yet dead, and he is unlikely to lie supine while his assets are divided. But in these days of perfected arms and ammunition one cannot fight long or effectively without money, and of mon ey the Turk has next to none. From sheer lack of funds Abdul Hamid would be unable to call out the reserves or to keep any considerable army ill the field. It is not even certain that Moslem fa- naticism would be arrayed upon his side, and if it were, fanatieism would prove no match for maxim guns. Threatened at once with internal anarchy and with aggression from without, the present sultan seems to be in as helpless condi- tion as was that much abler ruler Nah mond II in the interval between the de- struction of the janizaries and the or ganization of new military force Then the Russians under Diebitsch, it will be remembered, won Adrianople with ease, and might have gained pos session of the Bosporus but for the jeal- ousy of other Christian nations
 But, while we assume that in the end tho European powers can, if thoroughly agreed deal as they choose with Turkey, the apparent fact of their ability to ar rive at an agreement may well excite as- tonishment. To Russia the acquisition of Constantinople would be inealculably more useful than to any other power, since only through the Bosporus can the great northern empire gain access to the Mediterranean.
 Hitherto the czars have acted on the theory that it was better for them to leave that coign of vantage under the control of a weak Turkish ruler than to suffer it to fall into any Christian hands but theirs Let them but have the Bos- porus, and by comparison they cared not what became of the rest of the sultan's dominions. Such, we repeat, has been the traditional policy of the Romanoffs. Yet now they have departed from it, if we can rely upon reports emanating from sources usually considered trust worthy According to these reports, the difficulty of disposing of Constantinople to the satisfaction of all the powers in- terested has not been definitely sur mounted, but postponed by placing un- der an international commission the city, together, we presume. with strip of territory on each side of the Bosporus, the sea of Marmora, and the Darda= nelles.
 To induce the successor of Peter the Great to assent to an arrangement which would adjourn, perhaps to the Greek ealends, the consummation of his dear est wish, some weighty compensation must have been offered to him in Asiat- ic Turkey. We find it hard to believe that he would content himself with Turkish Armenia and the headwaters of the Tigris unless he were left at lib erty to follow that river throughout it's southward course, thus obtaining for Russia an outlet to the Indian ocean. Yet how could England, which broke forth in angry protest at the rumor of a 14 Au+t Ac oncile herself to his obtaining naval station in the Persian gulf, in close proximity to India? Why, too, for her share of the Ottoman inheritance should she accept Syria, which is allotted to her by report, unless she aimed at the control of the projected Euphrates Val ley railway, a control which implies the possession of Bassora, at the head of the Persian gulf?
 It is the accommodation of English and Russian interests that renders the problem of distributing the Ottoman es- tate so hard of solution. The claims of other European powers might be adjust ed with comparative facility. It has been accounted probable, since by the dCQulS1blOll LII tiiO l1Sl lASS5OfiliNAJ LII I)Oo- mia and Novi Bazar the Austro Hun garian monarchy inserted deep wedge in the Balkan peninsula, that 1t would ultimately absorb Macedonia, including the important seaport, Salonica. That Italy would get Tripoli and that Crete would fall to Greece have also been taken for granted. The proposal to give western Asia Minor, including of course Smyrna, to France, is new to the gen. eral public, though it may have been mooted in the inner circles of diplomacy. It has been generally supposed that for historical reasons Syria would have spe- cial attractions for France, but that Asia Minor is far more valuable allotment is plain enough to those who recall the teeming population and immense wealth of that region during the early centuries of the Roman rule, and indeed down to l tho Offoo,a1, collpf1aSt