The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-06
Suspicion That the BIuffing
of China Concealed Other
Motives.
WORSE TROUBLES IN EUROPE
England May Be Compelled to Do a
Little Free Fighting for the
Triple Alliance.
copyright, 1895, by the New York Timss.I

LONDON, Eng, Oct. 5.-The prevalent
sense of an impending disturbance with
which last week closed has had its prompt
and emphatic justification. England, it
was felt, had become ready to substitute
deeds for words, and was on the point of
delivering blow somewhere. As it turned
out she struck simultaneously with both
fists. Her demonstration of naval force
TO back up her ultimatum to the Chinese
Government was so definite in outline and
followed by so swift a surrender of the
menaced party that it monopolized public
attention. No one particularly noticed
the quieter and much less dramatic for
ward movement OF another British feet to
within sight of the Hellespont.
Indeed few knew of it at the time, for
there IS always far greater mystery about
the whereabouts of squadrons in the Med
iterranean than in the Pacific; but then
came the startling upheaval disorder and
blcodshed in the streets of Stamboul, and
Immediately the pendulum of popular in
terest swung back from Asia to Europe,
and the rest OF the week has been given
over entirely to reports discussions, sem
sational rumors and predictions about the
violently rcopened Eastern question. Both
in the Turkish and the Chinese waters
these British fleets remain, however, very
prominently in view, and in each case it
may be surmised that they have by no
means finished what they came to do.
Continental and English comments on
the situation as it stands reveal an entire
confusion, not only as to what will hap
pen, but as to what has already occurred.
Here in London we have two sharply con-
flicting accounts OF the Constantinople
riots. One says that the Armenians are
wholly to blame, the other pictures them
as lamb-like victims TO Turkish ferocity.
In other words that natural partisan divis-
ion among Englishmen on this whole ques-
tion, which has been for a whole year re-
pressed, has asserted itself as during last
October these dispatches pointed out that
it must. The English Tories, who in for-
eign affairs are a very large majority, like
the Turk and loathe the Armenian by in
stinct and tradition.
Hence, when the Times, which, in this
respect, retains a strong leaven of its old
Liberalism. took up the Sassoun massacres
and raised a hot Armenian issue, there
was q rather painful, hesitating silence
among them, but then the Tory papers,
with one or two exceptions, followed the
Times example, partly because they
imagined it was good politics thus to force
Rosebery's hand, partly for reasons less
creditable TO journalism, and the Tory
rank and file amazedly found itself COM
mitted to precisely that Gladstonian policy
Of bullying the Sultan and encouraging his
turbulent small nationalties to mutiny
which had formerly revolted its very soul.
Lord Salisbury, on succeeding to the
Foreign Office, felt in duty bound to make
the best show of continuous Eastern
policy that he could, but his party was
under no such obligations, and the Tory
papers began at once to change their tone
about the Armenians. To-day the Times,
among them, remains almost alone in
desiring to see the Porte humiliated and
the Mesopotamian Christians exalted. It's
contemporaries now have correspondents
in Constantinople who reflect their readers
views and paint the Armenians in as bad a
light as possible. while the radical press
get reports after their own heart, which
make every Moslem demon and every
Levantine Christian suffering angel.
So the English parties are being released
from the artificial restrainst of the hybrid
Rosebery- Kimberly foreign policy and
swung back into the natural positions
which Disraeli and Gladstone marked out
for them twenty years ago.
It can be seen that all this will not sim
plify Lord Salisbury's very puzzling task.
His private predictions are those of his
party. His personal notion of sending a
feet to the mouth of the Dardanelles
would be to warn off Russia and not to ter
rify the Sultan, and yet be finds himself
nominally working with Russia and using
British men-of-war against the Turk to
further aims which are ostepsibly Russia
as much as England's. If it were not so
full of sinister possibilities this position of
affairs would set all Europe roaring with
laughter. 1t is funnier than farce, but
somehow no one smiles. This comedy has
no easy-minded spectators. Its audience
of to-day may all be called to the stage as
actors tomorrow, and the burlesque NAV
give place to tragedy.
The visible facts are that Kiamil Pasha.
to whom the Sultan turned in his despair.
is the English nominee, and it is believed
that he may be trusted to follow the lines
that Sir Philip Currie lays down and that
Turkish officialdom has shown itself able
10 deal, after its own fashion, with dis
order in the metropolis. All else is un-
certain. Parisians pretend to believe that
the English furnished the Armenians with
reyolvers and bribed them to provoke riot
in order to create pretext for the British
feet to enter the Dardanelles, and the
comment of other Continental papers is, if
less spiteful, scarcely more Illuminating.
Nobody, IN truth, understands his own
position, much less that of his neighbors,
in this dense fog of cross-purposes and
clashing interests. There is nothing for it
but to stand still and wait for daylight or
the guiding light of detonators.
The Triple Alliance performs this wait
ing with a certain alertness of perception,
but no active concern. 1t is England S
affair to get on as best she can in the curl