The Potteries Examiner : — 1878-04-27 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

LET.  REV. sTowpti BROWN ON WAR  AGITATION  At a recent meeting at Liverpool the Rev. Hugh Stowell Brown :d —He did not like the fever of blind rawe against Turkey, aed he just as little admiredthe hotter fever of blinder rage against Russia that has since prevailed. It wits to him matter of profound regret 0 find • that so large a portion of the people of this country were zso inflamed with the war spirit— that so many, especially of those who did not pay income-tax, although they ought to have it laid upon them—were so loud in their desire that we should have to pay it and be plundered and impoverished just for the cowardly gratification of a war thousands of miles away while they were at a safe distance away from it. He regretted also to find that with so many people in this Christian country, the words of an exceedingly weak. silly, and bragging song had more weight than the words of Jesus Christ. If Christ had been in London recently he ithe speaker) thought He would have been crucified afresh. If He had stood tty among the rowdyism and said, "Love your enemies," He would have beers in imminent danger of being hanged to the nearest lamp-post. The rowdyism that had been called out, he considered. was something to reflect upon with anything but feelings of pride. What was to he thought of people who were o dastardly. so cowardly, and so mean that they would even have attacked Mr. Gladstone in his own house, and perhaps have torn hint limb from limb for anything lone could tell ' One thing, at any rate, seemed to him to have been done by the war party of this couutry, namely, they have given Russia some reason to think that England was most dreadfully afraid of her. They had coined a word—or if they had not coined it, they had accepted and circulated it—that distinctly said as much, for what else, he asked. did " Rossophobism " mean. It was an ugly word, and an ugly thing altogether, but of course it meant that we were afraid of Russia. The war party had stamped the people of this country as cowards, when they did not deserve to be so stamped. The stigma, he contended, was entirely undeserved. , for we were not "Russophobists ; we were not afraid of Russia nor any Power on the face of ,! the earth; and as long as the people of England did what was just in the sight of 'God and man, they never would have anything to be afraid of from any one. He for one complained of the mists presentation of his countrymen produced by that wretched word and, in fact, were he a Russian. he would think of going in for India after so much expression of terror on , the part of the English people. But they would say. " We are not •Russophobists' at all; that is IL name you peace people have given ! ;we are • Turkophiles: " " • Turkophiles; are you?" says the Turks. Then, he thought, . Turkey might well say, "Save me from my . friends." that had they done 0 befriend the ' Turks ? They had talked, sung songs shouted, roared, and done nothing. They bad stood by . affecting to wring their hands and wipe their hypocritical eyes whilst their poor " friends " had been half murdered before their very faces. He believed they did send out some surgeons with lint and bandage, and Turkey must be thankful for very small mercies if she were thankful for these in the absence of more substantial aid. The war party might say. "We would have befriended Turkey substantially only the peace party would not allow us." True; they would not allow the grant unless it , were on behalf of British inteteats ; their hands were sufficiently powerful to do that; and he hoped that for once the war party would admit. that the peace party had been too stron,g for them. However, what with the " Turkophilisni " and "Russophobism " of the war party, they had given Turkey some reason for hating them as deceivers, and Russia some ground for despising them as cowards.