Year: 1878

be somewhat more than critical They are
at thes extreme point of tension consistent
with the preservation of peace, and in the
exaggerated susceptibilities of the moment
rupture may result any day apparently as
a consequence of events that at other times
would be regarded as trivial. For two
years now these governments have played ut
cross purposes with one another, and Eng
land has certainly no occasion to congratu-
late herself on the results Her diplomacy
through nll these trou bled times, and through
all the difficult and delicate negotiations
that have followed one another so closely,
has been always at fault. From the rejec-
tion of the Berlin memorandum in May,
1876, down to the sending of the fleet into
the Sea of Marmora, every act was blunder.
BY her course at Berlin England separated
herself from the three great Powers which
were agreed that Turkey must be reformed
or coerced. She thereby rendered the war
inevitable unless she was herself prepared
to fight on the Ottoman side. Peace
could only have been preserved by
the certainty that England would fight
for and with the Moslems. But
she was not prepared to fight on that side,
and the Northern Powers knew it. The
English nation would not have stood it
then, whatever it may do now. Engand's
honor was not engaged, and the CONNER
cial aristocracy wiser than the government


knows that the world of the East is changed
since the time Of the Crimean war; that tho
J,1oa tC
minimum the danger of Russian advance
to the Levant. Since England could not
fight it would have been the part of wise
craftsmanship not to force events into such
shape as to involve her participation in
war under the penalty of the reconstruction
of the Ottoman Empire without her consent.
| With that capital blunder she began.
Her most treasured purpose was to pre-
serve the Eastern equilibrium, because
upon that equilibrium depended great in
| terests of her own; but her government
| adopted the one course which enforced the
result that all England deprecated. BY as
sociating herself with the Northern Powers
England could have limited its operations
so that she would have done what was de-
mandod by civilization and have preserved
her relations with Turkey in such way
as to be the guardian of her own inter-
ests BY standing aside she encouraged
the Moslems in their rejection of all re-
forms, compelled Russia to fight and looked
on with folded hands while the Ottomans
were slaughtered in war that was as much
hers as theirs. Her policy was ridiculously
feeble She was neither with the Turk nor
with Europe She declared against the
Turks and smiled on their efforts. She was
against everybody !; professedly sought only
her own advantage and yet she did
no harm to any cause but her own.
BY blunder almost as bad as the
first the government again intellectually
weakened England's position through the
famous definition of her ''interests." Eng
lands interest was the existence Of Turkey
Just as she stood, barbarity and all, and to
say that it depended upon this or that point
was to throw all other points open to Rus
sia and to give up to her that entirety Of
the Ottoman dominion without which the
defined points were speedily seen to be
worthless. And the next blunder was to
see the effect of this blunder only when it
was irremediable, and to send the fleet into
the Sea of Marmora when there was no more
occasion for that act than at any moment
during the war, if the Russians were to be
trusted; and if they were not to be trusted
it was late to find it out.


From this remarkable series of acts, wrong
at any. moment, and of acts right in them
selves but done at the wrong time, there
flowed q not uncommon result in such
cases. Personal vanity, temper, pride and
passion were engaged in the settlement of
national difference that should have been
conducted, not in the spirit of child's
quarrel, but with the chess players cool
reflection and Indifference to sentiment.
How would the lockers on keep their faces
straight if in the middle of n game of
chess half beaten player should begin
to rail Mt the eccentricity Of the knights
movements; declare his contempt at the
bishops sidelong advances and retreats;
hold up, to common Indignation, with with
ering eloquence, the facile extravaganza of
the queens operatlous, anu NJ iast de-
nounce roundly as evil in every part of it's
construction. the game whose greatest fault
was that he could not play it successfully?
But if the game were played for SO grand
stake as the dignity and domination of
q Power in whose welfare the civil
lied world is interested outside na-
tions would not laugh for the pity of it,
but they would not conceal their scorn
for the feeble player. And that feeble
player is the British government, which,
confounded at play, querulously cries out
that if the nature Of the game had been
different or the character of the players
nobler, it might have won against all odds.