Year: 1875

British love of virtue and commerce, might


pass out of British hands, and Russian power


would acquire in Asia prestige that British


humanity could never endure. How inn
/ portant England deems it to prevent such an
/ increase of Russian power may be seen 10y
! the fact that in 1853 the Emperor Nicholas


offered her Egypt and the whole northern


coast of Africa to the Algerian frontier as her


part of the spoil if she would consent 10 such


dismemberment of Turkey as would induce


this Russian preponderance. But she refused


the proffer. Austria, again, is jealous of every
step of Russian advance toward the Danube,


and considers that any such advance menaces
her own growth in that direction. 1t is the
policy in Vienna to rejuvenate the old Aus
trian Empire as the Empire of the Danube
Valley. But Austria will find there other OBJ
stacles than those of Russian might and the
worst will be her own historic relations with
Rome. Ranke tells of Servian song in which
a native patriot asked John Hunyad what
he would do if he conquered the country,
and he said he would make it Catholic. Then
the same query was put 10 the Sultan, who
said he would build Christian church be-
side every mosque and the people should
bow in the mosque or in the church as they
chose. And on these terms the people pre-
ferred the dominion of the Sultan All that
country received its Christianity from Con-
stantinople and adheres tenaciously TO the
Eastern Church, and consequently to Rus
sia; and though it might not now prefer the
Sultan to the Pope it would oppose vigor-
ously all relationship that tended toward
Rome.


1t is this rivalry of national prestige, this
mutual desire and jealousy with regard to
dominion, this. commercial spirit that covers
its projects with the pretext of supporting
the weaker, though a barbarian, against the
stronger, who is a Christian-all these to-
gether have constituted the formidable COM
plication of the Eastern question, which
statesmen have feared to touch because of
the great war, the spectre of which seemed to
loom beyond But we believe the time has
gone by when great war could arise from
this complication, and that it may be all un-
ravelled and the case determined now with
very little disturbance of the surface
of European life. In other words,
we believe that the Eastern question
proper is a dead issue. Russia and
Germany will settle between them by treaty
at the right moment the relations of the for
mer with Turkey and Turkey must swallow
the pill they prescribe. England has no
standing in the case She could not have
-, oil lint
dragged in to help her-not because France
had any real interest there, but because her
sovereign was ready to play on the French
madness for glory in the hope to establish
firmly an unsteady throne. France has
lately been interrogated from st. Petersburg
as to her position, and has expressed formally
her faith in the Treaty of Paris as a grand
panacea but of course she did not need to
say that she could not fight for it.


1t is possible that the insurrection may be
suppressed or may die out without definite
settlement of the position of the insurgent
people; but if Russia permits this to happen
it will be unlike her, and will indicate that
English influence is greater automatically at
ST. Petersburg than English power is else
where. 1t seems scarcely probable that the
Power which occupied Moldavia in 1858 on
a trivial dispute, and SO brought about the
war that ended disastrously in the Crimea,
should now fail to encourage a revolt that
needs but little more than encouragement to
accomplish the very purpose she then had in
view, or that she should fail to see the impos-
sibility of anybody making against her now
such a combination as was made then.