Year: 1876

negotiation as hopeless; but, having looked
into the abyss and acquired wholesome
horror of it, she turns to negotiations again
with desperate resolve to try and extort from
diplomacy some endurable condition. Thus
the war which but day or two since was
regarded as visible reality seems less i'm
minent, as in the return to the endeavor to
reconcile conflicting views there is an indis-
position to admit that any obstacle is in
superable.


There is q general "show of hands" In
regard to the armistice. Turkey, it will be
remembered, proposed six months truce,
and Russia insisted that hostilities should
be suspended for six weeks only unless In
that period the belligerents had mutually
accepted the terms of durable peace. Va
rious reports were current of the attitude Of
the several Powers in regard to these points;
but it now appears that England was the
only Power which supported Turkeys prop
osition, and she declares her readiness to
abandon it. Germany is Indifferent as to
the duration of the armistice, but expresses
vaguely hope that the Powers will
agree. Austria, Italy and France support,
or prepared to support. the Russian
demand from the consideration that the
Turkish proposition would be oppressive to
Servia. England gives singular evidence
of vacillation. She alone supports Turkeys
demand, and she alone had declared the
proposition Of which that demand was an
evasion to be her ultimatum. She had
formally told the Sultan that she could hear
no other answer from him but the accept
ance of her note yet when he made another
answer she not only heard it but became its
advocate with other Powers England
now informs Russia that as she has
supported the six months armistice
she cannot oppose it, but will not oppose
the counter proposition. She might as well
have said that, as she has already been on
both sides with regard to this armistice, she
can now readily return to the side on which
she stood at first.


Perhaps the most hopeful fact in the news
for the prospect of peace is that England,
returning to the position she assumed sew
eral days since, when her three points were
given to the Sultan as an ultimatum, now
seems really to abandon him to his fate un-
less he accepts those terms. If he accepts
those terms peace is secured So long as he
refuses to accept them England, as now ap-
pears will refuse to deal with him, and in
Inmates that if he requires other terms he
must make them for himself by direct nego-
tiation with the Emperor of Russia. Ger
tainly the greatest obstacle there has
of RI caffl ont
of the politics of Eastern Europe
has been that the Immediately interested
nations never dealt directly with one
another, and the declaration now practi-
cally made by Exgland that the Sultan must
make his own terms with his great neighbor
is the abandonment of the traditional policy
of England. Englands persistent endeavor
has always been to prevent such direct
understanding for it was only in that way
that she could give to her own in
terest that importance which properly
was due to the natural interest of the
| Ottoman rulers and the neighboring
nations. Every time that Russia sought to
protect the Christian subjects Of the Porte
! or sought to make terms with the Sultan on
any point she found that the case had to be
| determined not in Constantinople, but at
| London or Paris and the effect of this fact
| upon the Ottoman government was to per-
vert natural principles in politics, for the
| Sultan did not accommodate himself to the
| circumstances in which he must live. He
did not concede or yield what was demanded
| in proportion to the resistance he
could offer, but depended always upon the
interests of the Western Powers to support
him in his defiance of Justice Compelled
now to abandon that artificial support his
Empire may be saved by timely concessions.


1t would appear that the principle Of the
| Sibylline books applies to the price of Tur-
kish tranquility. Every time that the Sui
tan rejects proposition he finds that the
succeeding note contains an addition to
| the terms The English note demanded
an unconditional armistice, the status
| quo ante bell,m for Servia and Monte
negro, and liberal autonomy for Bos-
MIA, Herzegovina and Bulgaria. He re-
| jected that, is now handed over to Russia,
| and she demands an armistice, administra-
tive self-government for all the Slavic PROV
| inces and the concession of reforms under
the direction of a commission appointed by
foreign governments, and to be protected by
foreign armed force. This would reduce
the Sultan's sovereignty to nullity in
large part of his dominion but the progress
sive tendency of the demands should sug-
gest to him the wisdom of accepting with as
little delay possible, lest future condi-
tions should be far harder.


Southern War Claims.