we may expect from his late colleagues, if not from himself, should they return to power.

In the first place the Government are told they must summon an Autumn Session of Parliament, a demand ingeniously devised to produce a maximum of excitement and irritation, with the least possible good result. There can be no sort of doubt of the national abhorrence of the Bulgarian atrocities, or of the national determination no longer to give any support to such misgovernment as that of the existing Turkish Administration; nor can any, save the most heated or prejudiced partisan, doubt for a moment that Lord Derby and his colleagues are determined to give adequate expression to the national will in this respect. At any rate, for good or evil, the die is now cast. We have argued to little purpose if we have not convinced our readers that the real work of Turkish reform must be done with the concurrence of all the great Powers, if we would avoid a general European war. Whatever England may have to propose or support must have been already formulated or considered by the Diplomatists before Parliament, even if called together to-morrow, could possibly assemble, though it by no means follows that the negociations are in a state for the papers to be laid before Parliament. What then can an Autumnal Session of Members necessarily half informed as to what has taken place, and excited by the popular agitation of the last three months, possibly effect towards a solution of the great question? The voice of Parliament must resolve itself into an expression of confidence or want of confidence in Her Majesty's Ministers. In the former case, after weeks of unnecessary interruption, Lord Derby and his colleagues may resume their labours. On the other hand, should the agitation have been successful in sowing seeds of distrust, Mr. Gladstone and his party might be recalled to power. But as events will not wait, and the agitation raised by the ex-Premier and his friends has already produced its natural results in Servia and in Russia, there is but a slender chance of his having an opportunity of trying his hand at the expulsion of the Turks bag and baggage' before the war has extended to other Powers, who will be confident of England's support in this new crusade.

It is, however, quite possible that such an extension of the war may render necessary an early Session to grant Supplies for armaments necessary to protect our own interests. Neither the nation nor civilized Europe will have reason to thank Mr. Gladstone for this result of his agitation. On no other grounds, we trust, will an early Session be summoned.

In short, it seems to us that nothing could at the present

moment

moment be more disastrous for the prospects of European peace, than any impression that the English nation had lost its head, and was going to make common cause with Russia in the expulsion of the Turks from the provinces which they have desolated and profaned.' It is abundantly clear, if we may credit the correspondents of the daily press, who have throughout this period of startling events shown themselves so well informed, that the publication of Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet, and the party turn which it has given to the excitement, have greatly raised the spirits of the war party in Servia, and lessened the power of the Russian Government to resist the popular demand for war. Nothing, perhaps, was further from Mr. Gladstone's purpose, but the result of the words he has written and spoken on this momentous subject is now an historical fact beyond the reach of recal. He will, we are sure, find much to regret in what he has said on this Eastern Question, and much more in what he has written, when a closer study shall have shown him the inherent difficulties to be solved, and when full discussion of the subject in all its bearings shall have convinced him that there is no royal road by which we may hope to escape the laborious task of patiently solving the most knotty problem which has ever been submitted to an English Cabinet.

We have much faith in the inherent good sense and right intention of the English people. We believe that, in the long run, they will not be led away by any ignis fatuus either of a joint Anglo-Russian scheme for domination in Turkey (with, we presume, limited liability for ourselves) such as Mr. Gladstone proposes, or by any plan for leaving Turkey to drift to wreck as Mr. Lowe suggests, with the certainty of a bitter contest among the wreckers for what may escape destruction. It is not so long since the foreign policy of England was under the control of a Liberal Ministry, of which Mr. Gladstone was Premier, and Mr. Lowe a prominent and most influential member. The causes of the present state of affairs in Turkey were all that time in full operation, and no one who studied foreign politics could have been blind to what was certain, sooner or later, to be the result of the course of unchecked extravagance and reckless misgovernment in Turkey. Yet what can the late Liberal Ministry refer to, in the shape of effectual measures to avert or provide for the inevitable catastrophe, or to make British influence available for the better Government of the Sultan's dominions?

With the exception of reductions in consular charges, which everywhere made the task of our diplomatists more difficult in learning what was going on, we can call to mind no measures of

the

the late Ministry which could have affected our position at Constantinople, and the gradual withdrawal of England from all interest or risk of entanglement in Continental politics was a favourite and avowed object of Liberal speculation on foreign affairs. It was not long before the natural result was produced in the general contempt with which English advice in foreign affairs was regarded at the great Courts of Europe. It seems almost a burlesque on constitutional government to talk of recalling the late Ministry to power with any view of increasing the weight with which English counsel shall be received on questions of foreign policy.

Lord Derby had not been many weeks at the Foreign Office before a marked change came over the estimation in which England was regarded by foreign politicians. Without bluster, and with careful abstention from anything like arrogance in tone, or selfishness of purpose, the influence of England insensibly increased, and it is at this moment far greater in Constantinople than that of any other single nation. It may not be quite equal to the task of inducing the Sultan and his dynasty to volunteer abdication in order to make way for an Anglo-Russian dynasty, as one member of the late Government has suggested, nor to commit a 'happy despatch' by walking out of Europe without a struggle the only alternative to a general war, which Mr. Gladstone's proposals admit of. We can imagine nothing more deplorable in the interests of the varied populations of Turkey, nothing more certain to hasten a general war in Europe over the spoils of the Turkish Empire, than that the conduct of affairs should pass from the hands of Lord Derby into those of agitators, who, when in power, showed themselves so little prescient, so careless of all consequences in diplomacy, provided they could effect some small economies, and who allowed the influence of England at Constantinople to sink so low-who, moreover, in the present crisis, have shown so little capacity either for calm judgment or for any action, save such as must precipitate the outbreak of hostilities, of which no statesman can calculate the possible area, nor any man living foresee the ultimate result.

The true feeling of the country has been exhibited in the all but universal approval of the conduct of the Porte in accepting and going beyond the armistice asked for by the Powers by the offer of an armistice through the whole winter, accompaniednot by new promises-but by the actual inception of constitutional reforms for the whole Empire. The scheme of those reforms is now before the Powers, and a Commission of high Mussulman and Christian dignitaries, under the presidency of Midhat Pasha,

is already engaged in reducing it to law. The reply of Russia (and we suppose we must give Servia its due place in a parenthesis) will test its real motives and probably decide the question of peace or war for Europe, and give a chance to the germs of political regeneration or mark the beginning of new troubles for the Christians of Turkey. Meanwhile it is most ominous for the cause of peace and improvement to see the organs of agitation in our press treating the proposed armistice and the scheme of reform alike as a rejection of the requirements of the Powers, and a mere attempt at gaining time with a sinister purpose, which is not that of good government, but of adjourning the inevitable revolution in Eastern Europe.' Nothing could be more characteristic of the state of mind to which the agitators have worked themselves up, than such language addressed to Europe at a time when peace and war are hanging in the scales. Is it really meant that every effort of Turkey to meet our wishes is to be interpreted as an insult that she should dare to have the least voice in the European concert which is to settle her own affairs?

Our present task is preventive rather than constructive; but the germs of a new construction seem to lie in Lord Derby's proposal of local self-government and administrative reform. All depends on the choice of the men, and especially of the presiding genius. Both Sclavonians and Greeks might grow up to the destiny that may await them, but for which both need preparation and self-discipline. Their dissensions may be healed; their churches may be reformed into some semblance of that purity which some vainly think they see in contrast to Roman Catholic corruption. But such a future must have a natural growth. The object is not within the reach of a stroke of policy by which the Greek Empire should be resuscitated; and it would certainly be lost by enthroning the Czar at Constantinople. Time may reveal the nation and the man fit to establish a free Christian State over these seats of the highest ancient civilization in Asia as well as Europe.

Meanwhile, taking a calm retrospect of the whole matter, we believe it will be found, when the present excitement has calmed down, that, as so often happens in the warmest debates, the two parties have but been advocating the two co-ordinate aspects of that great policy on which the English people have set their hearts; and that the bulk of the nation and of her leading statesmen are equally resolved to bring Turkish misrule to an end in Europe, and to stop the march of Russia to Constantinople.

INDEX

TO THE

HUNDRED AND FORTY-SECOND VOLUME OF THE
QUARTERLY REVIEW.