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THE

DIPLOMATIC REVIEW.

VOL. XXIV., No. 4, OCTOBER, 1876.

"SO NATURAL IS THE UNION OF RELIGION WITH JUSTICE THAT WE MAY BOLDLY DEEM THERE IS NEITHER WHERE BOTH ARE NOT."-Hooker.

Published on the First Wednesday in January, April, July, and

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FOR THE

RESUMPTION OF NAVAL RIGHTS BY GREAT BRITAIN.

COUNCIL OF THE LEAGUE.
CHAIRMAN-STEWART E. ROLLAND, Esq.
TREASURER-THOMAS GIBSON BOWLES, Esq.

Admiral the Hon. Sir Henry Keppel, K.C.B.
Rear-Admiral Sir F. Leopold McClintock,
F.R.S.

Vice-Admiral Sir George Nathaniel Broke
Middleton, Bart.

The Earl of Denbigh.
Major-General Synge.
Reginald Yorke, Esq., M.P.
George Bentinck, Esq., M.P.
The Lord Stanley of Alderley.
The Lord O'Neil.

Sir Hugh A. Cholmeley, Bart., M.P.
W. T. Charley, Esq., M.P.

Fane Benett Stanford, Esq., M.P.

The Chevalier O'Clery, M.P.
Lord Francis Conyngham, M.P.

A. Baillie Cochrane, Esq., M.P.

H. A. M. Butler Johnstone, Esq., M.P.

Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, Bart.
Commander G. Noel Hoare, R.N.
Commander C. W. Beaumont, R.N.
Colonel Richard Robarts, R.E.
Colonel Gerard.

Colonel Henry Clinton.

Colonel Nassau Lees.

Colonel James Farquharson of Invercauld.
Major R. Poore.

Captain Aldenburg Bentinck, Coldstream
Guards.

Captain Hamilton Geary, R.A.

John Ross-of-Bladensburg, Esq., Coldstream
Guards.

C. de la Barre Bodenham, Esq.
G. Crawshay, Esq.
Mr. C. D. Collet.
Captain Anderson, R.N.
Captain Fred. Burnaby.
Captain Carmichael.
Wm. J. Davidson, Esq.
Francis Francis, Esq.
Wm. Gill, Esq, R.E.
Captain Lowther, R.N.
R. Monteith, Esq.
Joseph Monteith, Esq.
F. Marx, Esq.

E. B. Neil. Esq.
Eugene Oswald, LL.D.

THE importance to the British Empire of the retention and the exercise to their full extent of those naval rights founded on the Law of Nature and sanctioned by the Law of Nations, by which alone a Maritime country can maintain its power on the seas, must commend itself to all who attach any importance to the existence of their country. The unauthoritative Declaration of Paris of 1856 assumes to abolish those rights, and Parliament, often appealed to to resume them by an authoritative declaration, has as repeatedly failed to do so.

It is manifest that Great Britain, being essentially a Maritime country, must depend mainly for her defence upon the power of waging war effec

THE

DIPLOMATIC REVIEW.

"SO NATURAL IS THE UNION OF RELIGION WITH JUSTICE, THAT WE MAY BOLDLY DEEM THERE IS NEITHER WHERE BOTH ARE NOT.”—Hooker.

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Lord Beaconsfield's own Account of his Betrayal of Turkey. 221
Accession of Sultan Abdul-Hamid

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What a King is Worth

Sin, the World, and the Church

The Duty of Catholics as defined by the Holy See

Views of the Legitimist Party

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POPULAR FRENZY IN ENGLAND INSURING THE TRIUMPH OF

RUSSIA.

The Bulgarian Insurrection

NEW REPORT OF THE NOTABLES OF PHILIP.

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ADDRESS OF MR. CRAWSHAY TO THE NEWCASTLE FOREIGN

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We are compelled by want of space to omit the Placard issued by the Conference at Keighley, as well as many excellent letters from the Committees which have also, in the local newspapers, opposed the popular frenzy calumniously excited against the Turks.

An important Correspondence supplied to us by the Maritime League is in type, but is unavoidably postponed.

.

The Fall of

Constantinople, the Point

aimed at in the Franco-Prussian War, according to Mr. Urquhart.

(From the "Désolation de la Chrétienté," page 107, written in August, 1870.)

In this explantion I have anticipated the consequences of this war on the Ottoman Empire. Russia will have the military command of Europe. She will have Egypt, Syria, the Danubian Principalities, as baits for the coveteousness of England, France and Austria. The swarm of their line of battle ships and ironclads, which could do nothing against Sebastopol, will serve to cut in two the Ottoman Empire by the means of those very straits of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles which constitute her strength. The "Declaration of "Paris," can deprive England of the means of defending her own shores, but it cannot diminish the efficacy of her vessels when used to bombard Constantinople and to blockade the two straits.

But these fleets before they are employed for attack must have entered the interior waters of Turkey. They can only do this as friends. This is, therefore, what remains to be done. For "Neutra"lisation of the Black Sea," must be substituted, "Opening of the "Black Sea." This can only be done when Turkey is already subjugated. Russia must therefore have recourse to conferences. The basis of these conferences is already laid down in Count BEUST'S circular of February, 1867.

All this is simple arithmetic; let us go to algebra and to the unknown x. I have said that this war, whatever its incidents, will undoubtedly place Paris as ccmpletely in the hands of Russia as Berlin is at present. France will therefore, whatever her form of government, remain with a material power capable of a vigorous effort as soon as Prussia shall direct it. Suffering from the defeat, if she is defeated, her new system will occupy abroad both mind and strength, and will find in ambition a means of concealing disgrace.

France will be ready to fulfil her "great mission" in the East. What was the use of creating an "Italy" with a military force of four hundred thousand men? Italy is there to take part in the same mission. The new Spanish monarchy will also want to distinguish itself. Prussia, according to the hypothesis, will have the same disposition, the same necessity as France, to give her army occupation abroad.

The combination will therefore be to keep Constantinople from Russia. This means taking it from the Turks. Which means Russia on the Bosphorus as protector of the Sultan.

All this was rehearsed on a small scale in 1833, about Egypt, and was laid down as a principle in the Russian Notes to the Porte in 1854; in these she intimates to Turkey that it is only "in the gene"rosity and in the army of her neighbour that she will find a suf"ficient protection against the designs of her perfidious allies." She

said the same boldly to the allies, even during the so-called war which was waged against her, at the Congress of Vienna in 1855. She intimated to them that the day would come when "Turkey would see "a MEANS OF DEFENCE in the development of the Russian maritime "forces." The war with France is therefore to lead to a Conference on Turkey. It depends on Turkey to frustrate its effects, for she alone will remain standing and she alone holds the Dardanelles, the key not only of the Russian but of the European House.

When the catastrophe takes place then indeed shall we see the political and humanitarian aspirations of Germany and of Europe gloriously realised. Those who say, "The extension of the territory

and the increase of the strength of Prussia forms a barrier against "Russia," will be justified. The same stroke which deprives Russia of the prey she has so long coveted, will accomplish the greatest triumph of Christianity and civilisation, the expulsion of the Turk from Europe.

The Fatal Armistice in Servia.

As matters at present stand at Constantinople, it appears as if the persevering constancy of the Russian Cabinet in labouring to get possession of that wonderful position, is at last about to be crowned with a decisive and permanent victory. The Turks, as in the Crimean War, have been victorious in arms and beaten by diplomacy. A small force drove back the Russo-Servian invasion, and an army having to attack forces superior to itself, and which also occupied very strong positions has since been decisively victorious. At the very moment that the Turkish commander was prepared to profit by his victories and to advance on Belgrade, the treacherous and fatal armistice has been imposed from Constantinople.

The imposition of this armistice has been a great crime, and one for which we shall all have to suffer. If it is prolonged, and if the natural result of such a measure be carried out, namely, the submission by the Porte to the terms proposed by England, then the fate-we will not say of the Empire, but certainly of the dynasty, is sealed-and deservedly so.

As Mr. CRAWSHAY so well said in his speech at Newcastle: "If "the Ottoman Government wished to exist it must be respected, and "it cannot exist and cannot be respected if it submits to things "which no other Government in the world would submit to." One of the newspaper correspondents has reported that the Servian peasants believe that Russia has declared war against Turkey. But the Turkish army knows that this is not the case. It knows that while it is fighting against Russian officers, and men led by a Russian general, and is being shot down by Russian cannon, the Russian Chargé d'Affaires remains at Constantinople, Russian Consuls continue at their usual task of preparing stories of Turkish "atrocities," and the Porte is apparently ready to accept of Russian mediation between herself and her rebellious vassal States. So that the Government of St. Petersburg may well boast of a triumph which has not hitherto

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