After quoting this declaration of the Tsar, and denouncing the Bulgarian massacres as 'revolting to the conscience of the whole of Europe,' he said : Should the Conference not lead to any result, and should Russia determine to obtain by force of arms what she has failed to obtain by pacific means, we shall put no veto on her action, since the objects she pursues are also our own, and we have no reason to believe that she will pass the limits of those objects. No one shall succeed in disturbing our friendly relations with Russia, for the alliance of the three Emperors, formed some time ago, subsists to-day in its integrity.* It was in face of that alliance that Lord Beaconsfield proposed, with Mr. Greenwood's energetic support, to make war on Russia in alliance with Abdul Hamid! The other Powers took the same view as Germany and Austria. The Foreign Minister of France, Duc Decazes, pledged France, in the event of Russia enforcing the will of Europe on the Sultan at the point of the sword, to a policy of absolute neutrality, guaranteed by the most absolute non-intervention.'t Signor Depretis, Prime Minister of Italy, took occasion, in a speech to his constituents a short time before the Constantinople Conference, to reprobate an excessive prudence which should sacrifice 'the grand principles of civilisation and humanity to the traditions of • Nouvelle Etude sur la Question d'Orient, p. 22. † Turkey, No. 25 (1877), p. 138. 94 Separate Action Defined diplomacy and the cold calculation of political interests.' I do not believe that the nineteen years that have elapsed since then have destroyed the moral sense of Christian Europe. It is not dead, but sleepeth. Mr. Gladstone's noble speech will have done much to awake it; and if Lord Salisbury were to formulate England's case now on the basis of Russia's case (which received the sanction of Europe) in 1877, I believe that he would carry Europe with him. That would not mean war. There would have been no war in 1877 if the Sultan, as Lord Salisbury has told us, had not counted on the support of England. Let me then put an extreme case-though I believe, for my part, that Lord Salisbury will now be able, with a united nation at his back, to persuade the other Powers to adopt his policy of coercion. Let me suppose that he proposes to occupy some point of Turkish territory with the fleet till Turkey gives satisfaction to Europe, offering at the same time such guarantees of disinterestedness as Russia offered in 1877. That would not be war. It would be a pacific method, well known to diplomacy, of enforcing just claims, and often practised by all Governments. Surely no sensible man will say that the mere proposal of such a thing would provoke a European war. The supposition is preposterous, and those who hazard it on that ground are simply proposing to degrade Great Britain The nation moderate a from her position as a great Power. which has not the pluck to make so proposal to Europe has abdicated its position as a Power of the first class, and has gone out of its way to invite insult and aggression. The other Powers would be more likely to join England in such a pacific solution of the crisis. that now threatens the very catastrophe which they fear the downfall of the Turkish Empire -than in thwarting her proposal. My own belief is that, once Russia is convinced that England has now no plot against her, as in 1877, she will return to her old tradition of protecting the Christians of Turkey, and perhaps send troops into Armenia while the British Fleet co-operates wherever its action may be thought most effectual. The mere knowledge that such action was contemplated by Russia and England would bring the Sultan to his knees at once, as in 1880, and the question would be settled without bitterness or danger. It is the interest of every Power to settle it speedily, except Austria and possibly Germany. Austria has her eye on Macedonia, and it is not her interest to see any reforms introduced into Asiatic Turkey which would set a precedent for similar reforms in Macedonia. The late Lord Derby accused Austria to her face, as the Blue Books testify, of having got up and of keeping alive, for her own ends, the insurrection in Bosnia and the Herzegovina. So now her 96 Austrian and German Designs policy is to keep discontent and disaffection CHAPTER IX. BRITAIN'S TRADITIONAL POLICY. We have heard much of late about 'our traditional policy towards Turkey,' and about the Sultan of Turkey as our ancient ally.' Now the plain fact is that our traditional policy towards Turkey has branded that Government as a barbarous Power, beyond the pale of civilisation, and which, therefore, it was necessary to keep in decent order by the strong arm of coercion. Through the influence of Lord Palmerston this barbarous Power was admitted within the comity of European nations by the Treaty of Paris-'one of the greatest blunders, if not one of the greatest crimes, in history,' said Dr. Döllinger, a master of the subject, to me in the year 1877. But although Lord Palmerston unfortunately succeeded in persuading the Congress of Paris to admit an irretrievably barbarous Power into the political system of Europe, it was on condition that the Sultan should be put in leading-strings and obey the behests of the Christian Powers. In the House of Commons' debate on the Treaty of Paris in 1856 he went out of his way to explain that the maintenance H |