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When a national sentiment is thus formed, statesmen will do well to understand it, to look at it not as a mere sentiment to be despised and contemned, but as the expression of a nation's highest thought, intensified by outraged feelings caused by the horrible details of atrocities that cannot find adequate expression; it is the thought of men acting from impulse and instinct, but whose impulse is generally right and whose conclusions are generally sound.

If a statesman will look at this aright he will see that the nearer he comes to this point in his mode of settlement, the sounder and more permanent will that settlement prove to be. It is his duty to find the means: these will have to be modified by many considerations and circumstances which are unknown to the great mass of the people; but in all such cases he must remember that he will be successful in proportion as he approaches the abstract justice of each particular case.

It will surprise many persons to hear that in those great associations of workmen called trade unions, the simple principles of justice and right are those which underlie and form the basis of all those great organizations, and that all questions are tested by these general principles. They are oftentimes called selfish, and some portions of their policy appear to have selfinterest as their only guiding principle, when tested by public writers who only see in them a kind of passionate antagonism to employers of labour. But after all this comes from the doctrines taught by capitalists of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market, and of unlimited competition, principles not often discussed in these unions, and very inadequately understood by the professors who try to teach them outside.

The very principle of the existence of those unions is not the selfish one, but the protection of the weak as against the strong. This is why the cream of the British artisans submit to a general price, or to what is called by them a minimum price for their labour, instead of trying to exact all they can for themselves, and leaving their weaker brethren to the cruel fate of unlimited competition. The good workman agrees to accept an average wage, and to work a short day, to give all men of his own particular craft a chance to live. They not only do this, but in the betterorganized and richer associations they vote money from their funds to help their poorer and less competent fellow-workers. They do this without stint, and, when unable to give, they grant loans without security, simply upon the note of hand of the officers of the poorer unions.*

As an illustration of the unselfishness of these unions, we may cite the following as fair examples:-The tailors are on strike for an advance of wages, and they apply to the Engineers' Society for assistance. Now, the engineers, as a rule, are well paid: the tailors badly paid. When the question comes before the members of the Engineers'

This is also the reason why workmen have often inclined to what is called socialism, not in the sense too often attributed to them of seeking to level all stations, and to redistribute and equalize all property, but rather of trying to give to all men a share of this world's goods. Socialism has never had any widespread influence in this country, because we are a practical people; but the sentiment is more general than many suppose. On what is this based? Simply upon their general sense of justice, and upon the fact that a comparatively few have too much, and that the many have too little. This feeling, instead of meriting the strong denunciations and abuse often heaped upon it, deserves credit and even respect. The thing for statesmen to do is to teach the people how best to use their opportunities, and how to prudently call to their aid those expedients or compromises which will enable them to reconcile clashing interests in such a way as to give satisfaction in the present, and at the same time to march forward towards the goal of justice and equity in the future. But, it might be asked, if our statesmen pay attention to those appeals for abstract justice and right, where would it land them? In what would it result? History, we think, will give a pretty fair answer to these questions. To go no further back than Free Trade, the American War, the outbreak in Jamaica, the questions of the suffrage, national education, the disestablishment of the Irish Church, the ballot, the removal of the criminal disabilities of the labour laws, factory legislation, and many others, the national instinct was in advance of the Government; and the successful issue of these agitations is the best possible proof that the instincts of the people were right and true, and that their demands, from a sense of justice, were the soundest policy. What is true of the past is equally true in the present, and the present Government will do well and act wisely in having due regard to this outburst of national sentiment against Turkish rule in Eastern Europe, and especially in reference to her continued oppression of the Christian populations of the insurgent provinces.

Working men are as proud of their country as any other class; they are prepared to pay and fight to maintain their proud preeminence among the nations; but they would protest, they do protest, against purchasing this power at the expense of justice to other peoples, so far as they are able to see the question in its

Society, inquiries are made into the facts and circumstances of the case. They want to know how far they try to help themselves; the state of their funds; how many require aid; the probable extent of the struggle both as to numbers and as to time. But they never ask themselves whether as a result of the contest they will have to pay more for their clothes. If the agricultural labourers apply for help, those to whom they apply never stop to inquire whether the price of bread or of vegetables will be increased; no, the simple question is,-Is the strike a fair and legitimate one? If so, the aid is given. It is no answer to this to say that help is often given for purposes which would not bear strict investigation as a matter of equity as between the employer and the employed they judge of it by their own light.

natural light of justice and humanity. With them the question ist not as to whether Turkey is necessary in order to maintain our highway to India, or as to whether the Sublime Porte has been to us as a sort of house-dog set to guard our interests on the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, but rather "Has Turkey done right to the Christians in the Sclav provinces?" If not, then the mass of the working people would declare, in a voice of thunder, Make her do it, and we will settle the question as to the right of way to India afterwards.

They know full well that in the event of war they would be the first and the greatest sufferers; they know that the rank and file would have to be provided by them, that taxes would be increased, that provisions would become scarce and dear, that employment would become more and more difficult; but in spite of all this they would still cry out, Let us do right, though the heavens should fall! Not that they want war: they detest it; but they believe-and there is no sound reason for disputing this belief that if the English Government were to put their foot. down resolutely and firmly, other European Governments would act in concert with them in "controlling a power chiefly felt by its abuse, and in restraining a Government which seems to be degenerating into an organization of imbecility and crime." There can be no doubt but that in considering and concluding any settlement of the Eastern Question other European nations would have to be consulted, and other interests considered besides those of Great Britain; but the people here have reason to know that the same instinct of justice and humanity prompts the people of other European nations as that which beats in the hearts of Englishmen, and they know full well that this natural as well as national instinct is sound, just, and right.

It forms no part of my intention to discuss any of the plans which have been mooted for the limitation of Turkish power in Europe, or to suggest here which is the best or fittest for the Government to adopt. There may be political reasons for this or that course, but I trust that I have shown that the outburst of indignation is just; that it has its source in the deepest feelings of the human heart; that the demand for reparation and punishment of the offenders is but the merest act of justice; that the enthusiasm and unanimity with which the people declare for the expulsion of the Turk from Europe is the result of a conviction that the Ottoman power is incapable of being restrained within proper limits, or of yielding to the civilization of the West, and that it is a menace to the peace and progress of Europe.

Those who love to style themselves practical politicians may sneer at these sentimental yearnings, but they find an echo in every heart that is free from mere partisanship, they form the strongest

and the most permanent of all convictions; peoples have fought for them, suffered for them, died for them; and, as Italy had her Mazzini, so she found her Cavour. If the Sclav provinces are so placed that their Cavour is impossible, some European statesmen will be found bold enough and strong enough to solve this difficult problem; our desire is that England shall not be found wanting when the day of reckoning comes. We do not desire her to be the Don Quixote of nations, but we do desire that her power shall be legitimately exercised and felt in every struggle for freedom in Europe.

GEORGE HOWELL.

RUSSIAN POLICY AND DEEDS IN TURKISTAN.

Notes of a Journey in Russian Turkistan, Khokand,
Bukhara, and Kuldja. By EUGENE SCHUYLER,
Ph.D. Two Vols. 8vo. London, 1876.

THIS

HIS book is invested at the present moment with interest, both special and general, by its title, and by its authorship. The title, indeed, fails to cover a very important portion of the contents, namely, the campaigns against Khiva and the Turkomans in 1873, and against Khokand in 1875-6, for of them the author has no personal knowledge; but the work on the whole appears to be, in its class, one of the most solid and painstaking works which have been published among us in recent years. The name of Mr. Schuyler has obtained a great celebrity in England from his having made inquiries last summer, on behalf of the American Government, in Bulgaria, and his having first given that authentic corroboration to the early indications of the Spectator, and the large and detailed disclosures in the Daily News, of the demoniacal orgies of the Turks, which alone was wanting to stir the mind of England in accordance with the long-suppressed promptings of its heart.

The question of Turkistan, in its largest aspect, bears on the solution of one among the world-wide problems of politics and morality, the regulation of the relations between superior and inferior races or communities when brought locally into contact.

A previous statement of mine (Bulgarian Horrors, p. 21), is not quite accurate. The Spectator of June 3, appears first to have opened the subject. It was rapidly followed by the Daily News of June 8. On June 23 appeared the first of the series of communications, which have coloured the whole subsequent course of the Eastern question.

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