Exotanp and France have not been fortunate in the efforts they have made to induce Turkey to surrender a portion of its territory to Greece. The Porte remains obstinate; does not in trath believe much in the European concert, and is no doubt aware that it has good friends who will help it against its enemies should the actual hour of need ever arise. On the other hand, we doubt if Greeks have really many friends in Europe. Some people profess a seutilnental sympathy with them. But ordinary folk who look on kingdoms and peoples as they exist nov, are by no means enamoured either of the Government of Greece or of the character of the inhabitants of that fallen land. It may even be, that those who have had opportunities of judging of the national character from those Greeks whom they have met, have a lively dislike to it. These feelings, unworthy as they may appear to high. flying politicians, have no doubt done great deal to bring about the failure of the agitation of what are called the Greek claims. There have been public meetings in England in support of these; but the subject or canso has yet to be discovered about which it would be impossible to get m crowd of Englishmen together to pass resolutions and shout themselves hoarse. Some of the present administration wore known to be ardent supporters of Greece. The Premier, while yet "in the days of his freedom," and stumping Scotland, "took up" the Greeks, just as he would have taken up any bad or indifferentcanse, the advocacy of which would gain him votes, Sir Charles Dilke was foremost among those who vilified Lord Beaconsfield for advising Greece to be patient and wait. The admirers of the Under Secretary lifted up their voices and proclaimed aloud that he and his bosom friend, M. Gambetta, would, between them, soon bring the Turk to reason. Then came the Berlin Conference last year, when the boundary question was settled, in the absence of any representative of Tarkey, in a way much more liberal to Greece than had been contemplated by the Great Powers, when drawing up the protocol of the Berlin Congress of 1878. The naval demonstration in the Adriatic followed. Daring all the time these meetings of diplom: and fleets were going on, the English Government kept silent about the part they were playing in the Greek-Turkish affair. Their organs in the Press asserted that the Exrl of Beaconsfield had basely deserted the Greeks. All was changed, they said, under Earl Granville and Mr. Gladstone. England was playing the part of the helper of the weak against the strong, in which righteous work the French were lending them every support. In the autumn it became, known that the English Government had proposed to the other Powers to endeavour to frighten Turkey into a complete fulfilment of the Berlin treaty by the use of the combined fleets; but at the first whisper of avy real action, auch as might have led to war, the boasted European concert gave signs of early dissolution. By what means, by what ho ions to England, it was kept alive we have yet to learn, but the French Yellow Book, which has been published lately, contains some despatches from M. St. Hilaire, the Foreign Secretary, to th representatives of the Republic in London and Vienna, which show how the rash proposal of the English Cabinet to seize.on the port of Smyrna was received by the cooler heads in Paris and Vienna. M. St. Hilaire informed the French Charge d' Affaires in Vienna, that "England had proposed to take possession of the port of Smyrna as a pledge, and that "Prince Orloff had announced to me that Russia accepts that combination." Lord Lyons had formed him previously that Italy had given her complete adhesion to the scheme. The design had been submitted to the French President, and, ponding the deliberations of the Government, M. St. Hilaire could only say that he did not think France could participate in measures which might lead to immediate war, or in a position of direct hostility to Turkey. The Vienna Charge d'Affaires was able, on the following day, to telegraph to Paris that Austria took pretty much the same view of the matter. She admitted the English proposal under reserve, but declined to be a party to the coercion of Tarkey, and, in the phrase of the French diplomatist, she granted her "moral adhesion but refused her material support." Germany seems to have agreed in this; and the policy of Enrl Granville was once more brought to nought.
Aspeech which Sir Charles Dilke lately delivered to'his'constituonts, was very much praised by the organs of the Government at Home, and held up to admiration as displaying a thorough knowledge of foreign politics, Its honesty of statement wus contrasted with what these writers are pleased to attribute to the Conservative Leaders, All that passed well enough in England, where, as Sir Stafford Northcote once said, people do not auderstand foreign politics. But the reception which the honest stalements of Sir Charles met with in France was differ eat. He had said in effect that it was Franco which had raised the Greek question, and thit therefore she should take the initiative in any future action, To this the Temps gives a deni France, it says, never took an ivitiative implying an ultimate resort to force. That came from England; and was put forth, strange to say, by a Cabinet presided over by a statesman whose
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