27th Oct.
Lorp Roszpery, the ex-Leader of the Liberal party, wrote a very proper letter recently, intended for publication to the world, addressed to the Rev. Dr. Guinness Rogers, deprecating avy impulsive agitation against the great assassin at Constantinople. He said "My dear Rogers,—There is a feeling, a passion, in which, I should hope, everyone in these islands concurs, of indignation almost past the power of expression, at these last atrocities in Constantinople. lo doubt the force of that feeling would be to doubt the existence of human sympathy. What is more, it is aggravated beyond endurance by the appearance and perhaps the reality, of impotence, What are we all todo? Many look to the leaders of the Liberal party to give an impulse. Tu wy opinion such an impulse would be a mistake. This is not a party question; it is far above and beyond Christianity, humanity, and civilisation, arty. It is a question of common
I do not doubt for a moment that Her Majesty's present advisers share with the rest of us detestation of a Government under which such things can be done, and probably inspired or encouraged..I do not think that their course has been, so far as I can judge, either skilful or spirited; but there have been many difficulties, some of which I know. I feel sure, however, that they are not cold or indifferent, The responsibility in the present situation rests less with the Government than with the Great Powers of Europe, and our Government does not appear, I am sorry to say, to be in particularly cordial relations with any of those Powers. How far the present situation and those relations are due to the present Government, it is alien to my present purpose to enquire, "The question we have to consider is what private and honest people can do to forward what is true. he first point, then, in my judgment, is this, that it is not a party question at all—it concerns everyone, Tory or Liberal, that in what was once the stronghold of Eastern Christianity Christians should be butchered by the thousand in the streets on the ground of their being Christians, This brings to a head and culmination all the nameless massacres in Asia Minor, for these crimes are perpetrated not in remote districts, where their authenticity may be denied by those reluctant to believe, but in the light of day, under the direct eye of diplomacy' and journalism, at the headquarters of the Ottoman Government and of the Sultan, who is the beginning and end of that Govern ment. Iam not, then, going to censure the feeling or sense of my fellow-countrymen by saying that this is a party question, and as it is not a party question it would be fatal to make it a party question. Let it be in demonstra~ tion, as in fact, a national question."
And Lord Rosebery goes on to say that he grounds his hopes now on the efforts of diplomacy under this new sting of humiliation, and on the natural sentiment of the young Czar, "who has such power, such responsibility, such unmeasured possibility of well-doing," rather than on' public meetings. Dr. Rogers answers that diplomacy will act with all the greater authority if it can speak with unanimous public opinion behind it. He refers to those who would evade actin, on the ground that the Turkish atroci ties have been exaggerated, and het says: "There has been enough and toj spare of this kind of talk, and it has drugged the conscience of some from whom better things might have been expected. We have to get rid of this paralysing influence, and I: know of no way in which it can be so effectually done as by a great national demonstration in which men of different creeds and parties shall stand side by side on the same platform, from which every trace of party feeling shall be banished, and by which it shall be made manifest that Great Britain at least will not be even an indirect and unwilling accomplice in deeds at which even devils might blush."
will be remembered that after the terrible massacre of Armenians in Constantinople itself, the Foreign Ambassadors sent a collective note to the Sultan, telling him that if that sort of thing went on, it would be the worse for him, The Sultan's reply amounted to a denial of the allegations, which were founded on the ocular testimony of some of the representatives of the Powers, and of the Dragomans of the various Embassies. The Special Commission appointed by the Sultan to enquire into the outbreak, found a few Armenians guilty, but, in acquitting two Mussulmans for murders committed by them under the eyes of Mr. Herbert, the British Charge d'A faires, it Complmenied them on their action; and the Porte sent round to its representatives abroad a statement that about 236 Turkish officers and soldiers were killed and about the same number wounded "during the recent disturbances fom-mented by Armenian revolutionaries in Constantinople." Meanwhile arrests and deportations of the luckless Armenians continued, and, according to the correspondent of the Standard, by the 18th of September, out of 40,000 male Armenians in Constantinople, one-third had been killed or deported. And, according to the Times correspondence of the same date, " the Ambassadors had planned nothing either for the prevention of new disorders or for action in the event of their recurrence. Some of the Ambassadors still cherished a hope that the Sultan might be brought to appoint responsible Ministers and leave the task of government in their hands, but'M. Nelidoff is certainly under no such illusion. Nothing important occurred at Sir Philip Currie's audience of the Sultan on the 11th of September, His Majesty was. again quite hearty and cheerful, the trepidation caused by the Ambassadors' reproachful demonstration on the anniversary of his accession, having passed away." That was when the Ambassadors took the vigorous determination to decline. to illuminate their houses, as a mark of their dissatisfaction with the Sultan's conduct, A weak, half-insane, despot like the Sultan of Turkey is allowed to defy all the Great Powers of Europe because the latter are not only jealous of each other, but are all specially mistrustful of, and ill disposed to, Great Britain, But one reads through columns of translations from the Continental Press without finding out what Great Britain is accused of. The only tangible accusation is that England is anxious to stir up war in Europe, because the success of Russia's plans in the Far East demands peace in Europe. But surely Lord Salisbury can make it plain to the Continental Powers that we have no ulterior designs whatever, and that our object is simply what it pretends to be, to save the Christian subjects of the Sultan from annihilation." We are quite strong enough to do it, if Lord Salisbury would wake up from his apathy. As the S¢. James's says: "If Lord Salisbury has the nerve to send an ultimatum to the Porte, backed by an English fleet in the Sea of Marmora, the Sultan must yield or go,—se, soumettre on se démettre—and Europe would probably be too much taken aback by this sudden display of vigour to thwart it by armed force." Since this was written, the Russian Press has dropped some of its animosity to England, and perhaps Russia is going to join with us in time in coercing the Porte; for a crash is bound to come, as the Reuter's telegram We publish this morning indicates.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.