A MosT attractive progranune of reforms in Macedonia has been drawn up by Austria and Russia, and posed on the Sultan by all the great Powers, and if the Turks h: lett any Macedonians alive by the time that the Porte ins to put the programme in action—and Reuter has just told Turkish Council of Min jected it incompatible with the Sultan's rights—the lot of the servi and the repatriated refugees be much ameliorated. It must be remembered that no Power is more interested than Great Bri i reforms being carried out; Lord Beaconsfield the Congress of Berlin, who insisted on the unfortunate Macedonians being replaced under the rule of Turkey when they had been freed by Russia. As a set-off, they did insist on 'Turkey's introducing® reforms. in the government of Macedonia, but no steps have ever been taken' to sce that these reforms did not remain a dead letter. 'The cynical remark of Mr. Balfour that the nee of blame for the outbreak in Macedonia this year rested not with the 'Turks, but' the igaria, leavin, ning corn behind them.
1 because th: Turks had ture them in order to find their hidden rifles. Or. again, it is the story of Smerdesh, a popu: lous village which was surrounded, bombarded, and burnt to the ground, while a cordon of troops drove the desperate village int" the flames. The troops had come up before the place had completed its preparations for a siege. of the Adrianople region had secretly accumulated rifles for months before hey were tortured; and the people jof Smerdesh were already preparing defiance when they were attacked {and massacred. It was the grinding poverty, the constant round of petty tyrannies, the unconscious co-opera tion of the tax-collector, the landlord, and the brigand which had driven them to des; Macedonia is a fertile country with n excellent climate, and the peasant works late and early, winter and summer. But he can call nothing his own, even to the honour of his wife and doughers, that the Turkish tax-collector, the Jew tithe-the gendarme, or the Albanian brigand wants if the pea-tis Christian. Notwithstanding rims that were supposed to ven introduced after the Con-
Macedonians, shows how little it] gress of Berlin, no Christian has the mattered to him whether the stipu- lightest chance of getting a verdict lated reforms were carried out or not:] iN a Macedonian Court in a suit and if it is blameworthy for a people against & Mahomedan.
The province writhing under the most cruel oppress iS full of the Sultan's spies, and a sion and tyranny to rise in' their Conscientious judge who decided in despair against. their sors, Mr, favour of a Christian would be re-Balfour was right. tides ported to the Sultan once and in recent English magazines infallibly be removed. To reviews by independent British ob- give in our limits even a summary of} servers have told us what horrors] Int. Brailstord's paper is impossible. the government of the Turks im-|1¢ must be read by anyone who wi posed on the hapless Macedonians, to Know the real sittiation in Mace-the last, and by no moans the least ona. There is not much probability interesting, being an article entitled "The Macedonian Revolt," by H. N. Brailsford, in the September issue of the " Fortnightly Review Mr. Brailsford does not disguise the fact that many of the atrocitie~ committed by the Turks are provoked by the Bulgarians and Macedonians in order to draw the attention of Europe to their condition. "One reads that three thousand peasants of Bulgarian race from the Adrianople region have fled in despair across the that the new tro-R, if the Porte accepts them, will do any more good than the former scheme has done. The general excentive supervision is still entrusted to Hilni Pasha, and we conclude by quoting what Mr. Brailsford tells us about him, and about the Austro-Russi reforms He is an able man, well educated as Turks go, calm by temperament, little given to panic, and an indefatigable worker. His menner has all the charm that belongs only to the well-bred Arab, and she expounded his plan of reforms one ad for the tan being that rarcet ut all ex; ces it tie Ean—a womens of hope. He secured ssu humane, 20 sincere, so enthusiastic. With pardonable pride he would explain that over 2 thousand brigands had been arrested since his arrival—indeed, nearly all of them had voluntarily surrendered, It was a proof of energy. "Ten minutes later ho would assure you that over a thousand penitent criminals had been released. It was a proof of clemency. Outside the magnetic presence, it slowly dawned upon you that the figures tallied oddly. The brigands, in league with the gendarmes, had ' simply walked in at one door of the gaol, to the glory of Abdul Hamid, and out at the other. Hilmi Pasha was anxious to be just, even to Bulgarians. He once arrested as a very terrible conspirator, one of the Bubzarian schoolmasters in Uskub. He was a little, poor man, with a miserable sak five young children, and a bedridden wife. One' of the Consuls called to suggest that such men do not as a rule make revolutions. Hilmi nodded courteously, and gave the order for his release, remarking that it was very-easy to find a substi. tute, and he promptly wrote down for arrest the name that stood next on the teaching staff of the same school! Ho had, for a Turk, unustially scrupulous notions of evidence. He had arrested the one Buigariaa landed proprietor of the district, a wealthy man. When pressed for his reasons for selecting a victim who had sy-little to gain from a rising, he announced with pride that he had captured in the ordinary post a most compromising letter from another Bulgarian conspirator to thix very man. The letter was in Turkish! A Consul brought, to his notice the fact that medimral tures were being applied to the Bulgarian suspects in the gaol at Doiran. On the spot he drafted a telegram to the Prefect vf Doiran and showed it to the Consul in question. It ran thus: "Is it true that you have employed torture in your prison? Tf so t send a commission of enquiry." "Next: day he produced the offcial's "reply, adding complacently:
You seo there was not a word of frith in the story!" The man is an incorrigible bureaucrat, and knowing rather Joss of what. happened inthe villages than the average journalist in Vienna, he ta every whit as omniscient. An eye-witness who had travelled in the interior, tried to #axplam to him in my hearing that owing to the Bashi-Bazouks and reservists the country was so disturbed that in Monastir and Doiran and Kupruln, all of which he had visited on market day, not. a singl> Christian peasant had ven" tured to come in. Hilmi listened polite. ly, and chen replied in his deep musical voi "Grice ili Dien, la tranquillity régne part out!" With these _recollections I confess that I feel less than convinced when it 1s explained that the failure of the Austro-Russian reforms is due to the Insurgent Committee. Tt is true that on the whole Hilmi Pasha succeeded in averting massacre. But when
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.