The storm of indignation which followed the publication of the reports of Mr. Schuyler and Mr. Baring the British commissioner, was so terrible that even a Disraeli cabinet did not dare to enter into another monstrous alliance with the Turks against the only champion of the Christians. But official neutrality did not prevent the Turks from recruiting many officers in England; in spite of it British guineas and firearms strengthened their powers of resistance against Russia.
It is a terrible indictment that may be brought against England that the question of righteousness never seems to enter into the questions of her foreign “policy,” but only the question of interest and that chiefly the interest which is reckoned in pounds, shillings and pence.
From a letter dated September 4th, 1876, published in one of the English Blue Books, addressed to the Earl of Derby by Sir Henry Elliot, English Ambassador at Constantinople,—the Sir Henry who would not support the Andrassy Note because he feared that the provisions of it trenched upon the rights of the Ottoman Porte to manage its own affairs,—the following quotation is taken, viz:—
“An insurrection or civil war is everywhere accompanied by cruelties and abominable excesses, this being tenfold the case in oriental countries where people are divided into antagonistic creeds and races. * * * To the accusation of being a blind partisan of the Turks, I will only answer that my conduct here has never been guided by any sentimental affection for them, but by a firm determination to uphold the interests of Great Britain to the utmost of my power, and that those interests are deeply engaged in preventing the disruption of the Turkish Empire, is a conviction which I share in common with the most eminent statesmen who have directed our foreign policy. (This is the key to every position assumed by British diplomacy at the Porte. Never a question of righteousness.)
“We may, and must feel indignant at the needless and monstrous severity with which the Bulgarian insurrection was put down, but the necessity which exists for England to prevent changes from occurring here which would be most detrimental to ourselves, is not affected by the question whether it was ten thousand or twenty thousand persons who perished in the suppression.
“We have been upholding what we know to be a semi-civilized nation, liable under certain circumstances to be carried into fearful excesses: but the fact of this having now been brought home to us all, cannot be a sufficient reason for abandoning a policy which is the only one that can be followed with due regard to our interests.”
It is enough to take one’s breath away to read such words as these. They are clear enough. They declare what is the settled policy of the English government. Towards Turkey? Not alone, but towards the world. Her interests are purely commercial.—Interests payable in gold: always and everywhere. What are her interests in Venezuela? In the Bering Sea fisheries? In the Transvaal? In India and in China?
The integrity of the Turkish Empire must be maintained. All else is mere diplomatic froth, waste breath and ink in the torrents of her speeches and her correspondence with the Porte; and the Turk knows it, and Russia knows it and the world knows it. England is pilloried to-day for her selfishness, if not for her unrighteousness, in all her dealings with the rest of the earth. It is her government, not her people that the world arraigns.
Mr. Freeman is scathing and unsparing in his denunciation of the government’s position; but that he was not more severe than just the issue plainly declared, and we tarry on this situation a moment longer because of its special bearing upon the situation as regards the massacres in Armenia.
War had been declared by Servia and Montenegro against Turkey on the 2d of July, 1876, which had thus far resulted in victory for Montenegro and defeat for Servia. This situation still further increased the anxieties of the great powers. Not that they cared for Turkey only because they could not agree on how it should be carved up. They would all like a generous slice if each could have the portion that he liked best.