Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/426

420 eastern Europe are to remain bondmen in their own land, denied, not merely the political rights of freemen, but the common rights of human beings. It means that the vast mass of the people of the land shall remain in a condition of permanent subjection to a handful of barbarian invaders; it means that at any moment the caprice of these invaders may turn that permanent subjection into a reign of terror, a reign of every excess of insult and outrage and fortune that the perverse wit of an "oriental people" can devise. This state of things Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Derby, if left to themselves, will prolong. If they are left to settle matters in their own way, the owls of Bulgaria and Herzegovina will never complain of a lack of ruined villages. Mark that the best thing that Lord Derby has ever said, his nearest approach that he has made to an acknowledgment of the existence of such things as justice and freedom, is when he said that he had "no objection" to exchange this state of things for a better. He has no objection to the change; but he clearly will not do anything actively to bring it about. But Lord Derby's employers and educators are of a different mind; they not only have no objection to a change, but they have the strongest objection to the continuance of the status quo. Sir Stafford Northcote lately took on himself to say that the people do not understand questions of foreign policy. They have shown that they understand them a great deal better than Sir Stafford Northcote or Lord Derby. They see that, if the status quo be maintained, if anything short of practical independence be given to the revolted lands, the whole tragedy will soon be played over again. There will be more insurrections, more wars, more massacres, and, more awful still, more diplomatic "difficulties" and "complications." The people of England demand that, now that the Eastern question is "opened," it shall be settled; they know that settlements of this kind are no settlements at all, but simply wretched shifts to stave off a settlement. The people of England have, with one voice, declared that, however much Mr. Baring may satisfy Sir Henry Elliot, however much Sir Henry Elliot may satisfy Lord Beaconsfield, none of them will satisfy the common employers of all, if they attempt to make a settlement on any terms short of the practical independence of the revolted lands. Those lands must be separated from the direct rule of the Turks. Last December I pleaded for the separation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; to this demand the universal voice of England has added the separation of Bulgaria, while not a few voices have added the separation of Crete. If Lord Derby enters on any legislation with the faintest purpose of accepting any terms short of these, he will show that his education has not yet been carried at all near to the point at which his progress will satisfy his employers.

At this time of day it is perhaps hardly needful to answer objections about forsaking the traditional policy of England, or to reason against stupid fear of the Russian bugbear. To the former objection the simple answer is that the policy of England has for a long time been a wrong policy, and that England has made up her mind to exchange it for a right policy. England will no more acknowledge, if it ever did acknowledge, the base doctrine of Lord Derby that we are never to interfere in any matter but where our interest demands it. The people, generous in its sentiments, even when it is mistaken as to facts, will never stoop to such teaching as this. The people approved the Russian war, because they were taught to believe that the Russian war was undertaken in a generous cause. We must repeat again for the thousandth time that the duty of England comes before her interest. We must, at any risk, undo the wrong that we have done. If to undo that wrong should bring the Russians to Constantinople, if it should weaken our empire in India, let the Russians come to Constantinople, let our empire in India be weakened. Lord Beaconsfield said that the fleet was sent to Besika Bay in pursuit of honor and glory. The kind of honor and glory of which he spoke may perhaps demand that the nations of south-eastern Europe be again pressed down under the yoke. But the people of England have had enough of that kind of honor and glory. They have learned that true honor and glory can be won only by doing right at all hazards.

As for the Russian hobgoblin, no friend of south-eastern Europe wishes to see Constantinople Russian. All that we say is that, if we are driven to choose between Turk and Russian, we will take the Russian. But we say this, not in the interest of England, but in the interest of south-eastern Europe. We wish to see the now enslaved nations grow up for themselves, developing their own energies, striking out paths of freedom and progress for themselves. Therefore we do not wish to see 