Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/27

 much strangers as they were at the beginning. European ideas and words, like 'nation,' "government,' 'law,' 'sovereign,' 'subject,' do not apply to them. How can they form a 'nation' when the Mahommedan part of the population has always been a ruling race and the Christian or other non-Mahommedan part has always been a subject race? The non-Mussulman 'subjects' of a Mussulman ruler sink to the condition of a subject people. The utmost that the best Mahommedan ruler can do is to save his subjects of other religions from actual persecution; he cannot save them from degradation; he cannot, without forsaking the principles of his own religion, put them on the same level as Mussulmans. That is why in Turkey there can be no 'subject' and no 'national government.' When we call an Englishman a British subject, we mean that he is a member of the British state. But if we call a Bulgarian an Ottoman subject, it means that he is the member of a body which is held in bondage by the body of which the Ottoman Sultan is the head, and he is also subject to all the lesser Turks as his daily oppressors. As far as the Turks themselves are concerned, the Turkish Government is a 'government,' i.e. a system of the administration of the law. But their rule over the Christian is a rule of mere force, and not a rule of law. The Christian is, in strictness, out of the pale of the law; the utmost that he can do is to purchase the security of his life and property and the exercise of his religion by the payment of tribute. That is why, among the nations of Western Europe, no one wishes to get rid of the government of his country, though he may wish to modify