The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, December 1879Various
Religion
The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, December 1879
Various
Arts -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals
orders to our fleet to get up steam and direct the muzzles of its
guns towards Turkey. But a wonderful success, we are told, has already
resulted from this. What does the recent flourish of telegrams really
amount to? That the Porte has added one more sheet to the plentiful
waste-paper heap of its proclamations. What our people were known to
desire was a change of Minister: and Turkey, in place of that, offers
to name Baker Pasha to look after the moral and social improvement of
Asia Minor. The test of whether it is Will-o'-the-Wisp, or an ordinary
statesman, who is at the head of our affairs gives the result I
anticipated. England stands absolutely alone, and the last touch of
preposterousness is added to the situation by the statement that it
was at the advice of Russia that the Porte pretended to yield to our
demands, and that though the Northern Powers are getting into motion
again for some ends of their own, they do not in the least intend to
meddle with us in Asia Minor. Indeed, I should think not. A splendid
morass lies in that part of the world, with Turkey on one side and
Russia on the other, and Jack-o'-Lantern has led us right into the
middle of it. That is the present issue of the Beaconsfield foreign
policy which was to have produced European concert,--we have Asia
Minor on our hands, solitarily; and are going to set about immediately
reforming it, before the next elections, against the willingness of
Turkey, but with the sanction of Russia, and by the means of Baker
Pasha. In the meantime, or at any time, Russia may use the situation
against us just as best suits her.
I think it will now be admitted that Lord Beaconsfield's foreign
policy is every whit as wonderful as the measures of home politics he
ought to be urging, if he was only at liberty for that; and further,
that they both bespeak exactly the same order of mind.
* * * * *
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