sincerely and honestly side by side, mutual her prestige both in Europe and Asia will be prejudices, jealousies, and mistrust would be shaken to its foundation. Whatever it may worn away we should do justice to her gal- cost, she must now make good her ground. lantry, and she would learn to recognize our It is well known that the Emperor of Russia integrity and disinterestedness; and we has been emboldened to his aggressive course should have prepared the way for future coöp- of action by three deliberate calculations: eration in other and even holier causes. For, that England could not act cordially with whatever may be our opinion of the actual form France under her present government in any of government in France however we may cause whatever; that she would not be able regret that it should be so little in accord- effectively to man her navy; and that the ance with what, according to our insular no- Peace-at-any-price and the Economy-at-anytions of freedom, befits an enlightened and cost School were powerful enough to prevent emancipated country still we can look at her engaging in a war for any European purthe nation through whatever disguises of con- pose. How far the language of our Press and stitution or administration she may tempora- of the party alluded to in Parliament may rily assume; and it is impossible not to per- have justified him in these calculations, we ceive that on the sincere and enduring union will not here discuss. But it is the more imof England and France hang all the best portant that we should show him now, by our hopes for European liberty and progress. words, by our attitude, by our resolute beWe should, therefore, be disposed to hail the havior, by our ready acceptance of all risks, impending rupture as almost a blessing if it that he has mistaken our position, misconshould prove a vinculum between the two ceived our temper, under-estimated our great nations of the West- which, united, strength, and presumed far too much on our are invincible and beneficent- and whose forbearance; and that no voice will be raised separation or hostility must ever be fraught to oppose, and no subsidies refused to supwith desolation and peril to the dearest inter- port, our government in the management of ests of humanity. Finally, a war between a struggle at once righteous in its origin, imthe colossal despot of the East (aided, possi-portant in its objects, indubitable in its issue, bly, by his semi-vassal of the House of Haps- and necessary to the vindication of our honor burg) and the two advanced and enlightened and the security of our position. - peoples of the West, armed in defence of an injured and faithful ally, cannot but be of hopeful omen to the trampled liberties and From the Economist, 16th July. THE THREE SOLUTIONS. the crushed civilization of Italy, Hungary, RUSSIA'S PAST AND TURKEY'S FUTURE. und Germany. If Austria takes part with Russia, she is doomed the flames of insurrection would burst out simultaneously in every quarter of her ill-organized and oppressed dominions; Italy is always on the eve of a revolt; thousands of Magyars and Poles are awaiting on the frontiers of Turkey the first signal-gun of a war out of which they are prepared to carve their own way to retribution and to freedom; and, a contest once begun between the despotic spirit of the East and the progressive spirit of the West, the issue could be neither doubtful, insignificant, nor noxious however greatly to be deprecated were the scenes which must be encountered before that final issue be achieved. In conclusion. The honor and reputation of England is pledged, that on her part at least there shall be no step backward. She owes this to Turkey, which has acted by her advice to France, which relies upon her steadiness and fidelity—to herself, for she has much at stake upon the issue of the crisis. She is now fairly face to face with a powerful antagonist, in a quarrel not of her own seeking. She has sent her fleet to the Dardanelles, on a special mission, and she cannot recall it till that mission is accomplished. If she now recedes before Russia, the WHATEVER may be the immediato issue of the present crisis in the East- whether the contending parties come at once to blows, or whether, after maintaining a hostile attitude for a respectable length of time, after exchanging reciprocal growls and some trifling mutual concessions, they retire into their respective boundaries-it is evident to all that the real object in dispute will only be postponed, not settled: - the snake will be scotched only, not killed. As long as matters remain on their present footing-as long as there is the same ambition on the one side, and the same weakness on the other danger which will have been averted for the moment will revive on every critical occasion. In order, therefore, satisfactorily to solve the present, we must look a little into the future; in order effectively to deal with the actual symptoms, we must ascertain precisely the root and the nature of the menacing disorder. It does not consist either with the dignity, the safety, or the peace, of a great nation like England to be satisfied with a hand-to-mouth policy -u diplomacy of expedients, delays, temporary palliatives, and delusive anodynes. We must look the danger and the necessity fairly in the face; see clearly the purpose which we have in view; examine deeply the desiring it, and feeling it to be essential to best means of attaining that purpose; and the completion of her vast designs and the then pursue that purpose and adopt those satisfaction of her natural and consistent means resolutely, pertinaciously, in spite of ambition-the possession, namely, of Conall distractions, in defiance of every obstacle, stantinople and Roumelia which would give in contempt of any cost. We have to deal her the most admirable harbors and the comwith a rival and antagonist whose main mand of the Levant, and would enable her to strength consists in her consistent aims and overlap, surround, menace, and embarrass all her dogged perseverance in never varying the rest of Europe. Did she possess this, the her object, never losing sight of it, never geography of all the other great statesoverlooking or neglecting a favorable opportu- England, France, Spain, Sweden, Austria, nity for making a step towards it; and we and Prussia-might be thus simply defined: shall contend with her at a grievous disadvan-bounded by the sea on one side and by tage if our policy is vacillating, slumberous, Russia on the other." or fitful if we awake to our danger only at the moment of attack, and retire to repose and security as soon as we have beaten off the foe. There is something really grand and imposing in the steady march of Russian dominion since Peter the Great first consolidated his empire into a substantive state. On his accession in 1689, its western boundary was in longitude 30 deg., and its southern in latitude 42 degrees; these have now been pushed to longitude 18 deg, and latitude 39 deg. respectively. Russia had then no access to any European sea; her only ports were Archangel in the Frozen Ocean, and Astrakhan on the Caspian; she has now access both to the Baltic and the Euxine. Her population (mainly arising from increase of territory) has augmented thus: By the treaty of Neustadt in 1721, and by a subsequent treaty in 1809, she acquired more than half the Kingdom of Sweden and the command of the Gulf of Finland, from which before she was excluded. By the three partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795, and by the arrangements of 1815, she acquired territory nearly equal in extent to the whole Austrian Empire. By various wars and treaties with Turkey, in 1774, 1783, and 1812, she robbed her of territories equal in extent to all that remains of her European dominions, und acquired the command of the Black Sea. Between 1800 and 1814, she acquired from Persia districts at least as large as the whole of England, and from Tartary a territory which ranges over 30 degrees of longitude. During this period of 150 years she has advanced her frontier 500 miles towards Constantinople. 630 miles towards Stockholm, 700 miles towards Berlin and Vienna, and 1,000 iniles towards Teheran, Cabool, and Calcutta. One only acquisition she has not yet made, though steadily pushing towards it, earnestly We have said that the desire on her part to possess Turkey in Europe, and its magnificent capital and unrivalled harbors, is a most natural one. Any one may see why it is so. For so vast an empire to possess only one seaport, and that in a situation where she is blockaded by ice half the year and can be locked in by England the other half, is no doubt mortifying and irritating enough. It is certain that she will make every effort to escape from it. She will always be itching for Constantinople - always striving for italways creeping towards it. Her desire for it will be a perpetual source of danger to the peace of Europe and the equilibrium of power, unless it can be placed utterly and hopelessly beyond her reach-unless some arrangement can be entered into and made permanent and to a great extent self-sustaining, by which it may cease to become an object of rational desire, because ceasing to be one of possible attainment. If Russia was once convinced that she never could, and never would, be allowed to gain possession of European Turkey, at any time and under any circumstances, she would probably cease to struggle for it. It is the supposed ease of the acquisition-the conviction that sooner or later it will be hers the belief that Turkey unaided is too weak to defend herself, and that France and England will not always unite in defending her, or may some day or other be in a position in which they cannot defend her effectually. that causes the acquisition of Constantinople to occupy the fixed and paramount place which it unquestionably does occupy in the Russian policy. What we have to consider, then, is how the Ottoman Porte can be permanently preserved and enabled to maintain itself; or rather how European Turkey can be most effectually, obviously, and indisputably, and forever, placed wholly out of the reach of Russia. There are three several ways of attempting this; and it behoves all the states which are interested in this question, and Great Britain most especially, to adopt one of them decisively and without delay, and to pursue it, when adopted, unswervingly and perseveringly. In the first place, we may resolve to maintain the Ottoman power in Europe, as it now stands. This is not so hopeless a scheme as is generally imagined by those who, knowing nothing specially or personally of the matter, have been accustomed to hear Turkey spoken of as the symbol of decrepitudeas, in the language of Burke, a barbarous anarchic despotism, where the finest countries in the most genial climates in the world are wasted by peace more than any others have been worried by war; where arts are unknown, where manufactures languish, where science is extinguished, where agriculture decays, where the human race itself melts away and perishes under the eye of the observer." This is far less true now than it was when Burke wrote it. There are elements of strength in Turkey, as there are elements of weakness in Russia, which have never been properly appreciated or taken advantage of. The Ottomans themselves are not degenerate; they are pretty much what they were two centuries ago; indolent, like all Orientals, but capable of great exertions and great sacrifices when roused into action by adequate stimulants; proud of their race, devoted in their loyalty, fanatical in their religion, warlike in their tastes, high-minded and honorable (many of them at least) in their notions. Under a good government they would make fine materials; under a resolute and aggressive government they would make formidable warriors. The countries they rule over are splendid, and of vast resource, and many of them inhabited by a race of great activity and more perpetual energy than the Mussulmans, and needing nothing but a steady, just, vigorous administration to develop their gifts and consolidate their powers. Now, for many years back, great efforts have been made by the more enlightened of the Turkish statesmen to reform and improve their administrative system. English and French engineers have been summoned to Constantinople to direct public worship and instruct native artificers. European officers have been introduced into their army and navy, and have vastly improved both their artillery department and their vessels of war. The actual commanding Turkish Admiral is, we are informed by one who knows him personally, an English naval officer. It would not be difficult for the other principal states of Europe, if they deoide finally on the maintenance of the Turkish government, to insist, as the condition of their guarantee, on the adoption of such steps under their superintendence as should, in the course of a few years, place Turkey in a position to maintain and to defend herself. We might stipulate for the establishment of an adequate permanent army to be kept in a state of real efficiency, which should be ascertained by our inspection; we might stipulate for the maintenance of fortified posts and sufficient garrisons along the passes of the Balkan, for the erection of such really powerful batteries at the entrance of the Bosphorus as no Russian fleet would dare to encounter; we might stipulate, finally, for such improvements in administration and finance, under our advice and aid, as would ere long entirely change the whole aspect of affairs in that mismanaged country. Were this plan cordially adopted and systematically carried out, under the encouragement and surveillance of England and France; were the Ottoman Porte clearly made to comprehend that the condition of our alliance and protection was the immediate commencement and steady carrying out of such ameliorations in the civil and military system as were calculated to render her in time independent of any external aid - we entertain little doubt that before many years had elapsed Turkey would again have become a real and substantive power instead of a helpless phantom, able to do nothing for herself, but dependent entirely on her allies; not indeed that she would be able, single-handed and alone, to stand against the colossal power of Russia (that, probably, is what no state save England, France, and America could do) -but that, with a compact friendship with Persia, and such moderate aid in case of necessity as England and France might willingly and without inconvenience afford to a faithful ally, she would be able to present such a manly and formidable front, that Russia could no more hope to absorb her than to annihilate Prussia or to swallow Austria. This course of proceeding would be a practicable, an intelligible, and, we believe, a successful line of policy, if at once initiated, and consistently, resolutely, and conscientiously pursued. Or, secondly-looking at the elements of which Turkey in Europe is composed, observing that its population contains probably not more than 3,000,000 Mussulmen to 11,000,000 Christians, and that of the former not more than 700,000 are pure Osmanlis; seeing, too, how completely divided into natural provinces the empire is-Bosnia, Servia, Albania, Bulgaria, Roumelia, Moldavia, and Wallachia, being even more distinct and separate than Castile and Arragon, or England and Wales used to be; and knowing also what a loose hand the Porte has long kept over many of these dependencies, and how largely the municipal element of self-government is developed in nearly all of them—we cannot but feel that another and perhaps even more hopeful solution of the problem is suggested to us. Moldavia and Wallachia are already governed by Hospodars, under joint Russian and Turkish protection, and are merely tributary to the Porte; Servia has a prince 66 of her own, is nearly independent, and con- moment, but of preparing for -a Greek tent and peaceable in being so:- why not kingdom; not the miserable principality, adopt a similar system with the rest; erect with its miserable prince, which we now call a federal state, composed of five or seven in- such, but one on a great scale, which shall dependent principalities five, if the Danube embrace the whole of Turkey in Europe, the be taken as their northern boundary-seven, main part of whose population are already if we make the Pruth the boundary, and in- bound together, partly by a common origin, clude the Hospodarships - leave them free partly by a common religion. It is true to develop each their own resources, and to that our petty experiment has not succeeded. follow their own peculiar phase of civiliza- The Kingdom of Greece, which we established tion-Greek, Sclavonic, or mixed, as it in 1832, has turned out a wretched, disastrous, might be; but unite them in a bond which and disgraceful failure. But what it would would render them a powerful and probably have been under different auspices; what it impassable barrier against Muscovite encroach- would have been if, instead of an imbecile ments, with liberties worth maintaining and Bavarian boy, we had placed at its head a strength adequate to maintain them. This is statesinan of princely birth and powerful no idle dream no paper project suggested connections; what it would have been if the by a glance at the map. Those who know intrigues of Capodistrias had not prevented those provinces know how much energy lies Leopold from accepting the proffered crown hid among their people - how much advance - we cannot possibly pronounce. many of them have of late made - what a much at least we know that in that country resolute and warlike spirit of independence are materials which, in proper hands, could prevails among some of the Sclavonian tribes certainly be elaborated into something good what restless activity and ingenious talent and great; a territory abounding in admiand commercial cupidity characterizes the rable harbors and unrivalled facilities for Greek population. They know also how little commerce, and inhabited by a people of native disposition the inhabitants of these districts and ineradicable commercial propensities, as have to be absorbed by Russia, and amalga- marked as those of Holland or our own; a mated and lost in her vast dominions-how population dreadfully demoralized, no doubt, much they prefer the rule of the Sultan to the but wonderfully active, shrewd, and perseverprotection" of the Czar-and how stub-ing-needing only a strong hand and an bornly they would fight for their freedom if it iron will to curb their lawless habits and were once conferred upon them. Already ideas of some such future are spreading and prevalent among them; already the country is overspread with a net-work of Hetairas or secret societies, to an extent that few are aware of; already do they feel strong sympathies, even if they have not close connection, with the struggles of the Italian and Hungarian patriots; already is the old jealousy and separation between the Greek and the Sclavonian element fast melting away, and opening the way towards a fusion of the two into one harmonious nationality. Indeed, the knowledge of this fact is supposed to be one of the reasons which make Nicholas so anxious to press on his designs at the present moment; he is aware that every year weakens his hold over the Christian population of the Turkish provinces; and he is therefore naturally and proportionately anxious to be formally constituted their official" Protector" without delay. Here, again, in preparing the way for a federation of independent provinces which, united, will form a powerful state, we have another feasible and beneficent solution of the Eastern question, which needs only to be adopted, avowed, kept in view, and worked at, in order to be crowned with ultimate and certain success. Thirdly, and lastly, we have the option of establishing not suddenly nor at this control and guide their restless and wayward energies into a regular and profitable channel. With the Greeks everything will depend upon the government; the materials are fine, rich, and teeming, though untutored and untamed; with a Leopold, the success of the Kingdom of Greece would have been probable-with a Napoleon, a Cromwell, or a Clive, it would have been certain, signal, and magnificent. Erect a Grecian Monarchy with the Danube, the Adriatic, the gean, and the Bosphorus as its boundaries, give it Constantinople for its capital, place at its head the right man, protect his existence under the guarantee of the Western Powers for ten years-and our statesmen need give themselves no further anxiety about what now so troubles and perplexes them: "the Eastern Question" would be solved forever. Now, any one of these three lines of policy, we believe, will afford us a way out of our difficulties an escape from them not merely for the moment, but forever. But, if we are not to be baffled, defeated and disgraced sooner or later one of the three we must adopt at once, finally, and irrevocably - and work for it as occasion serves, and as the time and the circumstance suggest. The first is the easiest, the most temporizing, the least daring, and that which involves the least change and is, therefore, the most likely to be adopted. But, looking to an extended future, we may doubt whether the Danube -or indeed any real government that arrangement would permanently be the at all. The Greeks, too, whom our projector most self-sustaining. The country in dispute selects as the dominant people, have not is mainly inhabited by Greeks. The great given such an example of aptitude for civilizacity, so much coveted, was the former seat tion, progress, and national virtue, in their of a Greek Empire. There is no vitality so own kingdom, as to tempt other countries to indestructible as that of race. There is no embark in a crusade to set up for them a principle so tenacious as that of NATIONALITY. more extended empire. It is doubtless inYou may, by a wise system resolutely pursued, convenient for Europe to be " periodically sustain Turkey permanently against Russia, kept in hot water, its commerce interrupted, but you would have to sustain her, or at least the discussion of its domestic affairs susaid her to sustain herself. A Greek Empire pended," and so forth, in favor of the mainonce established, and endowed with Constan- tenance of "that abstraction the integrity tinople as its dowry and its diadem, would of the Ottoman Empire.' It is by no means yield it only with its last breath of life; clear, however, that this evil would be altoand might become in time one of the "Great gether removed, though the form might be Powers" of Europe the effective and changed, by the enthronement of the Greeks natural and much needed balance to Russian at Constantinople. All has not been fair and encroachments towards the west and Russian aboveboard at the court of Athens, either as influence in the Levant. Whatever we decide regards honesty or friendly feeling. The upon, however, let us adhere to and follow scheme is worth bearing in mind as a future resolutely out: - let us not be content with contingency; but the ignorance, servility, merely tiding over the present menacing bigotry, and corruption of the Oriental Chriscrisis, leaving it to recur upon us in a more tians render them a very rotten reed to rely formidable shape and at a more inconvenient upon. time. From the Spectator. BAYLE ST. JOHN'S TURKS IN EUROPE.* THE project which this volume aims at inculcating would hardly deserve notice at any other time; for, although the idea of a Christian empire established on the ruins of Turkey is entertained by more persons than Mr. Bayle St. John, it is at present impracticable, however desirable. If Russia is bent upon forcing war or dishonor on Turkey and the two great powers of Western Europe, for an ulterior advantage of uncertain result, it is not likely that, until she were prostrated by successive defeats, she would consent to the Overthrow of her long-cherished hopes by the establishment of a modern Byzantine or Greek empire, avowedly to baffle Russian policy and act as a permanent barrier against her power. Neither might the Turks altogether relish being compendiously trundled out of Europe; and possibly the new Crusaders might have to encounter Russia and Turkey in alliance. As Mr. St. John admits that if the Turks be now put to the test, they may make a much more gallant stand than their inconsiderate enemies will give them credit for," the victory might not be with the Byzantine theorists. Even if the thing were more ready of attainment, it is doubtful whether the men exist for the establishment of what Mr. St. John stipulates for, a constitutional govern ment, to embrace all the countries south of The project itself forms only the introductory portion of Mr. St. John's book; the greater part consisting of an exposition of the public and private character of the modern Turks. As this is avowedly done to show their unfitness for empire. Mr. St. John fairly admits that his object compels him to select the worst features, or in other words the and nations Austria, for example. The long residence of Mr. St. John in Egypt The Turks in Europe: a Sketch of Manners and the Levant as a member of native families, and Politics in the Ottoman Empire. By Bayle St. has given him a knowledge of Oriental domesJohn, Author of " Village Life in Egypt," &o., &c. | tic doings which few Europeans and no mere |