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THE " GREEK EMPIRE " NOTION . The agitation of the Eastern Question is producing at least one good effect— -it is accustoming the public mind to a higher order of political speculations than it has of late been thought " practical" to meddle with . At this very moment a notion is abroad , dazzling the imaginations of many , and seriously occupying not a few of our most practical heads , which Tittle more than a month ago would have seemed the mere
phantasm of a student , fresh from the pages of Gibbon , and innocent of any statesmanship bey ond that which may be transacted over a cup of coffee and a map . The reconstruction of a Greek Empire—the rehabilitation in the East of that old Byzantine power which the Turks overthrew four hundred years ago : such is the idea which has passed within the last few weeks from the private note-books of a few solitary thinkers , where it had lain undisturbed for
twenty years , into the columns of public newspapers , and the red boxes of men in office . Several books and pamphlets have already appeared , advocating the idea : it has been propounded by a score of journals of all shades of opinion , from that Ishmael of politics , the slashing Times , to the cautious , plodding Economist ; and last Saturday week witnessed the publication of the first number of a new journal , named the Eastern
Star , established , as it would seem , for the very purpose of providing for this idea an active and continuous propagandism , So it will not be for lack of literary championship if the world does not before long find itself invited to the inauguration of a Pan-Hellenic Empire in the East , the capital of which shall be Constantinople . Of this real Hellenic empire , the present little kingdom of Greece , with its miserable Otho and his
mongrel Court , will in that case turn out to have been but a kind of prelude and instalment . Such is the idea ; and it is intellectually refreshing , in this age and country of peddling politics , to have such an idea let loose among us , even though we should have to pronounce it in the end only a splendid chimera . The particnlar form which tlio idea assumes is as follows : —All this babbloment about supporting Turkey against Russia , and about " maintaining
the integrity of the Turkish Empire , " belongs but to the passing diplomatic phase of a much bigger question . That Russia shall not be allowed to walk into Turkey ; that at the present moment England , Eranco , and every other western power that has any pluck or any foreflight , jnufil ; take Constantinople and the region thereabouts under vigilant protection , and , if need be , make the shores of the Baltic and the Black Sea bellow with gunpowder for twelve months rather than let Russia clutch that bit of
the map—as to this all nro agreed ; and if , as matters stand , such a policy is diplomatically ¦ tantamount to backing the Porte arid preserving tlio . integrity of the actual Turkish Enipiro , it onnnot be helped . But beyond tho present diplomatic moment there lies Jin exigency to which , when that moment in passed , and even before it i 8 passed , politicians must address
themselves . Even suppose that Russia should be driven back without a blow , and that all should be restored to the condition in which it was a month or two ago , the real Eastern Question still remains to be settled . Chalked up , as it were , on the black board of the world ' s politics , the problem which now stares us in the face is the problem of a reorganization of the East . Russia is attempting . as olution after her particular fashion ; and it is not enough in" the other nations to refuse this solution , unless they
are prepared to take the problem entirely out ot Russia's hands , and see another solution fairly wrought out . In short , the moment has arrived when there must be performed for the East of Europe and the adjoining lands of Asia , that highest feat of statesmanship , the factitious recombination of a number of contiguous and intermixed populations into a new political unity . Such feats of statesmanship have hitherto been performed almost exclusively by conquerors—by Alexanders , Caesars , and Napoleons ; it remains to be seen whether a similar result may not be
attained by a more pacific process . Setting aside the Russian solution as intolerable in the eyes of all but the Russians themselves , the next presentable solution , and that to which , as being the least bold and innovative , English statesmen are likely as a body to be most inclined , is that of & continuation of the present Turkish Empire under a new system of obligations and guarantees . The mere " preservation of the integrity of the Turkish Empire" everybody sees , is nothing at all ; it is but driving away the lion from the carcase , and leaving the carcase to re-attract the lion . Hence , if the
Turkish Empire is preserved , it must be preserved with a thorough purgation . England , France , and the other western nations must , in fact , overhaul the whole system of Turkish government , re-arrange the relations of that government to the populations under it , and continue for a long time to direct the Turks , as a master directs his apprentices . This solution , however , finds no favour with some . Such a pretended reconstruction of the Ottoman Empire , they say , would be , in reality , a perpetual squabble between the Western
protecting powers for the superiority of the Protectorate . What is required in the East is not a system which will need to be wound up every twenty-four hours by Western constitutionmakers , but a system which , when once wound up , will go of itself . JSTow , on no principle , they say , can it be maintained , that such a system can be devised consistently with the continued supremacy of the Turks in the East . There are but two principles by which the right of a ruling power to continue to rule can be testedthe principle of nationality , and the principle of
fitness . By neither principle will the Turks bear to be tried . Take , first , the principle of nationality . The essence of this principle is , that every nation , every mass of men defined as homogeneous by a certain assemblage of common qualities , has a right to govern itself , without interference from without , oven should that interference bo by a wiser power , and promise better government . But the Turks , as inhabitants of Turkey , are no nation ; they are a garrison distributed among many nations , and holding them together . You may say " Italy for the Italians , " and " Hungary for tho Hungarians ; " but you cannot , in the same sense , say " Turkey for the Turks . " The Turks are to tho
Turkish Empire what tho Austrians aro to Italy ; and it is the height of absurdity in those who urge tho principle of nationality in behalf of the Italians , claiming that the Austrians should be drivon out of tho Italian peninsula , to join in the cry for " tho preservation of the integrity of tho . Turkish Empire . " What is tho Turkish Empire ?—Tho Turkish Empire is an aggrogate of about 25 millions of people of . various races , chiefly Greeks , Slavonians , and Shemites or Arabs , permeated and governed by about two millions of Turks . Restricting our view to European Turkey alone , we find there , it is said , ten or eleven millions of Christiana , to about three millions of Mohammedans , of which latter not
more than 700 , 000 , are pure Osnmnlis . Tho Turks , then , are an insignificant and alien ingredient foisted into the East some centuries ago , and yet living , as it were , only as marauders in an encampment , with their horses saddled , ready to go back to whence they came . So far as tho principle of nationality ia concerned , tho
idea of fighting for them is positively ridiculon It remains to be inquired then , whether , on th other principle , they have a better title * to r spect at our hands .. ¦¦ Nationality ; it may be sa A is humbug : wherever there is good and stri t government , wherever a people shows a capacity for ruling , that government or that people haa right on its side . If a set of negroes from Ashanteewereto get hold of Spain , and make a better thing of it than the Spaniards are mat ing of it for themselves , then the JNiffgers nnA
not the Spaniards should be upheld in the so vernment of Spain . Is it so with the Turi ^ p Have they really a governing hand and a governing brain P Aliens as they are in race , do tHey show that they have a greater capacity for administering the lands they dominate , than the populations more native to those lands—the Greeks , the Slaves , the Shemites P Now this is a auestion on which there are various jud gments . > n the one hand , the Turks are admitted to have as individuals , certain sturdy qualities such as Englishmen like . They are stolid silent buffers
with a great deal of pride , and more true to their word than , the majority of Orientals . Look , at a Turkish boy , says Layard , in any Turkish village playing -with the other children , Greeks or Arabs , and you will find that , though he is a sulky litle beggar , and no match for the others in talk or cleverness , he has vet the faculty of making himself obeyed , and can kick and cuff like one born to it . Again , the Turks have done fine things in the way of moral firmness . Their refusal to give up the Hungarian refugees
did them honour . No one can deny that , individually , they have very respectable features of character . Recently , too , their Government has had much to interest us . Since 1828 , the Porte has adopted many western ideas and improvements ; theoreticall there is as large a degree , of toleration under the Mohammedan Government as in England itself , and much larger than in Italy or Spain ; in Turkey , as in England , you may travel without passports ; and in commercial importance Turkey has been outstripping Russia . Admitting all this , more
or less , the opponents of Turkish supremacy have various ways of accounting for it , and still keeping to their point . Study the history of the Turks , they say , or read the accounts of their present condition and administration , as given by authors of the most diverse opinions , and writing for the most diverse purposes—Layard , Macfarlane , St . John , Churchill—and you will find that , with all their moral doggedness and military tenacity , they are a people who have never done a single stroke of real good for the world , and under whose rule progress can be but accidental . Sixty years ago , Burke described the Turkish Government as " a barbarous
anarchic despotism , where the finest countries m tho 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 . " Facts have occurred since this was written which renders it less apparently just than it once was : but substantially , it ia said ,
the picture is true yet . Tho recent improvements in Turkey , it is said , are clearly against the Turkish grain , and amount , in fact , to an incipient suicide of Mohammedanism . To back up the real Turks , to tolerate for one instant tho idea of seeing tho noble Oriental lands handed over to tho continued stewardship ot a sot of Mohammedan follows , who wear turbans , and swear by tho Koran , is a sad proof , it lfl said , to what a low pitch our own Christianity has come .
It is by such a process as this that a number of our speculative politicians have arrived at tlio notion of a restored Greek Empire as tlio true solution of the Eastern question . Tho VM * , they say , waits but the stroke of inventive gen i " ' and the materials will arrange thcmsolvos . Uu of the dissolved Empire of the Turks there \ ym spring a great Greek nationality , oCCU Py !^ south-eastern Europo ; and what remains of tn ° Turkish Empire aftor this fragment is subductoa , must bo otherwise provided for . Such is tn idea . It has boon our object here simply l . stale it in the form in which it is being dwsen » -
nated by its advocates . The criticisms that naturally suggest themselves in connexion with i ' ¦ > wo postpone till anothor occasion * .
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name and address of the writer j not necessarily for publication , but as a guarantee of his good faith . . . We cannot undertake to return rejected communications . All letters for the Editor should be addressed to 7 , Wellingtonstreet , Strand , London . ' ' ' J ' ' ' " Communications should always be leg ibly written , and on one side of the paper only . If long , it increases the difficulty oi finding Bpace for them .
TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS . It is impossible to acknowledge the mass of letters we receive , Their insertion is often delayed , owing to a press of matter j and when omitted , it is frequently from reasons quite independent of the merits of the communication ^ _ ¦ 2 fo notice can be taken of anonymous communications . Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the
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732 THE LEAD EK ; | SATiyRD AY >
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There is nothing so revolutionary , 'because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —De . Abkold .
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SATURDAY , JULT 30 , 1853 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 30, 1853, page 732, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1997/page/12/
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