CHAPTER XIII.

HILE these words are being written, the consequences of that war are still pending, and all

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Europe is watching the solution of the grave difficulties involved, hoping that that solution may be a final one. To be such it must be radical; and it appears to me that the proper way of arriving at the solution in the general interest, is to lay aside for the moment all the particular interests, and begin with the vital element in the question.

This is the demonstrated incapacity of the Ottoman Government to secure the conditions of progress or even favourable existence to its subjects. The reason of that incapacity is in the raison d'être of the government-the right to govern without a reciprocal obligation to protect—a right inherent in the true believer to dispose, without any restriction, of the earth and all that is on it, without any other obligation than such as the Koran contains, and the Koran recognizes no obligation towards an infidel other than that of a master to a slave. It is the nature of this sacred right, which no temporal combination or convention can impugn, which throws the Mussulman out of the comity of Christian nations, and makes his government in its very inception a relation of owner and rayah (or herd).

We are not obliged to go to Mohammedanism to learn

that while men readily accept all the license any religion may give them, they are slow to accept the self-denial which may be coupled with it in the precept: it is not surprising that while Mussulmans universally claim the privileges of their faith, there should be very few who accept the finer virtues which the Koran may point out. The fact is, that the Mussulman has always held, and still holds, his power and dominion as Mussulman, and whatever theory may suggest, practice demonstrates that that dominion is, in Europe at least, an evil mitigated only by entirely alien interests; as between the ruler and the ruled in Turkey, there is no mitigating relation. The Turkish Government is bad mainly because it is a Mussulman Government, and because, with such a people, a Mussulman Government must, in all probability, necessarily be bad.. It is an intolerable slavery, in all respects as bad, and in some much worse, than American black slavery was. The only good that the governed derive from it is that they sometimes arrive at the patience and rest of the martyrs.

The only cure for it is, that it should cease to be Mussulman—and this is equivalent to its ceasing to exist. It is impossible to reform it, because the very principle of its organization must be changed to admit any reform. The men who constitute the Government hold their places not because of their fitness, but because they are Mussulmans; and while this principle is admitted the better elements of the population are excluded from any share in government. It will be useless to insist on this Mussulman caste admitting the Christian to equal rights; and those who regard this as a possible solution have studied carelessly history and human nature. We may find an individual sovereign capable of an abdication of his rights for the general good; but

that a caste should voluntarily abandon its privilege does not come within human probabilities. The difficulty of it may be conceived by supposing that the people of England three hundred years ago had been called on to admit Jews to the fullest privileges of citizenship,-nobility, legislation, the bench-and all at once. Yet this would have been a trifle compared with what is demanded of the Turk, because at best the Jews would have been a small minority in England, while the Mussulman reformer must admit an immense majority, which, as majority, must rule him. A nearer illustration would have been to suppose that in the year 1860 the population of the Southern American States should have been called on to admit the negro population to civic rights and equal privileges with the whites. Is it conceivable that, with all their higher civilization, the caste of masters would have yielded to any other consideration than force? On what basis can we found a supposition that the more ignorant, fanatical Mussulman, lifted by both caste and creed into rule, shall abdicate under persuasion, or, if compelled by greater force, will not look for his opportunity to conspire and revolt against this usurping lower caste? Is it not clear, then, that equality in self-government is merely bottling up anarchy in the empire? Is it more, indeed, than a substitution of a two-handed anarchy for the one handed which now exists? Is it not clear that this caste government will neither abdicate voluntarily nor submit patiently to deposition? It is a system which theory and practice alike indicate as an utterly inflexible one-an old bottle which will not hold a new wine. For five centuries it has not changed, except for the worse, in the midst of Governments everywhere changing for the better, and races growing wiser and stronger. Should it grow so weak as to fall under the

control of another Government, it will but be the automaton whose wires shall be the intrigues of the nearest, the most interested, and most crafty.

The interests of civilization—of Europe entire— demand its replacement by a new Government, which shall be amenable to those interests and to progress, and which shall at least prepare for a permanent one; and the greatest security for that common amenableness is that all Europe shall participate actively in its foundation and watch over its development. The religious question must be treated with the utmost toleration; but the interests of everybody concerned demand that toleration should not be extended to cover intolerance, especially in favour of a creed essentially degrading and antagonistic to progress. There is no sound reason, political, religious, or social, for the preservation of the Mussulman empire, and many for its overthrow-no difficulty in the solution of the problem could it be attacked by united Europe.

"Yes," it is said, "but with what shall we replace it? It seems to me in the highest degree probable that having once admitted the necessity for its cessation, we shall more quickly find an accord over the manner of replacing it. It is in attempting to reform it that the danger lies; and I feel strongly that once Europe is agreed to abolish the Mussulman Government in the European provinces, the common sense and common interest of Europe will find a solution which shall definitely avert what is, after continuance of that Government, the worst thing which could happen—an European war on this question.

It is universally asserted that the Turk, in his popular character, is an excellent creature. Let us believe, then, that he will be a submissive and orderly subject, as excellent

people always are-we shall have no trouble from him. The Pashas are mostly ignorant or corrupt, or both (with exceptions, mainly of renegades), and the mass of the Christian employés are even less trustworthy for any purposes of reconstruction. Foreign administrators are the only agents capable of commanding the respect of all classes, and the only conceivable material with which to fill the void made by the banishment of the Pashas and Effendis; and while Europe may well be governed by diplomatic considerations in choosing the responsible heads of the new Government or Governments (in which the most disastrous error would be the choice of some incapable younger son to be the mask of intrigues and the shelter of new forms of Byzantinism), it is but common sense to insist that the local administrators should be those who know the people, their ways, and language. Self-government, in the sense in which it has been given to Greece and Servia, is as impracticable to the Rayah now, as it was disastrous to the Rayah of those States. The freed slave is not fit to be at once master even of himself. The less change made in the condition of the Bulgarian or Bosniak the better; and the least change from a bad despotism is that to a beneficent one. The experience of Greece and Servia proves most conclusively that the tooquick transition from despotism to popular self-government (even to the former, which by all its popular instincts is democratic) has been a disastrous boon-has proved mainly the source of political intrigue and corruption; and the Slav, whose character is more in sympathy with patriarchal than popular institutions, can at once be more easily led and less safely loosed than even the Greek.

The capital error in Europe was the not aiding and encouraging the Turkish provinces to rise entirely and