Petersburg) are only granted to Jewish merchants who pay the highest tax imposed on commercial licences; they are not conferred on small traders. Hence the crowding together of small traders within narrow limits, which renders poverty a permanent evil. Finally, the Jews are precluded by law from becoming proprietors of land.

The above facts will probably afford a sufficient answer to the question whether the Turkish Slavs would be better off under a Russian system of Government than under that of the Porte. They would have to bribe the Russian officials just as they do the Turkish pashas; they would exchange total exemption from military service for universal obligation to military service; the Roman Catholics and Jews would find the merciless persecution of the orthodox Russian substituted for the contemptuous toleration of the Turk; and the trading classes, which are now flourishing and prosperous under the dolce far niente Government of Constantinople, would be hampered at every step by the vexatious officialism of St. Petersburg.

It is not intended by the above remarks to "Autono

my."

attempt any defence of the Turkish rule. Nobody denies Turkish misgovernment; but the way to remedy it is not to replace it by Russian oppression. A favourite scheme of our political theorists is the establishment of tributary States, like Servia and Roumania, in Bosnia and Bulgaria. Now, "two-fifths of the population of Bosnia, and a quarter at least, if not nearly a third of the population of Bulgaria," is, according to Mr. Forster, Mahometan; and, as he very justly remarks, "merely to give them self-government and then to leave them, would be to leave them in a state of hopeless anarchy." And what is the result of anarchy in a country which is the neighbour of Russia, we all know from the history of Poland.

Moreover, it is quite evident that the formation of more autonomous vassal States in Turkey could not be carried out except as the result of a Russo-Turkish war. Now Russia, however disinterested her motives might be in entering upon such a war, would certainly not waste her blood and money without some equivalent. Such an equivalent could only consist either in the direct annexation of a piece of Turkish territory, or, which

is, perhaps, more probable, in the conclusion of an offensive and defensive alliance with the Turkish vassal States which would place their military forces at Russia's disposal, as those of the South German States were placed at the disposal of Prussia by the secret treaty of 1866.

In a word, "a chain of autonomous states" would not, as has been asserted, be a barrier against Russian aggression, but a bridge for the troops of Russia from her frontier to Constantinople, as has been already shown during the last few weeks by the example of Servia and Roumania.* What is really wanted is a reformed administration which should strengthen the Turkish Government until the Christian populations are able (of

* According to the Russian General Fadéeff (Opinion on the Eastern Question) the autonomy of the Slav provinces of Turkey "would give independence in internal affairs, a separate ruler, and separate political institutions. But independence from an international and military point of view is quite a different question. The liberated East of Europe, if it be liberated at all, will require a durable bond of union and a common head, with a common council, the transaction of international affairs, and the military command, in the hands of that head-the Czar of Russia, the natural chief of all the Slavs and members of the orthodox Church."

What was the Crimean

which there is as yet but little sign) to walk alone; i.e., as long as there is no danger of their exchanging the almost nominal, and practically harmless, supremacy of the Sultan for the formidable leadership of the Czar.

The scheme of political autonomy as a solution of the Eastern Question must therefore be dismissed as impracticable. There only remains the alternative above referred to of administrative autonomy, as proposed by Lord Derby and apparently agreed to by Russia.* This, it is obvious, is a very different thing from the "bag and baggage policy of Messrs. Gladstone and Lowe; and as those statesmen have said a great deal about the obligations which we have incurred towards the Turkish Christians in consequence of the Crimean war, it may be well here to inquire what were the objects of that war, and how far they were attained.

It is a curious fallacy among some of our politiWar fought cians that we fought the Russians in the Crimea

for?

because we did not like them so well as the Turks.

*Despatch to Sir A. Loftus of the 30th of June, 1876. (See Appendix).

That there was at that time a certain amount of sympathy for Turkey in this country is undeniable; but we no more fought for the Turks out of mere sympathy for them than we remained neutral, in the wars of 1859 and 1864, because we had no sympathy for the Italians and the Danes. We are notoriously enthusiastic in our sympathies for nations which we conceive to be ill-treated, but we do not go to war for them unless such a course is prescribed by our honour or our interests. Let us see what Lord Palmerston* describes as the reasons for our having entered upon the Crimean war. "The five great Powers have, in a formal document, recorded their opinion that it is for the general interest of Europe that the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire should be maintained; and it would be easy to show that strong reasons, political and commercial, make it especially the interest of England that this integrity and independence should be maintained. . . . We support Turkey for our own sake and for our own interests; and to withdraw our support, or to

* Life of Lord Palmerston. By the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, M.P.: Bentley, 1876.