THE CHARACTER OF THE GREEKS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9736, 26 May 1897, Page 4

THE CHARACTER OF THE GREEKS.

Not the least siirprising feature of the downfall of Greece has been the comparative apathy with which it has been received even among the nations tradhaonally most in sympathy with her. -kree months ago most people would have said that Lord Sa__bdby could not join in coercing or abstain from aid—ig Greece without imperil—ag Ms power. __usee too it was felt must break off from the concert if wb& iitmi tesy decided^

against Greece. Yet Greece has been utterly rooted, and her downfall has been received in both countries with lukewarm sympathy, and in many quarters with a half uttered " serve them right." The explanation probably lies in a certain contempt with whioh the nations of Europe have always deservedly or undeservedly regarded the Greek character. It is at least certain that the majority of military and naval men have had more than a "sneaking regard" for the Turk, and much less than a cordial appreciation of the Greek. It is extraordinary that a nation guilty of such atrocities as the Bulgarian and Armenian massacres should bo regarded with any other feeling than abhorrence ; yet it is a fact that soldiers and sailors cordially like, fchem. They are mad fiends when religious frenzy seizes them, so it is said, but they fight when they do fight like brave soldiers and good gentlemen. That probably expresses tolerably well the average opinion of military and naval men with regard to the Turk. And in this particular war he certainly does not appear to have done anything to forfeit the good opinion.

The Greek, on the other hand, has always been regarded with feelings in which a tinge of contempt mingles. As early as the times of Juvenal he was the " Graeculus esuriens " —the " starveling Greek." Even his fine sense of art has not saved him, any more than it has the Hebrew, from a certain unreasoning prejudice. Curiously enough, as the Spectator in an article points out, when an Englishman admits this dislike of Greeks aud is challenged to account for it, he attributes it to the fact that the Greeks are hucksterers. They understand how to make commerce profitable by a sort of instinct. But it is surely a strange anomaly that " the nation of shopkeepers " should contemn the Greeks as "a community of corn-factors." Possibly their methods of trade savour of chicane and trickery, centuries of subjection and persecution has perhaps made them wily. At any rate it is fair to presume that there is some taint in their national character or the dislike of them would not be so universal in Europe. Their generous aspirations after freedom might at least win them sympathy, and did in 1827. But they have since that time on various occasions proved so unstable and rash that Byron himself would find it hard to get a hearing for them to-day. is not much more than a decade since that the Powers taught them a severe lesson in the " pacific blockade " of 1886. Yet here they are again, rushing in the face of hard circumstance, with the same overweening conceit, not at all justified by subsequent results. And the events of the war, which have done much to raise the Turks in the estimation of Europe, have unfortunately lowered the Greeks in an equal degree. One feels that they get panic-struck without sufficient provocation; that they are incapable of any consistent policy, or of generous confidence, in their chosen leaders. They clamoured for the war loudly enough; their ICing felt his throne imperilled unless he yielded to the popular outcry; and no sooner are they beaten than they threaten to dethrone their King , for doing what three months before they threatened to de-i throne him t for not , doing,;.., The j Powers 'will not allow Turkey ta-l obtain very considerable advantage' from the War; and we may feel assured they will not suffer Greece to be too severely trampled on. But there can be little doubt that whatever the Greeks may lose in a material sense, they have suffered a great deal in reputation as a nation who, with the hereditary glory of a great past, have shown themselves deficient in almost every quality which a nation professing to aspire after Jreedoni* oughtto possess.