MR. GLADSTONE AND HOBART PASHA.

Evening Post, Volume XV, Issue 181, 4 August 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)

MR. GLADSTONE AND HOBART PASHA.

The following correspondence was published in The Times on 14th May :—: — TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. Sip. — At the request of Hobart Pasha, just received, I ask the favor of your publishing the enclosed letter. His request embraaed my answer. I have no copy of ifc, but the purport of it was to say that as I was about to write a reply on the various points (including that of the six: policemen), I had seen in the payers that he had been visited with the severest of all domestic bereavements, aud that 1 could not under such circumstances trouble him, unless it were his express desire, with a word of controversial matter. I may be allowed to say, in conclusion, that I regard Hobart Pasha as entangled in an error of which the consequences are deplorable, but that I am likewise convinced he is acting according to what he thinks the calls of honor and duty. May he soon be undeceived 1 I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, W. E. Gladstone. London, 12th May. " Constantinople, 4th April. " Sra — I can but feel much honored by your having mentioned my name in the House of Commons, and I feel flattered by your having given me credit for honesty of purpose while writing as I have done about Turkey and the Turks ; but when it comes to be, as you say, a matter of ' shame to you that an Englishman should have advocated their cause, ' I feel bound to make one or two remarks in self-defence. The name of Gladstone has always been regarded by me as the beau ideal of justice and fair play. I can but feel, however, , that in the question of Turkish massacres ! you have so far been deceived by one-sided reports that you have lost sight (for the moment only, let us hope) of that glorious attribute. My reason for thinking this is that I do not find in any of your speeches or writings anything to show that you have calmly and dispassionately enquired into your subject by obtaining information on both sides of the question. Let me ask you — Did you ever inquire into the real cause of the unhappy events in Bulgaria, or did you from the very outset act upon the idea that they were caused by Turkish misrule, and that only? Did you ever hear of an organised combination to destroy all Mussulmans from Philippopolis to the very gates of Stamboul ? Did you ever hear of six Turkish policemen being burnt slowly to death in quicklime before the row began ? Did you inquire into the feeling which existed between the Mussulmans and Christians in the years before the massacres? Did you ever hear that, through the crafty intrigues of certain high personages, the regular troops were all removed before the order to quell the revolt was given ? I "Sir, I have never for one moment attempted, to defend the unhappy and disgraceful occurrences in Bulgaria. I have never for a moment defended the system of Turkish government, now, happily, about to change. I have merely maintained that the horrors of civil war, aggravated by religious fanaticism on both sides, have been the repetition of an oft-told tale, and have not been worse In Turkey than elsewhere. I have endeavoured to show that for the last twenty years Turkey has had no chance of going ahead in the path of progress and reform. She has been subtly, but steadily, made to bleed nearly to death by foreign intrigues and evil advisers among her own people. I have asked a fresh start for her, a little fair play, quiet and time to enter upon the new path. If you lived (I suppose the very thought would render you ill) as I do, among these people, I am convinced that your far-seeing good sense would cause a change in your opinions. As to what is now going on, I can only say that at Constantinople there is the most perfect quiet. In the provinces, where people are starving through having had to pay to the Government what little money they possessed, and, in addition, to give up much of their store of provisions, to support an army necessarily mobilised to resist invasion and spoliation under the guise of humanity, there must exist, on the principle that a 'hungry man is an angry man,' much bad feeling, and collisions will occur between the taxgatherer and the people, more especially as the rayah does not share in the enthusiasm of his Mussulman neighbour ; and it is evident that quiet times alone can put things to rights. Every one even in this country has heard of the time-honored name of Gladstone and of his chivalrous character, and looks with astonishment at the line he has taken. The Turks say, 'Why does not this just man mention the horrors committed by Christian insurgents, such as cutting off noses of prisoners, boiling Turks alive V ' Why does he make out one side to be all angels, and those on the other devils V " I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servant, "Hobart Pasha. "The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, House of Commons."