Hawkes Bay Herald TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1877.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 3871, 13 March 1877, Page 2

Hawkes Bay Herald TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1877.

To-day, March the 18th, is the day on which the Turko-Servian armistice closes. At the date of the telegrams published on Monday, which was March 7, matters were, to say the least, in as unsettled a condition as ever. Montenegro is reported to have been advancing a claim to a slice of Turkish territory, a claim which the Porte refused steadfastly to concede. In the January papers, it was Servia, not Montenegro, which was described as advancing this claim j and the territory in question was a locality known as Little Zivcrnic. The Times spoke of it as a small place not worth disputing about. The Porte probably cared little about it in itself, but could not venture to outrage Turkish national feeling by handing it over to the Christians. Considering that Turkey had the best of it in every encounter with the Servians and Montenegrins, one would naturally have expected that it would be she who would claim fresh territory at the close of the war, if either party did. In her position, however, it is evident that victory is hardly preferable to defeat. Whatever the military results of any campaign may be, the political result cannot be otherwise than still further to weaken her, and to narrow the area of her sway in Europe. The great and pressing question for us, at present, however, is not what ultimately may become of Turkey, but whether the crisis can be tided over without war. It appears from the telegrams that Russia is unwilling to grant a delay of very long duration. The strain of such a delay on the Porte's finances, it was thought, would be seen to be so ruinous that Russia might find in it her best policy. She is finding, however, not improbably, the strain on her own finances "a heavier one than she can well bear. The maintenance of a vast force on the frontier must be, in everything but bloodshed, equivalent to war itself. However, on the whole, it seems probable that the armistice will be renewed for the winter months. The invasion of Turkey will be in any case a sufficiently arduous operation without the additional hardships and difficulties of campaigning through ice and snow.