THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1879.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5398, 6 March 1879, Page 2

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1879.

The Eastern Question continues a standing trouble. Lato telegrams tell us of a fresli insurrection in Thessaly, and from another quarter of the murder of the Greek Archbishop in Adrianople, not by Mohammedans, but by Bulgarians,—that is, Christians of the same Church, but not of the same race as the Archbishop. These occurrences exhibit two distinct phases of . this Eastern trouble. The one illustrates the relations with their rulers of the Christian subjects of the Sultan, and the other their relations with each other. 1 The Rayahs, or Christians in European Turkey, are classed in three races. The most numerous are the Sclavs, southern ' members of that great Sclavonic family to which Russians, Poles, and half the population of the Austrian Empire belong. The Greeks come noxt in number. Then the Vlach3 or Wallacks, who call themselves Roumans, because claiming descent from Trajan's Roman colonists in those parts. They are really descended from those colonists, mixed with the aborigines of the country—the Latin strain being clearly shewn in the close resemblance they bear to the Italians, both in language and personal appearance. Most , of the provinces peculiarly inhabited by those several races are now independent, though the ultimate destiny of such small States is still problematical. Wallacia and Moldavia form a Roumanian princi- , pality. Of the Sclavonic provinces, Servia and Montenegro are free; Bulgaria is promised freedom, and Bosnia has been taken possession of by Austria. Fifty years ago half of Greece was sot free, after a long and desperate struggle for liberty; and the other half, which also shared in that struggle, but which still remains under the Moslem rule, now , seeks to be united to the independent kingdom. In most of the central pro- : vinces which still remain to the Porte, there is a miied population of the three ■ races; but though they all belong > to the one Church, they live in separate communities, and, as is usual among subject races, there is but little love between them — a circumstance which will of course enhanca the difficulty of consolidating them into a single Christian ' State, if that project should ever really come to be entertained. It is in fact this disunion which has been Russia's opporI tunity. But for it the Western Powers ' could long since have got rid of the Eastern Question by making Constantinople the head-quarters of a powerful native Christian empire, instead of a tottering Turkish one. But as the Eastern difticulty cannot bo got rid of at once as a whole, the endeavour of the Western Powers is to reduce it piecemeal; and so, among other things, the Berlin Treaty made over to the Greek Kingdom two of the outlying Greek-inhabited districts, Thessaly and Epirus. But the Government in Athens was not able on this cession to take possession, as Austria did of Bosnia. Independent Greece is a petty kingdom, with i but a million and a-lialf of pcoplo and little revenue, and cannot put above twenty thousand organised troops into the field. Heither was it clear that the Powers represented in the Berlin Conference would suffer this armed movement as an embarrassment to Turkey. And, as for Russia, it is a noticeable fact that though always playing off the Greeks against the Turks, her action during the late war and the negotiations which followed it was, uniformly, unfriendly to the enlargement of the Greek Kingdom. Designing to make the Turkish provinces her own, it was not her polioy to strengthen the local nationalties, and in this way she has now disgusted Greeks, Roumanians, and Servia is, all round. Some months ago M. Waddington, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, declared that it was the wish of his Government that the Berlin arrangements, in behalf of Greek extension, should bo carried into effect. Most, or all of the other Governments are said to be acquiescent, and the renewed rising in Thessaly will now bring the matter to an issue. Extraordinary enthusiasm in favour of this people was excited throughout Europe by that long and terrible war between the Greek insurgents and the Turks, from 1822 to 1828. That enthusiasm pervaded every country, though it did not affect the various Governments, otherwise the struggle would not have been suffered to last so long. Roused by the spectacle, Europe remembered the debt her civilization owes to ancient Hellas, —that wonderful nation, which gave the world its grandest ideas, its sublimest examples in philosophy, arts, and arms ! But the world did not expect to see any such uprising of tho modern Greeks. Travellers only knew of them from the degenerate s|)ecimens they beheld living under Moslom masters in tho seaports—a people with an evil name throughout the East for lying and cheating, cunning and treachery. Any other Greeks were only heard of as robbers on the land and pirates on the sea. Of course four hundred years under the dull, barbaric Turkish tyranny, and tlio ages before that under the iron Roman hand, were not calculated to improve the Hellenic race. In fact, conquest acted on them as on most races—it split them in great part into two great classes—tho timid who yielded and became slaves with the mean vices of slaves, and the bold who would not yield, and became outlaws with the fierce vices of such. The mountainous nature of the country favoured the retreat of the bolder spirits who were thus able to maintain a wild independence. Some of those districts were never conquered by the Turks. The Suliotes in the inaccessible mountains of Epirus, the Sfakiotes in those of Crete, the Mainotes in those of the ancient Laconia were the most conspicuous of those fierce patriot populations. Like the Sclavonic Montenegrins in another part of the Turkish Empire, they and the Turks waged continual and merciless war. Those mountaineers and the islanders of the Archipelago began the war of independence —the islanders being also a population of bold and free spirit, for the Turks, never a maritime people, had not settled in the smallor islands, merely exacting tribute there. A3 might be expected from the wild and motley composition of tho insurgent forces, the leaders were men of very various character. Many were like Colocstroni and Odysseus—able partisans, but lawloss and selfish adventurers, postponing or sacrificing the national object to their personal feuds and ambition. Other*, like Ipsilanti and Mavrocordato, belonging to the Fanariot families of Constantinople, had received a foreign education, and had the ways and ideas of European gentlemen. Some, like the Suliot chief, Marco Botzaris, " the Leonidas of modern Greece," and the gallant islander, Canaris, so remarkable for his exploits ■with fireships against the Turkish navy, were genuine heroes, of whom old Hellas could have been proud. Men flocked

from every country of Europe to the Greek standard, Byron -with the rest. Greek merchants abroad lavishly contributed money and fitted out ship 3. The war could not have lasted for six years but for the strength of. the country and. the incapacity of the Turkish generals. Quarter was rarely given on either side, and half the Greek population perished. Even the massacre of Chios did not move the European Governments to interfere, but they at last listened to the public voice of their countries when Ibrahim Pacha and his Egyptian army commenced a process of extermination in the Morea. That produced.Navarino, and soon after half of Greece was proclaimed independent. The little kingdom, though poor and barren, ha 3 made wonderful progress in education and commerce ; the popular tongue is being fast restored to its antique classical purity, and it is not impossible that the people, from their intellectual , ability, may again make a figure in the world. It is to be hoped that the outlying Greek provinces may be added to the independent State. They should not be left to fall some day into the grasp of Russia or Austria—quite as bad a fate as if the Ottoman were able to retain tliem. , i ;