THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1903. THE BALKAN CRISIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12240, 8 April 1903, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1903. THE BALKAN CRISIS.

One of the most remarkable features of the present Balkan crisis—to us by far the most remarkable—is the passive attitude maintained by cur Imperial Government. A generation ago, such news as that which is daily being received from the South-east of Europe would iu.ve set the United Kingdom ablaze with excitement, the reserves would have been called out, the Mediterranean Squadron would have been strengthened and British warships, if not actually within the Bosphorus, would have been waiting with banked fires at Besika Bay. The music-hall and the rostrum would have rung with the hot words and the stern warnings which would have been respectively demanded from them. And every British colony would have been stirred to its depths by sympathetic enthusiasm. Yet to-day, the British people watch as coolly as the British Government the turmoil that shakes the Balkan Peninsula. Left without a national cue the whole Empire as stolidly awaits the outcome of events. It is an extraordinary and yet a most natural situation. Bismarck' blunt assertion that the whole of the Balkans was not worth the life of a single Pomeranian grenadier may almost be taken as the present spirit of the British States, which have seemingly come to the unanimous conclusion that we may need every ship and every man for more imperative necessities than to maintain the Turkish Power at Constantinople, whatever may replace him. Yet in spite of this national passivity of ours, as day succeeds day and incident follows incident, it becomes more and more evident that we have in view not merely a struggle of minor States for reform and autonomy, but a great political upheaval which is testing the right of the Turk to remain , in Europe. That the Turk is utterly Unfit to govern, from our Western conceptions of government, goes without saying. But so is the Russian. In Finland, a State kindred to our own in race and custom, Russia is trampling with feet of iron upon representative institutions and Teutonic liberties. But Russia is strong and powerful, strong enough and powerful enough to make it utterly impossible for any Western Power to intervene successfully on behalf of the Finns. The Tsar, noble advocate of disarmament and arbitration, has the right to do what he will in Finland because he is strong enough. Is the Sultan similarly 'strong enough to do as he will in 'Macedonia and. Albania and, to throw: back

any possible invading force which may attempt to intervene ? The question may be answered in the negative. Yet upon an affirmative reply depends the " right" pf the Porte to keep possession of its European provinces. If the Sultan cannot maintain order Austrian and Russian troops will maintain it for him, as he has been definitely warned. In the process they can hardly fail to eventually oust him from the Golden Horn. This is the position as it is gradually defining itself, or rather as it is being defined by the Austro-Eussian combination. And there is only one way for the Sultan to maintain order, faced as he is by Moslem Albanians as well as by Christian Macedonians and Bulgarian raiders— unanimity of revolt on the face of it sufficient to prove how utterly the Porte misgoverns and how worthless have been Turkish pledges of reform. That way is to pour barbaric Asiatic hordes upon the insurgents, smothering insurrection by the appalling and horrifying atrocities which ever follow in the train of such uniformed savages. This course is being urged upon the Porte by Russia and Austria, who belie their Christianity in the counsels they are giving and appear determined to egg on the Sultan to the most ruthless measures. The pretence is, of course, that thus only can the Balkan rising be suppressed and the peace of Europe be maintained. But it is far more likely that the hidden motive of such counsel is to secure the most plausible pretext for armed intervention. If intervention takes place—a step for which Austria and Russia and the minor States of Bulgaria and Servia have prepared by mobilisationthere may thus be commenced a military movement which will not cease until the Turk is forced back into Asia unless some powerful champion steps to his side or he is able alone, with Albania estranged, to combat the two Empires and their dependent Balkan principalities.

We often say, because we perpetually hear, that both Russia and Austria wish to maintain the established Balkan order until they are ready to partition Turkey and that therefore they are sincerely interested in the preservation of present peace. But it may be considered very doubtful if they are likely to obtain a more convenient opportunity. The widespread insurrectionary movement, if it can make headway against Turkish arms, must undermine the Turkish strength and smooth the path of an Austro-Russian army of occupation. We may be very sure that, the shrewd diplomatists of the Tsar have gauged the feeling of the United Kingdom and it is very evident that Germany will not and that France cannot ■ interfere. Unless Turkey can stand alone there would not seem to be a more opportune time for giving her the coup de ru'ace, a fate which she has richly deserved for centuries, as has Russia likewise. Nor is it at- all unlikely that there is truth in the story which the Novoe Vremya accuses British agents of telling to the Macedonians, that Russia desires their revolt in order to intervene. The " agent provocateur" is a Continental institution; Balkan officials, promoters of revolutionary societies and influential politicians are largely in the pay of Russia or otherwise affiliated with the Russian designs. In the dark and tortuous mazes of Asiatic diplomacy— Russia is distinctly Asiatic few thousand lives, a few massacres, a few false pretences — simply do not count. The end is everything, the means nothing. And if Austria can be bribed with Salonka, Germany solaced in Asia Minor or elsewhere, France cajoled, Britain ignored, and Turkey overpowered, we may take one thing as certain, amid all the uncertainties of the East, that thought of humanity or adherence to the truth will never interfere with that cherished dream of the Muscovite, the enthroning of the Tsar as Emperor of the East at Constantinople.