BRITISH POLICY IN MACEDONIA

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8291, 21 September 1903, Page 4

BRITISH POLICY IN MACEDONIA

In the House of Commons, on .August I0t!« "Mr Ralfour, m reply to a question, said '—l am afraid that I have little to say to the House of an assuring or consolatory, character as to the news which reaches us from Macedonia. That portion 01 Europe has been long a source of difficulty and anxiety to European statesmen, and I am not <Toins, even in the most general criticisinof the action, or perhaps, I oughtto say inaction, of Europe during the twentyfive years which have elapsed since the Treaty of Berlin was signed. The right hon "irentleman knows as well as anybdy the "extreme difficulties which attach to the. problem which Europe thtjn set itself to settle; and though I should be the first to admit how little has been the success with which those efforts have been met I do not think the critics of European diplomacy to forget the extraordinary and complex difficulties with which the task is surrounded. As the House knows, it is not | I merely a question of dealing with the misrule of the dominant government. It is a question which raises local national animosities, not alone among Mahonimedans, but the' Christians in the area concerned. It is also a question which touches to the quick some of the most complicated problems of large European diplomacy. These are great aggravations of a deep-seated, disease; and much as I deplore with the right hon. gentleman tha total uhsuccess which so far_ has attended the efforts to deal with the situation. I mention it with more regret than Ido with surprise. I confess I had hoped, and still hope, that the more modest and simpler plan which we have recently desired to carry out to "the best of our ability might be more happy in its results —I mean the* simpler plan of admitting that in regard to Russia and Austria, who are chiefly concerned in this problem, it is the duty of the rest of Europe rather to support them and to further their ends so long as we are convinced that their ends are directed in no ambitious spirit to the amelioration of the population, and to further them all the mora heartily because the administrative reforms which they have suggested—doubtless totally inadequate as a final solution of the question—may, nevertheless, from their very modesty, be more easy of adaptation and of adoption. It is unfortunately true that the disorders which have prevailed in Macedonia ever since Austria and Russia took this plan have rendered it almost impossible, with the best will in the world, to do anything very important or very far-reaching in the directions even of carrying out that measure of reform, and I am afraid we have to admit that it is these insurrectionary and revolutionary bands themselves who have teen one of the chief obstacles to the success of thi joint schemes of Russia and Austria, which his Majesty's Government, and, I believe, all the Governments of Europe, are anxious, to the best of their ability, to further. I have to admit that the picture which the right hon. gentleman drew of the condition of the peasantry in Macedonia, lurid though it was, was not painted in colors too dark for the situation. The lot of these unhappy people, many of them Bulgarians, some Servians, some Greeks, some Roumanians, belonging to the different sections of tite Christian Church" and belonging by blood to different nationalities, has been, between the outrages deliberately planned by these revolutionary bodies of men and the license of the Turkish troops, a miserable one indeed. So far, I believe the historic truth requires us to say that the balance of criminality'lies rather with the revolutionary bands than with the Tur- 1 kish troops, and anything his Majesty's Government can do to impress upon the Porte the necessity of keeping the troops in hand, and every assistance we can give to the Porte in carrying out that object, will be given. I believe that the Porte is as keenly alive—l won't say to the humanitarian side of this question, as we are._but to the absolute necessity, from the political side, of repressing any excesses on the part of the Turkish troops— not a every easy task when there is a deliberate attempt, by provoking such excessss, to compel open European in~ J tervention. But lam convinced that the Porte is sincerely desirous of carrying out this policy of humanity, but the policy of obvious wisdom. At all events, such influence as we have will be exerted strenuously and without intermission in that direcWe have unfortunately no corresponding authority with the revolutionary bands. Their deliberate, and, I beliave. avowed, object is to make 'the condition of Macedonia so intolerable that there must be. at whatever cost to the general peace of the world, some intervention on the part of Austria or Russia or both. That is not the policy which his Majesty's Government dasires to foster. The policy we desire to further is the one I nave described, which meets with the general sympathy of the House, and it is probably in conformity with the views of the right hon. gentleman, which is to aid Austria and Russia in introducing those elementary principles of sound government, which, far as they may be removed from what we should ourselves desire to see, and which perhaps we may live to see, is yet probably the best plan for dealing in the immediate future with the deep-seated evils of these most unhappv portions of-theEuropeannations.