When we reflect on these things we can appreciate the touching pathos of the appeal of the Herzegovina insurgents to the great powers: —
- Surely the poor people here are entitled to compassion from those who have feelings of humanity, and to some effort to assist them in their deplorable state — in their opprobrious servitude; where the cry is continually heard, "O Lord, send us our death!" ("Parliamentary Papers," No. ii., p. 34.)
Now let it be remembered that all the charges which I have made thus far against the Turkish government can be established by the evidence of Parliamentary papers, and of independent testimony like that of Mr. Nassau Senior's "Journal kept in Turkey and Greece." But more than that, the Turkish government admits that the insurrection is traceable "to the unseemly conduct" of its own "functionaries," and that the insurgents have substantial causes of complaint.[1]
Moreover, the Andrassy Note asserts that the rayahs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bulgaria was not then on the tapis) are "oppressed under the yoke of a real servitude," which reduces them in fact to the condition of "slaves;" that the Porte has habitually broken its most solemn promises, so that it can no longer be trusted; and therefore that "it is absolutely necessary that the powers should be in a position to appeal to acts, . . . in one word, that their action may be grounded on facts and not on programmes."[2] Yet with all these facts before him Lord Beaconsfield finds a full and satisfactory explanation of insurrections in European Turkey in the dark machinations of secret societies! For my part, I wish God speed to all societies, be they secret or open, who will help to break the yoke of the most cruel and debasing tyranny that has ever been allowed by an inscrutable Providence to make millions of human beings unspeakably wretched. Mr. Forster's speech has been much praised for its moderation and fairness. But Mr. Forster confirms in substance all that I have said.
- We want no Russian intrigues [he says], no Servian ambition, to account for the attempted insurrection in Bulgaria or for the insurrections in Bosnia or Herzegovina. Such is the Turkish rule, that these insurrections must be expected. They have happened time after time, and so long as that rule lasts they will happen again. Nine years ago I was a short time in Turkey — in Asia Minor — and the impression I got there was that such was the government of Turks by Turks in the most Turkish part of their dominions in Asia Minor, that I felt that the people looked upon the government as their natural enemies, and did so on good grounds. Such is the oppression with which the taxes are gathered, the mode in which they are farmed, the amount that is demanded for the government itself, the far larger amounts taken by the officials, the utter corruption that exists among all the officials with regard to either the giving of justice or the exacting of taxes. That is an oppression which weighs upon Moslem and upon Christian alike; but when you come to those provinces in which there is a large number of Christians you have that aggravated by this fact — that not merely is the central government unjust, but that the Christian population is ill-treated by their Moslem neighbors, and is not protected by the government from that ill-treatment. Their evidence, as you know, is not fairly admitted in courts of justice. They are not allowed to arm, the Moslems are allowed to arm; the Moslems have their friends at Constantinople, the officials are Moslems, and what is the result? It is that property is not safe. The industrious Bulgarians have excited the envy of their neighbors by their industry, and the fruits of their industry are not safe; and, what is far more important, life is not safe, nor is the honor of women safe from constant outrages. I have known in this hall the people of Bradford collected together to sympathize with men who have risen as patriots to win liberty and freedom for themselves. We have sympathized with the Italians in their efforts to free themselves from the dominion of Austria, but you cannot for a moment compare the cases. We do not talk of political rights in this matter. It is a question of personal security from day to day, of being able to walk about in peace and safety, for a woman to be able to return to her house without being carried away and subjected to insult or worse than insult. It is a question of property being despoiled without the slightest chance of redress, and it does surprise me that when we know these things are constantly happening, when even the Turkish government does not deny them, but only says that it hopes at some future time to crush them, I am somewhat surprised to see Mr. Baring vent so much wrath on the "foreign instigators" or to be so much convinced that they were the instigators of this insurrection.
Mr. Forster went on to add that if he were one of the people whose miserable lot he described, he too would be an insurgent and a member of "what Lord Beaconsfield called the secret societies." And I have no doubt that he is within the mark when he expresses his conviction "that nine-tenths of those English writers who inveigh against them would be in the same position."
