Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎126r] (259/312)

ENGLAND AND CABUL.
h [reuter's telegram.]
bombay, oct. 11.
The Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore states
that General Haines will take the command at
Peshawur. The force is composed of 35,000
men. An outbreak of hostilities is regarded as
inevitable.
It is believed that Ali Musjid is armed with
stronger guns than was expected. The Afghans
are practising with heavy guns in the Khyber
Pass. The garrison of Peshawur is being
stjrongly reinforced.
W hile the volunteered explanation of the
Russian return to Tchekmedji* and Tchataldja—
prepared for European credulity—is that the
defenceless condition of the Christian population
in Constantinople necessitates that step, quite
another reason is revealed by the telegraphic
despatches from our Special Correspondent at
Pera and other sources which we publish to
day. As to the charge against the Mussul
mans of ill-treating Christians upon the with
drawal of the occupyiijg army, it seems to
have been promptly investigated by Sir H enry
L a yard , with the result of discovering that
very few cases of violence had occurred, and that
these had been perpetrated by the desperadoes
! whom the Russian troops leave behind in
their track. We should be obliged, therefore, to
dismiss at once such an excuse, for the illegal
action of th6 Czar's Government even if no
more probable elucidation were furnished; but
the message of our Correspondent places it
beyond doubt that this solicitude for the Chris
tians of Roumeiia is the merest and falsest
pretext. He states that Prince L obanoff , in an
interview with S afvet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. on Wednesday,
told the Grand Vizier very frankly that a
definitive treaty between Russia and Turkey
must be concluded without delay. It must be
based, the Russian representative added, on the
points in the San Stefano Treaty which that of
Berlin had passed over, and until his master had
made such' a convention with the Porte there
■would and did esisfc a "state of war" between |
the Governments. The Czar's agent finished by
declaring that the Russian troops w T ould certainly
not evacuate Adrianople until three months had
elapsed from the ratification of such a comDact.
| This revelation—the general truth of which it
j will be difficult for the Government of St. Peters-
| burg to impugn—puts on one side completely the
| mendacious pretence that anxiety for the Chris-
j tians inspired the retrograde movement of the
| retiring Russians. For the twentieth time we
l see them pursuing a policy the hidden object
■ of which is one thing and the published cause
entirely another ; nor need we waste time in
pointing out what is notorious, that alone among
European statesmen Russian diplomats can never
again be trusted to tell the truth or keep their
word. We pass over this commonplace of modern
history to observe that the terms of the conven
tion thus pressed upon the Porte are already
known in their superficial but not in their secret
clauses. The chief point among the conditions
made public, and remaining from the San Stefano
document, is the payment of a very considerable
indemnity in money, being the balance of a per
fectly absurd and fantastic sum, of which it suits
the vanity of the Czar to pretend that his Asiatic
gains in territory are worth about a thousand
million roubles. If he had fixed their value at
fourteen thousand millions the demands of San
; Stefano would have been exactly satisfied by this
imaginary arithmetic. But Rus&ia wants a
pecuniary hold over Turkey, and since tho
Berlin Congress refused to deal with the matter,
the invading Power has a technical ground for
| pressing the claim. The Porte, however, is
j equally at liberty to refuse any such sacrifice
beyond what has been already yielded in com
pliance with-the views of the Congress; and
Russia would have but a poor prospect of either
completing the bankruptcy of the Sultan's
Empire, or compelling A bdul H amid to submit
to the secret conditions which no doubt are also
proposed, if it were riot for the totally unjustifi
able menaces with which the extortion is being
accompanied.
The Russian representative, iij appears, insists
upon the conclusion of this separate concordat
on the ground that failing its execution the
state of war exists and will continue between
the two Governments. Now this in itself is an
impudent resuscitation of the San Stefano
Treaty, and ,a contemptuous disregard of the
superior authority belonging to that signed ir.
Berlin by the European Powers. Nothing is
more certain than that the Congress proceeded
upon the submission of the Saif Stefano docu
ment to the Plenipotentiaries, or that the instru-t
ment drawn up and signed by them replaced and
abolished the compact wrung from the Porte by
grossly unfair proceedings. Besides, the Berlin
Treaty gave to the Czar certain territories of the
Sultan on the double basis that the San Stefano
pact should be dropped, and that peace for tho
future existed between the belligerents. Conse-
: quently it is at once most flagrantly immoral as
well as grossly insulting to Europe to lay hands on
i Kars and the rest of those concessions and then
turn round and say, " But if we do not also get
the money bargained for at San Stefano, it is
still ' war' between us, and we shall not re
linquish the Turkish provinces which we hold."
In this last threat occurs, indeed, a second affront
offered to European law, for the Berlin Congress
made the evacuation of Roumeiia depend, rict
upon petitions from the Christians, or upon thd
compliance of the Porte with any ulterior exi
; actions, but on the lapse of certain intervals of
| time very plainly defined. This conduct, then, on,
the part of Russia is violently unfaithful to her
signature and cynically insolent towards the sigt
natories of the Berlin peace ; nor is it confined to
mere verbal menace. Not only have her troops
halted in their homeward march far short of
Adrianople, and actually returned to 'occupy the
commanding lines of Tchekmedji and Tchataldja,
but General S kobelefp declines simultaneously
to evacuate Bourgas and Kirk Kilissa, and the
Russian authorities have suspended the railwf^f
service in order to gather all rolling stock at
Adrianople. The numbers which have been sd
ostentatiously forwarded to Odessa from Sar^
Stefano and Rodosto were largely composed 0$
sick or non-combatant men, and it is said that—t
again in defiance of the provisions of the treaty—
the Russians retain, and mean long to retain, a
total of one hundred and fifty thousand soldiersi
north and south of the Balkans. In this statei
of affairs there would naturally be but one course
for the Porte to pursue. It would adduce the
very obvious arguments which we have used,
founded upon the Berlin Treaty, and then flatly
refuse even to entertain the idea of paying an
| indemnity, or of agreeing to those other demands,
its provisional consent to which at San Stefano
had been voided by subsequent events and by
the superior authority of the document signed
at Berlin. Strong on these moral and poli
tical grounds, it might then summon Russia to
fulfil her undertakings conformably to her word,
and call upon the signatory States at the same
time to support at once their own honour and
the rights of his Imperial Highness the Sultan.
But though, no doubt, some such step will be
taken by the Porte, it must not be forgotten that
Russia has chosen the hour for this trick of
diplomacy with consummate art. Austria, by
her mismanagement of the Bosnian business, has
been led into deplorable bloodshed, which makes
it difficult or impossible for the Sultan's Govern^
ment to join hands with her in any convention^,
England is supposed to be absorbed in the Indian,,
crisis cunningly prepared for her. Germany^
wants peace at any price, in order that she may
1 deal with internal difficulties, and France is in
the same condition, while Italy and Austria have
an international quarrel privately ripening, which,
Russia knows how to foment, so that the Porte
may all the more probably be left to its fate. A
study of these and other collateral features of tha
situation will throw light upon the scorn with
which Russian generals and diplomats have re
cently spoken of the Berlin Treaty, even before
the Roumelian Commissioners. They do not
mean to set it violently aside, for this would bo
dangerous ; but they propose to re-establish be
tween its lines all they care for of the lapsed
San Stefano arrangement, and, by creating con
stant delays, to make the Berlin Treaty prac
tically null and void, except in those provisions
by which they have already profited. If they can
but be allowed, unreprimanded, thus to threaten
Turkey with oontinued hostility and the na
tional agony and anarchy of this occupation, they
trust either to extort special supplementary
terms, which will make the Sultan their vassal,
or by foregoing these upon favourable conditions
to wrest from his fears or jealousies a friendly
alliance by which our English policy in Asia
Minor will be defeated, and the grand double-
headed conspiracy that aims at India and Con
stantinople virtually advanced far beyond tho
limits which the Congress seemed to fix.
If such sinister scheming be not promptly dis
avowed and relinquished it will be impossible
for the British Government to permit its pro-