(7.): To Mr. Bright

Two Reasons against Political Despondency.

“June 5, 1860.—I am sorry to see that you have been laid up. Depend on it, you overdo the work in proportion to your forces. Don’t let public matters worry you. Why should you? Whatever evils befall the country, you at least, in proportion to your strength, have done more than your share to prevent them. There are two things which we must always bear in mind when we grow impatient or desponding. How much has been done before us: how many will come after us to do what remain to be done.”

In 1860 violent disturbances broke out among the Christian population of Syria. They were followed by the dispatch of a force of occupation from the European powers, and a commissioner was appointed for the re-organization of Syria. The discussion in the spring of 1861, between the French and English Government, turned on the continuance of the European occupation.

“Algiers, 18th March, 1861.—From what I hear from Paris, the two Governments are wrangling over Syrian matters. After what I saw of the spirit of the Foreign Office, it is always a source of wonder to me how any business in which the two Governments are concerned ever comes to an issue, and how they escape for six months from a rupture. For recollect, it is not merely Lord John’s lecturing, but the ill-conditioned temper of—and the subordinates with whom the details of the negotiations rest, that has to be borne by the French Government. No one can defend, on principle, the French intervention in Syria. But our Government violates the principle of non-intervention towards the Turk every day; and every statesman in Europe, with the sole Exception of Palmerston, recognizes the unavoidable fall of Ottoman rule at an early day, and the necessity of providing or recognizing some other mode of governing Turkey. Our Government alone now contends for the contends for the integrity of that ghastly phantom, the Ottoman Porte, at the same time that it lends its sanction by conferences at Paris, and commissions in Syria and Constantinople, to the violation of the rights of the Sultan’s sovereignty. It is only when it is convenient for a topic for diplomatic wrangle with Russia and France, or to reconcile the British public to a war, that the Sublime Porte is paraded as an independent Power, whose sovereign rights are to be treated with respect. Is there no way of bringing matters to a different attitude? In my opinion nothing can be so dangerous as the present mode of treating the Turkish question. Either we ought to apply the same principle as in Italy—viz. allow the races of the same language and religion to join in putting down a foreign domination—or else to interfere to some final purpose. If the Great Powers will allow the Greeks outside of the present Turkish Empire to give their fellow-countrymen, or at least their co-religionists of the same language and race, material aid, they will soon succeed, with the aid of the other Christian sects, in driving the Turks beyond the Bosphorus, and ere long in securing possession of the coast of Asia Minor and Syria. And why should this not be permitted by those who are so warm in their support of Garibaldi, who sallied forth from Nice with no better title of overturn the Neapolitan Government than the people of Athens or Syria would possess to drive the Turks from their less justifiable domination in Constantinople? In fact the foreigner has practically ruled Italy longer than the Osmanlis have possessed the ancient capital of the Greeks. But if England is not prepared to allow the Christians to drive out their Mahometan rulers, what is she prepared to do? Surely it becomes a great country to have a policy which lifts its diplomacy out of the reach of mere intrigue and endless altercation and gossip, such as characterizes our present abortive proceedings on the Turkish question. The way in which we tolerate, nay perpetuate, the hideous evils of the Sultan’s Government, because it is not convenient to our politicians to bring the Eastern Question to an issue—the way in fact in which we prevent a body from dying which is no longer able to live, and look on complacently whilst millions of intelligent beings are suffering from contact with this despotism, tends to degrade Englishmen in the eyes of foreign nations, presenting us in the light of a selfish and unsympathizing people.

“There are a couple of volumes of De Tocqueville’s correspondence and remains lately published, and in his letters to Senior and other English friends (which are full of interest), he alludes very delicately to the little sympathy felt for us in our Indian troubles by the nations of the Continent, and attributes it to the general impression that prevails (and which he says is not quite unfounded), that the English people make their foreign policy entirely subservient to their own narrow interests.”