The Powers ought to take to heart such lurid warnings. But that is not all. It is not even the most important consequence of the unexplained and inexplicable attack of paralysis which has seized the European Concert for some weeks past. If among the Powers there are some who pursue really, under the cover of a simultaneous action and a decorous mutual consultation, peculiar and egoistical ends; if some among them expect to find their interest either in pushing Turkey in the path of obstinacy or in hindering a prompt and efficient mediation, they may be left to their own conscience and to that nemesis of human affairs which generally manages to chastise breaches of faith and other sins against the light. But if, as I believe with my whole heart, there are, too, Powers, liberal Powers, sincerely attached to the cause of freedom and progress and justice in mankind, penetrated with the conviction that the only way to prevent a formidable war and to preserve to the world the inestimable good of peace is to maintain and to consolidate that new international being, the European Concert; if they have made painful sacrifices to this end, specially in relation with their peculiar and hereditary traditions of policy in the East, and of friendship with the Christian nationalities of the Ottoman Empire-then they must reflect on the incredible madness of their present conduct.

They are engaged in breaking the instrument they had just created at such expense. They are not only compromising gravely the peaceful issue of the present crisis, but rendering absolutely nugatory beforehand the endeavours they are going to make again for the reform, that is to say for the salvation, of the Ottoman Empire, when the time comes. They are playing the sorry part of dupes in a company of subtle statesmen, little troubled by overscrupulousness. To my mind, the present situation is one of the most critical, I do not only say in the history of the Eastern Question, but in the fate of the fabric of modern Europe.

At the end of last century there was, too, put before the States and the statesmen of the period a difficult and redoubtable problem. I dare to say the partition of Poland-that is to say, the suppression of a legitimate, living, historical State, with a nation full of life and wanting to remain free--was for the Powers who took part in it, or who allowed the crime to be consummated under their eyes, something of a trial and a judgment. The old order of things was put to the touch of a terrible temptation; it was unable to meet it as it ought; it was condemned to disappear.

The French Revolution, under its international aspect, was, as my friend M. Albert Sorel has so well shown, in its way a trial work, rather a link in a chain than a first beginning. It was the execution of the sentence, and France, revolutionary France, not less than the monarchical and reactionary Powers, was only in fact applying the principles of the old diplomacy and following the path of the ancient

policy. For the Nineteenth century in its death throes it seems the Eastern Question is fated to play the part of the Poland business for our forefathers.

I fear greatly that until now modern Europe has not grown up to the level of the problem she must resolve or die. I fear the new or even the newest contrivances of diplomacy have been put in the scales and found wanting. The Armenian affair, the Cretan business, and now this Greco-Turk war, have been, one and all, lamentable miscarriages. It is high time for the Western Powers to redeem their faults and their error. To my mind, the only way to do so is not to wait until it is too late in order to mediate efficiently between the two belligerents. The occupation of Larissa by Edhem Pasha, and the withdrawal of the Duke of Sparta and of the remainder of the Greek army behind Pharsalus, are only reasons the more for the immediate interference of Europe. Turkey has brilliantly demonstrated the vitality of her military power in the midst of the decomposition of the State. Edhem has given a necessary, beneficent lesson to Greek arrogance. However, everybody knows, as I have said before, that the conscience of mankind can neither allow the Crescent to reconquer an inch of God's earth given over to freedom and the Cross, nor permit the wholesale destruction of Greece. It is high time for the so-called Areopagus to put forth its verdict, and to begin again, where it has left it off, the work of the reformationthat is to say, of the salvation-of the East. Any pedantic scruple, any tardiness, any miserable waiting on the occasion, will only make the Powers the laughing-stock of mankind. Now or never! The hour has struck when Europe must either justify by her action her high claims, or abdicate for ever, and write once more in the Book of History un gran rifiuto.

Paris: April 25, 1897.

FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ.

SIDE-LIGHTS

ON THE CRETAN INSURRECTION

ENGLISH newspapers and periodicals have recently been flooded with speeches, articles, and letters in connection with the Cretan Question. Indignation meetings have denounced in most unmeasured terms the tyranny of Turkey and the incapacity of the Powers. The question at issue has been invested with a religious character by the public utterances of Nonconformist and Anglican divines, whose main line of argument seems to be that, as Christians we are bound to sympathise with and assist other Christians, whatever be the nature of their political aims and objects.

A careful analysis of this excited rhetoric and literature reveals the fact that when it gets beyond the stage of mere a priori assumption, it is based almost entirely upon the telegraphic information furnished by correspondents. The messages dispatched by a number of comparatively obscure individuals in Crete, to the effect that a church has been desecrated, or some insurgents killed by English shell-fire-these are enough to furnish the data for a special prayer' or a determination to secede from one's political party. The readers of some of our leading European newspapers must often be puzzled when they find that the leading articles before them discuss Cretan. affairs with impartiality and moderation, while the telegraphic communications printed in another column seem generally to ignore the possibility of there being more than one side to the question. Some few days ago Mr. Labouchere with his usual acuteness laid stress upon this very discrepancy in the House of Commons.

The expulsion from Crete of the Greek consuls and correspondents aroused great indignation at the time, but anyone who has had any experience of Greek journalistic methods must realise the ample justification which existed for such a step. Juvenal's estimate of Greek veracity is as valid to-day as that of his Apostolic contemporary with regard to the Cretans. The best endeavours of the representatives of the Powers to restore order in Crete were continually hindered by telegrams which were a mélange of falsehood and exaggeration. A perusal of Greek newspapers, and still more of the Athenian telegrams

which are sold broadcast in Greece for five lepta each, will convince anyone of the truth of this assertion. Our excellent Consul at Canea, Sir Alfred Biliotti, who has acted throughout the struggle with perfect. justice to Turks and insurgents alike, is, because of this very impartiality, accused by every Greek one meets in the interior of the island, from Colonel Vasos downwards, of deliberately sending false reports to the British Government and being in the pay of Turkey!

Even after the departure of these Hellenic journalists the taint of one-sidedness still seems to infect a great deal of the correspondence dispatched from Crete. The European correspondents live in the towns; they cannot, with rare exceptions, speak either Greek or Turkish; they seldom seek for any information from the Ottoman authorities, and depend largely on the news brought to them by Christians whose natural untruthfulness is not minimised by the destruction of their property. The interpreters who are employed in Crete are almost exclusively Christians, and one may be certain that no fact detrimental to the cause of the insurgents will be communicated by these persons if they can possibly avoid it. Further, the great majority of the correspondents in Crete are Philhellenic to begin with. One important telegraphic agency in Canea is under the absolute control of a Cretan Christian, who is, very naturally, devoted entirely to the interests of the Philhellenic party. Partisanship in such a case as this is, of course, natural; but the matter is very different when one finds European correspondents going out of their way to frame telegrams which will show up the Turks and, one may add, the Powers in an unfavourable light. Incidents which might tend to lessen our sympathy for the cause of the insurgents are purposely omitted, and alleged facts are sometimes telegraphed home in spite of reliable information to the contrary brought from the interior of the island. At other times any statement made by a Christian which may serve for the contents of an ad misericordiam telegram is at once dispatched without apparently any attempt to personally verify the details.

Take, for example, the stories of Turkish cruelty, outrage, and breach of faith which figure so prominently in the speeches of gentlemen who attack the conduct of the Government. Stress was laid in the House of Commons and elsewhere upon the unprincipled conduct of the Turkish officials who had, according to Colonel Vasos, re-armed the refugees from Selinos in direct violation of their pledges to the contrary. This story was telegraphed home without any scruple or question; it has, nevertheless, since been proved to be absolutely groundless by a commission of European officers, who expressly exonerated the Turkish officers from the charges brought against them. Another indignant telegram recently announced that the Turks at Kissamo Kastelli had demolished some Christian houses while the Europeans looked on. Yet the destruction of these houses

was perfectly justifiable, as the insurgents were endeavouring under cover of the buildings to mine the fortifications. On the 2nd of April we find a Cretan Bishop speaking as follows in an Appeal to the civilised Peoples of Christian Europe:''The plundering of sacred temples and their vessels, the massacres of innocent Christian women and children, the countless destructions of property, the robberies which are still practised against Christians by the unbridled Turkish mob and soldiery are indescribable.' The exaggeration of this paragraph is so great that it amounts practically to a tissue of falsehoods. Let us turn our attention to concrete facts which are carefully ignored by the Bishop. The story of the desecration of the Catholic church at Candia by the Turkish soldiery has been disproved absolutely by Admiral Canevaro after a searching inquiry. A telegram about the desecration of the church of äyios 'Iwávvns near Canea was sent off by a correspondent without any attempt on his part to verify the alleged facts, which were greatly exaggerated. At Candia I visited the large Greek church, the priest of which informed me, like a second Elijah, that he alone was left of all the Christian clergy, the rest of his colleagues having literally obeyed the scriptural injunction and fled from the city. Here was a church deserted by its worshippers in the midst of thousands of Moslem refugees and unprotected by soldiers. How easy it would have been to set fire to it any dark night! Yet no injury whatever had been done to the building, not even a pane of glass broken. How many Mohammedan mosques are left standing outside Candia, Canea and Retymo? None. Even amongst ourselves how long in, say, an Ulster village would a Roman Catholic chapel deserted by its congregation keep its doors and windows intact? To state that Christian women and children are being massacred by unbridled Turks is sheer rhodomontade. Nothing whatever of the kind takes place. During a recent visit to Candia, information was brought me by three Christians, that a party of Bashibazouks had just returned from a foray on the village of Elea and had brought with them two Christian heads. I hunted high and low for these heads, but they were not forthcoming, and a little cross-examination revealed the fact that the whole story was a pure fabrication. As to robbery, the pillage of a Christian house in the outskirts of a town is about as productive an operation as the pillage of a defunct bonfire. I have occasionally seen a few men and women wading amongst the charred débris of the houses, and picking up odd pieces of scrap iron, fragments of bedsteads and so on. As to the Christian houses still standing in the towns, these are now efficiently guarded by patrols of European troops who have taken over all police duties. But even before the arrival of our troops I stayed two evenings at Candia, where I was informed that every night the Moslems looted the empty houses of the Christians; yet I certainly saw no sign of this, though I walked