SOLUTIONS FOR THE EASTERN PROBLEM 



1153 



progressive European government gives 

 security for a life and property, permits 

 wealth to accumulate and population to 

 increase, and makes some provision for 

 education. As Egypt has thriven under 

 English administration, so has Bosnia 

 under Austrian. If the Christian na- 

 tionalities do not wish to be incorporated 

 in the Austrian or Russian dominions, 

 it is not because they prefer the Turk to 

 the Russian or the Austrian, but because, 

 looking for the early extinction of the 

 Sultanate, they have ulterior hopes for 

 their own people which that incorpora- 

 tion would destroy. There would, there- 

 fore, be some immediate gain to the in- 

 habitants of the Turkish provinces from 

 the extinction of European, and pri- 

 marily of Russian rule. 



This solution is that which seems 

 easiest, and which may probably come 

 about if things are left to themselves, 

 Russia dividing with Austria the Euro- 

 pean part of the Ottoman dominions, 

 and subsequently either acquiring for 

 herself or dividing with Germanv the 

 Asiatic part. The same law which has 

 carried her over all northern Asia and 

 over half of central Asia, the law which 

 carried the English in a century over all 

 India, will naturally bestow upon her 

 Turkey, or so much of Turkey as other 

 European States do not prevent her 

 from appropriating. 



Is this result to be desired in the in- 

 terests either of other States, or of the 

 peoples of the East, or of mankind at 

 large ? 



States which, like France and Great 

 Britain, have got all they want already, 

 and seek no share of the spoils, may well 

 be unwilling to see an empire already 

 gigantic extend itself over territories 

 which might one day become formidable 

 to its strength. Into the special motives 

 which France may have for safeguard- 

 ing her influence over the Catholics of 

 the East or Britain may have in respect 

 of her presence in Egypt and in India, 

 there is no need to speak, for apart from 

 those much-debated interests, the gen- 

 eral interest which all States have in see- 

 ing no one State abnormally expand is 

 evident enough. 



The races and religious communities 

 of the East — it is by religion rather than 

 by race that men are united and organ- 

 ized in those countries — are animated by 

 a sentiment which is in some, as among 

 the Mussulmans generally, religious 

 rather than national, and which in others,, 

 as with the Bulgarians and Armenians,, 

 is now quite as much national as re- 

 ligious. It is in all cases opposed to ab- 

 sorption by any European power. 



These races have not behind them the 

 splendid record of great achievements in 

 literature, in art, in government, which 

 in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and 

 England inspires national feeling. But 

 they have the recollection of a tenacious 

 adherence to their faith and language 

 through centuries of grievous oppression, 

 mingled with the dim traditions of their 

 ancient days of independence, and bright- 

 ened by the hope of a national life in 

 the future. These aspirations deserve 

 more respect from the western nations 

 than they usually receive, for there is 

 nothing in which men show more want 

 of imagination than in the failure to ap- 

 preciate under a different exterior the 

 sentiments which they value among 

 themselves. 



Apart, however, from the wishes of 

 the several Eastern peoples, apart from 

 those special interests which each of the 

 European States has, or thinks it has, in 

 the settlement of these questions, what is 

 it that ought to be desired by those who, 

 studying the tendencies that have been 

 at work, and the forces that are now at 

 work in moulding the world, seek what 

 will be ultimately the best for progress? 

 What sort of a reconstitution of the East 

 will best serve the common interests of 

 humanity in that future which the evi- 

 dent decay of Mussulman power has for 

 two centuries been preparing? 



The most conspicuous feature in the 

 evolution of the modern world has been 

 the eiTacement of the smaller and the 

 growth of the larger nations and nation- 

 alities. The great States have become 

 greater, while the small States have been 

 vanishing. The great languages are cov- 

 ering the world ; the minor languages are 

 being forgotten. Only a few types of 

 character, of intellectual life, of social 



