William Ewart Gladstone

“ The Turks are what circumstances have made them, and depend upon it that if a lot of us were taken and put in their circumstances we, either individually or as a race, would soon cease to do even the limited credit to the Christian name that we now bring to it. They exercise a perfectly unnatural domination over their fellow-creatures; and arbitrary power is the greatest corruptor of the human mind and heart. ”

“ To-night we have to deal with a very small portion indeed of the Turkish Empire. These ladies have described principally the northern part of Macedonia, the country lying immediately round the southern and western parts of Servia, and also Montenegro. Now, the Turkish Government is a government without any parallel, so far as I know, in the world. It is a government established by conquest, and in that respect it is exceedingly like a great many other governments that have been established by conquest. ”

“ It is extremely difficult for us to know the state of our own country. We know it but very imperfectly, although we have the assistance of a Press which is organised to the very highest degree, and although we have the aid which we derive from the invaluable privilege of public discussion, inherited from our forefathers, and never more valued than at present. In Turkey, on the other hand, we are dealing with a country in a state that is in some respects semi-barbarous, and in some respects worse than barbarous—meaning by the term barbarous a country in a very early stage of social progress. ”

“ If you consider what is done by our government—I do not mean a particular administration, but the whole constitution, or rather, the series of those who administer that constitution—if you consider the aspects of our own government, you must wipe them all out and put them away, and then start afresh to consider what the Turkish government is. ”

“ You will say, "How cowardly of the Christians to make no attempt to seize them;" but cowardice is one of those vices engendered by a long course of tyranny that crushes the very heart out of its victims. Wherever there is a subject and a dominant race, the vices of subjection belong not to the oppressed, but to the oppressor. It is on those who practise the oppression that the whole responsibility of these vices devolves. ”

“ They had an immense talent as a conquering race, as a military horde, and they understood right well the business of conquest, the business of bloodshed, the business of setting themselves up by force above their fellow-creatures. But, as to the ordinary arts of government, they neither understand them at all, nor care one pin about them. At times, in the course of the Turkish history, plans have been submitted to the Ottoman Porte—which, I believe, is the proper official name of the Government—for the total destruction and extermination of the whole of the Christians ”

“ My desire this evening is to do something, as far as time permits, towards providing my hearers with a clearer view of the interior condition of Turkey than is commonly possessed at present, and likewise to do something towards bringing home to the public mind that which is by many most strongly felt—namely, that down to the present moment, in the case of the people, in the case even of statesmen, aye, and very often in the case of travellers, who went to the East and who came back lamentably deficient of information, we all have been too much in the dark as to the real state of affairs. ”

“ When he has paid a ransom for his life, he will remain and serve our purposes. He will pay taxes for us; cultivate the soil for us. He will have no rights of property. His property will only be that which we do not want. So much of it as we want will be our property. He shall remain, therefore, upon these conditions; and, as to the concerns of his government, we are not going to bother ourselves as to the government of inferior animals, such as the populations of those countries that we have trodden under foot. ”

“ For example, the Norman Government was established in England by conquest, and was maintained for a certain time by force, and for a time there was a great inequality between a man who was a Norman by birth in England, and the condition of a man who was a Saxon, or a Briton, or a Dane by birth; but all these differences have long ago worn off, and we do not know whether a man is a Briton, a Jute, a Dane, or a Saxon, or a Roman, or a Celt; we have all happily settled down into one homogeneous whole. The case of Turkey is exactly the reverse. ”

“ Let them manage for themselves, so far as they can do so without interfering with our objects and purposes. As for their religion, let them shift for themselves: they have paid their ransom." The name given to the Christian population was "Rayahs." I am informed, or at least I have seen it printed in books, by those who profess to understand the Turkish language, which I do not, that "rayah" means ransomed—one who has paid a price for permission to live. Whether that be the meaning of the word or not, it is the essential idea of the condition of the Christians in the Turkish Empire. ”

“ The Montenegrins still maintain their military valour, but I do not believe that many excesses, if any, have been established against them in the present war. For two generations great pains have been taken by their sovereigns, and I believe with much of success, to establish peace and order and good government among them, and the representation of Miss Mackenzie and Miss Irby is that life and property are far more secure in Montenegro at this time than they are in Turkey, and that in the year preceding their visit the whole number of offences committed in the territory was but two. ”

“ An organic union of the different peoples constituting Turkey does not and cannot exist, because the denial of the equality of the subect in the face of the public authority carries logically, as a consequence, the violation of the sanctuary, of the family, of property, of religion, of personal existence. The Turk believes in his own supremacy over other people, and does not hold possible any relations between them except upon this condition. Lawyers are supposed to take judicial views of these matters, and such is the language of an Italian lawyer who has written upon this terrible subject. ”

“ To save him from the tortures, the foul insults and disgrace, to which he, whilst living, would have been exposed at the hands of the Turks. No doubt this is a wild and awful state of manners, but if the people are driven to this state of things, it is the oppressors who are responsible for it. It is idle for the oppressors to complain of conduct of this sort, because, the more they prove, the more they establish the ground of condemnation against themselves. ”

“ They rob the Christians whenever and of whatever they please . . . and as the Christians receive no support against them, no enlightenment nor hope from Constantinople, they naturally look for everything to Servia." It is not an incredible thing, therefore, that this country should rush into a war which its resources were inadequate to maintain.
I shall now give to you some instances which will show the persecution and indignities to which Christians are subjected in Turkey, and the deplorable condition in which they are placed by being treated as the inferiors of the Turks. ”

“ The people of Servia, of Bosnia, and of Herzegovina are the same people, and have suffered in a common servitude. The people of Servia have been able to shake off that yoke; the others are still in servitude, and they look to free Servia as their rallying-point, and as an indication of what they themselves trust they will come to be in the future. When travelling in Old-Servia, Misses Mackenzie and Irby once lodged in the house of Pope Dantcha, a person well known for his intelligence, courage, and uprightness, and looked up to as he deserved. ”

“ We sometimes hear "a stake in the country" spoken of really as if it invested a man with special virtues and moral excellences. However that may be, in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Crete, and Bulgaria, a number of those who had wealth turned Mahometan to save their property, and have formed a class by themselves, the Turks being partially, and only very partially, mixed with these Mahometans; but with the Christian population, whether Roman Catholic or belonging to the Eastern Church, they have not amalgamated at all. ”

“ These lawyers make no doubt whatever about the fact that it is the absolute duty of Europe to look at the condition of Turkey, and to prevent the continuance of the horrible state of things that prevails there. The Italian lawyer says that Turkey has never existed in Europe as a nation, if a state be an organic union of one or more peoples within defined limits of space, dependent upon a sovereign authority for the well-being of those associated in it. ”

“ The Montenegrins have had nothing to fight with, for the most part, except old-fashioned weapons which no other nation would look at. They had no cavalry, no artillery, and if ever they had cannon brought into action, those cannon they had taken from the Turks. With all these disadvantages, and in spite of the vast numbers that were brought against them, on every occasion they have beaten the Turkish forces, and at this moment they are blockading one of the Turkish towns called Nistics, about which there was a question raised in connection with the armistice. ”

“ It has been a deadly conflict between life and death from day to day, and from year to year; and at no period during the whole of these many generations had the people been permitted to lay aside the terrible habits which were connected with a constant conflict of blood between different races of mankind. ”

“ The men in charge were Christians, but in order to prove they had been in possession of the horses over-night, they must call in the evidence of the cavass, "because his oath, as that of a Mussulman, would be received, and theirs would not." This state of things entirely destroys the basis of civil rights between man and man, and poisons the whole of life with fear and apprehension. ”

“ Consequently, of these Servians outside of "Free Servia," there are but few who have courage remaining to hold up their heads like men.
With regard to the abuse of religion, the grievance is not altogether at the hands of the Turks. The clergy of these provinces belong very much to their own people, but their bishops unfortunately do not. I am sorry to say that the accounts given of them by the lady-writers from whose work I am quoting are rather disgraceful accounts. They frequently do not reside in their diocese. They think a great deal more about fleecing their flocks than feeding them. ”

“ These women did hard labour—the severe conditions of their life required it—and these women were sometimes keen and eager to go into the fight under the circumstances in which they lived. But the honour of a woman is never broken, and the purity and chastity of that people is something marvellous. ”

“ The corruption that results from such a system as that is deep and profound. Mahometans, where they manage their own affairs, and have not got the charge of the destinies of other people, can live in tolerable communities together, and discharge many of the duties of civil and social life. ”

“ In 1516 their sovereign retired because he wanted an easier life; because you must bear in mind that for the sake of their religion and their freedom this people abandoned everything else that could make life happy and desirable. ”

“ Take the case of negro slavery; it is just the same thing. We are often told that among negroes lying, stealing, and every kind of petty fraud and trickery prevail, and that they are poor debased creatures. ”

“ At the end of these twenty years, when the recent rebellions occurred and the facts were brought more fully to light, we find that, instead of that engagement's having been redeemed, matters appear to be absolutely worse than they were twenty-five years ago. ”

“ The best-conditioned of them by far are those who, although they pay tribute to the Porte, and maintain a certain mildly-developed connection with it, yet in the main have the management of their own affairs. ”

“ Evans was on him with his stick—happily a heavy one—and the coward took to his heels. The other Turk imitated the example of his comrade; the boy made off also; and Mr. Evans was left in possession of the field. He went home and provided himself with a revolver. ”