Hon. James A. Brice, Member of the British Parliament, on the Eastern Question.
Hon. James A. Brice, M. P., author of The American Commonwealth, has contributed to the Saturday Evening Post of June 2 a most interesting article on the Eastern Question, in which he gives a plain, unvarnished statement of the relations which the several great Powers sustain to the Porte, and their several interests in Turkish territory. The Eastern Question has long been one of absorbing interest to all the civilized world, and especially to those who view its settlement in the light of divine prophecy. Both inspiration and the logic of events point unmistakably to the utter extinction of the Turkish empire. And if prophetic expositors read aright the divine predictions, momentous issues are at stake in the settlement of this question. The crowned heads of Europe see in it only an opportunity to enlarge the trade of their people or to extend their frontiers; but to the student of prophecy it means the ushering in of the everlasting Kingdom of God. Of course Mr. Brice deals with the question only from the standpoint of the statesman. The “dim foreshadowings of the future,” which he says “we seem at last to see,” are seen only in the trend of events. But in this case human foresight and divine foreknowledge are in practical agreement so far as the former goes. They part company only because when the finite fails the Infinite goes on telling what shall be after the settlement of the Eastern Question by the Powers of earth. “The passionate eagerness,” says Mr. Brice, “with which all Europe has been watching the struggle in South Africa during the last six months tends to throw into the background other questions of not less real and permanent importance, questions which have before now formed the central point of European politics, and which may do so again. “Among these,” he continues, “is the condition of the always moribund but never expiring Turkish Sultanate.” The loss of Crete two years ago is referred to as “another stage” in the decadence of the Turkish power. But since this “the Sultan and his crimes have receded from view, though those who know something about the maladministration and race hatreds in Macedonia, know how critical the situation continues to389be there, and how easy it would be for either the Servians or the Bulgarians to light up an insurrection in those regions which would involve all Eastern Europe in the flames of war.” To Austria and Russia, Mr. Brice gives the credit of preserving peace for the time being. The former controls Servia, the latter Bulgaria. “So things remain tolerably quiet, and the only change likely to occur in the near future is the erection of Bulgaria into a kingdom, an access of dignity which Prince Ferdinand is believed to desire and to be steadily working for.”