Our London Letter by W. T. Bartlett

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 16, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 36.

Our London Letter

By W. T. Bartlett

From Our Own Correspondent

The Balkans

THE butchery in the Balkans is filling the English mind with disgust. Contrasted with his late opponents, the Turk seems no longer “unspeakable,” and many are willing to see him once more in possession of the tombs of his ancestors at Adrianople. The great powers from first to last have not shown to advantage. They began by trying to sit on the Balkan allies; but when the prowess of these pugnacious kingdoms showed that they were not going to be sat upon, the powers meekly accepted the rebuff. They took their revenge by bullying the smallest of the allies; and when Servia and Greece, disappointed in Albania, tried to compensate themselves in Macedonia at the cost of Bulgaria, weakened in the common cause, and attacked in the rear by Rumania and Turkey, the powers contented themselves with impotently announcing that they would not consent to see Bulgaria too much humiliated. So far, however, Bulgaria has nothing to thank them for. Even Turkey seems to be able to set the great powers at defiance. Russia would gladly undertake to drive the Turks back to Constantinople, or operate on their flank in Asia Minor; but the rest of the powers are afraid that the benefits of such a course might fall to Russia alone, and will not give their consent. Germany does not intend that any other European power shall get into Asia Minor ahead of her.

While there is a general feeling that Bulgaria has herself largely to thank for the hostility of the Serbs and Greeks, she has naturally received plenty of sympathy in the hard fate that raised up for her, in her time of exhaustion, powerful enemies on every hand. No one expects that the patched-up peace of Bucharest will prove a lasting one. As soon as Bulgaria sees her opportunity to take a full revenge, there is little doubt that she will seize it. Greece and Servia will have to pay for their present triumph over the ally, without whom they could have accomplished nothing. Henceforth a deadly feud will smolder in the Balkans between irreconcilable foes.

There is a deep, underlying significance to the tragedy that is being wrought out in the Near East. In that quarter lies the focal point on which the armed vigilance of Europe is concentrated to-day. Like wild beasts, intently watching one another, ready to spring in fury and growling at every sign of movement on the part of a rival, the eyes of the great powers are fixed upon the neighborhood of Constantinople. How easy to precipitate a conflict there that would engulf civilization! And close to that very quarter lies the region pointed out by the prophets as the scene of earth’s last and greatest struggle.

In Asia Minor

The return of the Turk to Adrianople has brought back into the situation all the possibilities of world-wide strife that appalled the imagination of Europe at the outbreak of the Balkan war. Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey have warned the Ottoman government that if it is determined to flout the will of Europe, it may reopen important questions that, in Turkey’s interest, had far better be left closed. Every one knows what the menace means. Turkey was to have been left unmolested in Asia Minor; but if she tears up the treaty of London, and will not withdraw from Adrianople, the powers will consider themselves at liberty to deal as they please with her possessions in Asia. Mr. Harold Spender declares that the partition of Asiatic Turkey into European spheres of influence will be the next great development on the chess-board of European politics. If the great powers have been obliged to relinquish to the Balkan States the coveted spoil of Turkey in Europe, they will be all the more ready to seek compensation in Asia. In such a case, it will not be long before the future of the Holy Land will become a practical problem of pressing importance. Then will come to pass the scenes opened up before Daniel and Joel and the revelator. The Plain of Esdraelon will witness once more the gathering of mighty armies, and thither the kings of the earth will lead their forces for that last great struggle which the Scriptures associate with the name of Armageddon.

Sowing and Reaping

And the spirit that is manifested by the powers, great and small, is well calculated to assist the world on its downward path to perdition. Undisguised greed is the ruling principle of statecraft. Might means right. Students of current history are in despair as to the outcome when they see how the nations to-day throw honor and justice to the winds. A desire for territorial enlargement is sufficient warrant for the invasion of a neighboring and unoffending country. Mr. J. L. Garvin, of the “Observer,” one of our most forcible English writers, declares that the cause of peace has been set back for a whole generation by the late war in the Balkans. “Every precedent set in the most cynical epochs of dynastic statecraft has been confirmed and repeated.” He reviews the grievances that have been cherished in Europe for the past forty years, and declares that by the course they have themselves taken in the recent crisis, the various countries concerned have fully justified all the violence and international crime that has been committed against them during that period. Rumania can never again complain of what she has suffered at the hands of Russia and Austria, for she has done to the Bulgarians as those powers did to her. “The Servians have invoked Heaven against Austria. Now they have vindicated Austria by their own proceedings. The Hapsburg empire has at least as much moral right to Bosnia and Herzegovina as the Servians have to the larger part of the Bulgar districts they have seized in Macedonia.” Take the Greeks. “A few weeks ago, every generous sentiment associated with humanity and morals was invoked on behalf of the unemancipated Greeks in Southern Albania and the islands. Meanwhile our Hellenistic friends, without a particle of magnanimity or restraint, and with a complete disregard, toward others, of the elevated principles invoked for their own benefit, have laid hands on all they could.” The Balkan allies, in their treatment of one another, have sown to the wind, and they are likely to reap the whirlwind.

Is It a Civil War in England?

In England, we are still wondering whether or not we are within a few months of civil war. The Home Rule Bill has now passed twice through the House of Commons. It only needs to be passed once more by that assembly, and then it will go into effect, regardless of what the House of Lords may say. Unless the present government is defeated in the interval, home rule in Ireland will become law next spring. The Orangemen of Ulster have sworn a mighty oath that they will not submit to an Irish government; and Sir Edward Carson, their leader, has declared that he is prepared to sacrifice everything, even life itself, in resisting. It is said that the Orangemen have already armed themselves and are drilling assiduously so as to be ready for the fray. Just what it all amounts to, remains to be seen. One side protests fervently that it means rebellion and civil war and appalling bloodshed; the other side does not believe that the business men of Belfast will be willing to take one step that may imperil their commerce. Sir Edward Carson is daring the government to arrest him for his seditious utterances; but so far, they are declining to take him too seriously. The clergy in the north of Ireland are taking a prominent part in working up the Orange agitation.

Welsh Disestablishment

The Welsh Disestablishment Bill is also running its course, notwithstanding great bitterness of feeling on the part of the established church in England. The bill has been again passed by the House of Commons, and in another year, unless the government is overthrown in the meanwhile, this bill will also go into effect.

The Troubled and Troublesome Women

The militant suffragette movement is still pursuing a course of violence and incendiarism

. By special legislation, the government has secured a legal weapon against the hunger strike. When, by reason of their refusal to take food, the imprisoned militants are reduced to the extreme of weakness, they are released from jail for a few days, and after the expiration of this period are again arrested. Of course the hunger strike at once begins again, and after a few days they are again released. The militant party term this the “Cat and Mouse Act,” and use it as another illustration of man’s unfitness to rule over women, without their aid in the making of laws. There is no doubt, however, that the militant leaders are much hampered in their campaign by this act, and it is likely to wear them down in the long run. Meanwhile the orderly agitation for giving votes to women increases greatly in strength. Huge demonstrations have lately been organized; and in response to a deputation, Mr. Asquith has promised that he will not exercise any personal influence whatever against giving votes to women, if the majority of his party should desire this extension of the franchise.

Omens of Labor Troubles

There are signs of renewed trouble in the labor world. The use of the military in South Africa to put down the miners’ strike at Johannesburg has tended to inflame the anger of the Labor Party against Lord Gladstone and the high officials responsible for this step. Strikes continue to break out in various parts of the United Kingdom. One in particular is worthy of notice. The agricultural laborers in this country have been a particularly meek and long-suffering class of people. Scattered as they are in small villages, it has been impossible for them to organize effectively, and a limited education has made them unresponsive to the appeals that have stirred up their fellows in the cities. It was therefore a matter of considerable surprise when the agricultural laborers in the northwest of England struck this summer for higher wages, shorter hours, and recognition of their union. The farmers who employ them are usually a conservative class, and they were unable to regard with appreciation or enlightened sympathy this unexpected development. Some of them walked about their farms with loaded guns, threatening to shoot anybody who dared to trespass on them for the purpose of picketing. After a strike had lasted two or three weeks, to the peril of the hay harvest, the laborers gained most of their points. So the organization of the farm laborers has begun. This will mean that the great army of discontented toilers will more than ever hold the country in its power, whenever it shall think fit to bring about a general strike. When the labor war extends to the land, and growing crops are attacked by strikers as mills and factories now are, it will be a serious development for the general public.

In Religious Circles

The annual conference of the Wesleyan Methodists, just held, attracted unusual public attention, because it witnessed a protest against the appointment of the Rev. G. Jackson to one of the training colleges, on the ground that his public utterances showed him to be one of the modern higher critics. Evidence was produced from his writings to sustain the charge; but the conference took the position that, altho Mr. Jackson had been too free in expressing his disbelief on certain points hitherto regarded as fundamental truths, the Wesleyan Church could not prohibit freedom of thought and expression. So Mr. Jackson becomes a recognized teacher of candidates for the Wesleyan pulpit.

The Imperial Sunday Alliance, a combination of Anglican, Free Church, and Roman Catholic forces, has framed a weekly Rest Day Bill, and got it introduced into the House of Commons. This bill claims to be free from religious bias and to aim merely at obtaining for the working classes one day of rest in every week. But as drawn, it is a stringent Sunday bill. It forbids the employment of labor on Sunday, but allows certain shops to be opened on that day for a limited number of hours. The Jews are dealt with harshly in the bill, being allowed only slight concessions as to opening their shops on Sunday, and these are hampered by restrictions. The bill can not be debated in the present session of Parliament, but has been introduced with the support of representatives of all parties, in the hope that it will receive attention next session, and with a view to working up a public sentiment in its favor. At the present time, the general tendency is in the opposite direction. Sunday is observed more loosely to-day than it has been for a long time.

Proposed Reforms

The present government is still contemplating large measures of reform. The educational system is to be overhauled, and an important land reform campaign is also being agitated. The lot of the rural laborer is to be ameliorated, and he is to be left no longer at the mercy of the employer from whom he now, as a rule, has to rent his little cottage. Mr. Lloyd-George’s Insurance Act is working smoothly and prosperously, but one result of the measure is that there are now more sick people in the country than ever before. It is a temptation to a man who is able to draw sick pay for a few months, to take his complaints more seriously than he was wont to do when every cessation of work meant the complete stoppage of his wage.

W. T. BARTLETT.

Viscount Gladstone, son of the late W. E. Gladstone