PEACE NOT YET | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 26, 1878

PEACE NOT YET.

It would seem from the following paragraph, which we copy from the Christian Union, of Sept. 18, 1878, that the cry of “Peace,” which was raised over the Berlin Congress, was somewhat premature. They have cried, “Peace, peace, when there was no peace.” The fires of the eastern question are smouldering, and may burst forth afresh at any moment. The Inter Ocean, of Sept. 21, in its telegraphic column of “News from Abroad,” gives these display headings:—

“Russia endeavoring to induce the Powers to remonstrate with the Porte for its slowness in carrying out the treaty. An uneasy feeling at London in regard to Lord Beaconsfield’s Indian Policy. Belief that it will result in war with Afghanistan, and a re-opening of the whole eastern question.”

The Christian Union says:—

“The war fires in the East continue to smoulder and smoke. They are smothered, not extinguished. Greece asks the European powers to compel Turkey to give heed to the ‘advice’ of the Berlin Congress and enter into negotiations with her respecting a rectification of her territory. Apparently they are loth to do so; and England is reported to have definitely refused. Austria already has an army of 200,000 in the Provinces which she was appointed to pacify, and they are not pacified yet. As she has executed over two hundred and fifty insurgents, including some Christians, the failure of her pacification is truly inexplicable. Insurrection has broken out in Albania, and a volunteer force of 45,000 Albanians is said to be organized to resist any occupation of their territory. Independence is like a flame in the grass; and it is doubtful whether Austria can keep it from burning in Bosnia and Herzegovina without beating it out in Albania. Where liberty, whether Christian or Turkish, means permission to oppress if not to slaughter one’s neighbor, it is difficult to feel much sympathy for either combatant; or indeed to tell whether it is the Turk or the Christian who is fighting to be free. The Sultan, who is a Greenbacker of the first water, and inflated the currency from $13,500,000 to $100,000,000 in a little over a year’s time, has appointed a commission to devise means for retiring his ‘absolute money.’ For bread is so high and money is so cheap that the bakers have discontinued selling bread in Constantinople. The Porte is quite ready to inaugurate reforms if Lord Beaconsfield will only advance him the little sum of six million pounds, on a pledge of Cyprus revenues; and Lord Beaconsfield would be most happy but for a constitutional trifle: he has not the money and he has not the face to ask Parliament for it. It looks as though Berlin had cried Peace! Peace! when there was no peace.”