Letter on “the Eastern question”

NOWHERE is the mental anarchy of the time more conspicuous than in the treatment of the Eastern question by the average journalist. Leading dailies speculate on the issue as if it were a game of chance, or one of skill, in which the Czar bids fair to “outwit” the less alert powers. The student of Positive Science, with well-defined ideas of what really constitutes Europe, and from what States the future of civilization will be evolved, beholds but the working of well-understood social laws, more powerful than kings and cabinets, and moulding them to its purposes. Whatever may be the fate of Turkey, Russia has not yet accomplished her fondly cherished schemes. A higher power than Czar or Sultan resides in the Western States, and in their ultimate union to check Russian aggrandisement we will behold but the exercise of their normal function, which no intrigues can prevent, no cabals destroy.