THE TABLET

A W eekly Newspaper and Review

WITH SUPPLEMENT.

DuivI VOBIS GRATULAMUR, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMUS UT IN INCCEPTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEAVIS.

From the B r ie f o f H is Holiness Pius IX . to The Tablet, June 4, 1870.

Voi. 517. No. 1994. L ondon, J u n e 29, 1878.

P rice sd. B y P ost 5W

[R e g is tered a t th e G en e r a l P o st O f f ic e a s a N ew spaper.

Paqe

C h ronicle o f t h e Week

The Late Crisis in the Negotiations.— The Limits o f Roumelia. —The Balkans as a Line of Defence. — The Western Provinces.— The Demands of Greece. —Accord between England and Austria.— Death o f the Queen of Spain.— Funeral of the late King o f Hanover.— Intermediate Education in Ireland.— The Cattle Diseases Bill. — Westminster Diocesan Education Fund.— Corporation Hospitalities. — Children of Catholic Soldiers.— Permissive Prohibitory Liquor Bill. — Anniversary o f General Hoche.—1 he Title o f “ Father” 3oi

CONTENTS.

L e a d e r s :

Page

The Congress . . . . . . 805 Roumanian and Servian Claims.. 805 Intermediate Education, Ireland 806

Page

C orrespondence :

The Title of “ Father ” . . . . 811 R ome : — Letter from our own

R ev iew s :

Through the Dark Continent The Contemporary Review The Fern Paradise.. The O’Connell Centenary

808 809 810 810

Short N otices :

Great and Small . . . . ..8x0 Animals and their Social Powers 810 Oremus . . . . . . . . 811 Devotions for Confession . . 811

Correspondent.........................817 The Vatican.. . . . . ..817 The Arcadia and Leo X I I I . . . 818 Municipal Elections in Rome . . 818 Florence .. .. . . . . 818 Religious Teaching at Genoa .. 8t8 Some Relations o f Pius IX . . . 818 Brigandage in Italy . . ..818 The Truth about the Death and

Burial o f King Victor Emmanuel . . . . . . «. 818

D io c e sa n N ews

Page

Westminster.......................................819 Southwark . . .. . . . . 820 Beverley . . ; . . 820 Liverpool . . . . . . . . 820 Northampton ............................ 821 Nottingham.. . . . . .. 821 Shrewsbury , , . . . . .. 821 I r e lan d :—

Letter from our own Corre­

spondent . . . . . .

821

F oreign N ews

France .. . . ** . . 822 M em oranda :—

R e l i g i o u s ......................... . . 822 P a r l ia m e n t a r y S ummary . . 823 G en er a l N ews . . . . . . 824

CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.

THE LATE CRISIS IN THE NEGOTIATIONS. T

HE event has proved the entire correctness of the view which we took last week of the Schouvaloff-Salisbury Memorandum. It was no abandonment on our part of the English programme, or of the ground of European law, but was merely intended to formulate a previous understanding as to the points on which each side intended definitively to insist. And that it did not bind us to an absolute agreement with Russia has been demonstrated by the crisis through which the negotiations passed at the close of last week. Strangely enough, few people seemed to notice the importance of the reservation in which England announced her intention of maintaining the right of the Sultan to station troops along the northern frontier of the new Southern State— that is, along the line of the Balkans. The real ques tion at issue was whether the Southern State was to be an outpost of Russia against Constantinople, or an outpost of Turkey against invasion ; whether the Ottoman line of defence was to be an almost untenable one, wandering through the plains of Roumelia, or a very strong one along the Balkan range. The struggle was keen from Wednesday to Friday, and at one moment a pessimist correspondent seemed to think that the Congress was on the point of breaking up. The Russian Plenipotentiaries defended their view by the argument that the presence of Turkish soldiers among the populations of the new State would lead to fresh massacres ; and the English insisted on the obvious necessity of giving the Ottoman Empire a defensible frontier. It was then suggested that the Sultan should be allowed to maintain troops only at certain points of the line, and in numbers fixed by the Congress; but, to this it was objected, that to limit the defences of a Power to particular spots and a stated number of men was to keep an intended invader posted up in the exact strength of his enemy’s position, and enable him to direct his attack against their weakest points. The English Plenipotentiaries were firm and inexorable; Lord Beaconsfield is even reported to have declared that, if the demands of England were not conceded, he would leave the Congress on Monday, and to have replied to a suggestion from Prince Bismarck that he should make concessions by saying, “ I did not come here to yield.” In the meanwhile, telegrams were actively passing between St. Petersburg and Berlin, and by Saturday the Russians had given in. It has been settled, so it is now understood, that the Sultan shall have the right of maintaining such fortresses and strength of garrisons as he pleases along the line of demarcation between the new Bulgaria and the southern State which is to be called, it seems, “ Eastern Roumeiia”—

New Series, Vol. XIX. No. 503.

why “ Eastern ” we do not exactly understand— provided only that those garrisons are to be composed exclusively of regular troops, for against the Turkish Regulars, no charge of “ atrocities ” has ever been substantiated. They are, moreover, to remain along the line of frontier, and to be quartered in buildings provided by the Turkish Government, and not to be in any case billeted among the inhabitants. In the interior of the new Southern State, as distinguished from the frontier, the peace is to be kept by a local or provincial militia, Christian or Mussulman according to the population of the district, and the Turkish regular troops are only to be summoned thither from the frontier on the requisition of the Governor, who is to be a Christian, to resist invasion or suppress insurrection.

THE LIMITS OF ROUMELIA.

curtailed.

A further advantage has been gained in the proposed delimitation of the frontiers o f the new Roumelia. Its extent, as laid down in the Treaty of Santo Stefano, has been considerably A large district along the shores o f the Black Sea, where Mussulmans and Greeks are in preponderance, has been left to Turkey proper, the southern projection to the coast of the Higean has been cut away, and the extension westwards to the valley of the Vardar and far beyond it has been abandoned, so that the new autonomous province, reduced to modest proportions, will not interfere with the substantial maintenance of a Turkey in Europe, or with the continuity of its various parts. And the boundary line between the Northern and Southern States, which is to form the Turkish frontier and line of defence, is to start from the Black Sea, south of Varna, thus left to Bulgaria, and pass along the main chain of the Balkans, till the province of Sofia is reached, where it is to deflect in a southerly direction by the Ichtiman range, so as just to include the town of Sofia in Bulgaria, and so proceed westwards till it touches the frontier line between Turkey and Servia.

It has been observed— and it is an inter-

« a i is e o t esting fact— that the greatest military autho-

d e fen c e . rity of the present day, Count von Moltke, in his celebrated work on the Russo-Turkish war of 1828 and 1829, expressed a decided opinion that the Balkans formed the true line of defence for Turkey. Mountains, not rivers, are the really effective frontiers, and the Turks would be far better off with the Balkans as their rampart than with the line of the Danube to defend. That range, indeed, Count von Moltke considered to be impassable if it were properly guarded, and he believed that it was only because it was not fortified or defended that the Russians ever succeeded in crossing it. We have learnt since that there are even now many points which no attempt has ever been made to fortify, and which will have to be blocked