Armenia and its sorrows

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EUROPE'S RESPONSIBILITY
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from complete subjection since 1858. It is largely
mainly—due to our action that she now exists at all
as an independent Power. On both occasions we
dragged the Powers of Europe along with us in
maintaining the Ottoman Government. On both
occasions we did so avowedly, and on the last occasion
expressl}^ on the ground that we—Europe—would
undertake tliat protectorate over the Christian subjects
of the Sultan which Russia sought to establish
in her own hands alone. We are bound by every
consideration of duty and honour to do our very
utmost to discharge so solemn and so tremendous an
obligation. It is one which does not arise only, or
even mainly, out of general considerations of humanity.
It arises out of our own decided and repeated action
in keeping up what is now seen to be a Government
which is weak, cruel, and corrupt."
Let us briefly pass in review the treaties which not
only permit, but demand, our interference at the
present crisis. At the close of the Crimean War, in
1856, the Treaty of Paris, which aimed "to secure,
through effectual and reciprocal guarantees, the
independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire,"
did not sanction any outside interference in the
internal affairs of Turkey. But the Protocol of
London, under date 31st March 1877, says: "The
Powers that have undertaken to pacify the East
recognise that the surest means of attaining the
object they have set before them is, above all, to
maintain the understanding so happily existing among
them, and to jointly reaffirm the common interest
which they take in the promotion of the rights of the
Christian populations of Turkey." In the event of
reforms not being carried out, the Protocol goes on
to say that " they think it their duty to declare that
such a state of things would be incompatible with
their interests, and those of Europe in general. In