In the Senate, out of seventy-six members only about
sixteen or eighteen are in opposition. This is
not altogether to be regretted; such disparities do
not last long, and whilst on the one hand criticism
of the mistakes or misconduct of Government officials
(and more particularly against sub-officials, who are
often charged with grave offences) is now confined
chiefly to the press, on the other hand a little constitutional
despotism is very much needed, not only to correct
such abuses promptly, but also to hasten the necessary
reforms and to ameliorate the condition of the country.
This is the result of personal observation and contact
with official life, and not a mere speculative opinion.]
Let us now consider the circumstances which lately
enabled Roumania to throw off the last traces of her
vassalage, and to take her place in the comity of
European nations; and with a brief narrative of those
events we must bring this imperfect outline of her
past history to a close. The story of the last
Russo-Turkish war must be within the memory of all
our readers who take the slightest interest in Oriental
politics. How Russia, chafing under the restrictions
which had been put upon her by the Treaty of Paris,
had succeeded in obtaining a modification of that
treaty, which gave her once more the right of entrance
into the Black Sea; how, resuming her favourite role
of protectress of the Christian inhabitants of Turkey,
she intervened in the affairs of those nations who
stood between her and Constantinople; how the Servians
and Montenegrins, incited by her, rose in revolt,
and the Bulgarians followed suit; how the European
Powers, sympathising with Turkey on the one hand,
in consequence of the renewed machinations and transparent
designs of her powerful northern enemy, and on the
other despairing of her on account of the barbarities
with which she endeavoured to quell the rising in
her vassal provinces, the inherent weakness of her
rule, and the bankrupt condition of her finances,
they were compelled at length to leave her at the
mercy of her foe. To repeat the narrative of
these would be telling an oft-told tale. But when,
after the final break-up of the Conference of Constantinople
in January 1877, the Cross and the Crescent were once
more opposed to each other, and when the Russian forces
were massed on the eastern bank of the Pruth, then
came the moment at which it behoved the newly-liberated
nation, which had so often been the victim of the
‘holy’ strife, to decide on which side
it would array itself. Indeed, Roumania had little
choice in the matter; the critics who have censured
her policy, and have charged her with breach of faith
towards her suzerain the Porte (and we know there are
many such in this country), cannot have carefully considered
her past history; nor have reflected upon the position
in which she was placed.[173] As a matter of preference,
the young nation which was about being dragged into
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