Excerpt from The Eastern Question: Past, Present and Future: With Map, and Official Documents In the interest of truth, and with the hope of rendering some little assistance to those who consider their country before their party, I have thought it useful to publish in chronological order the prominent facts of the drama lately enacted in Turkey; with the view also of teaching, by showing up the petty jealousies and innate selfishness at the bottom of every move made by the players at the game of the "Eastern Question," the lesson of lessons - that "honesty is the best policy," and that England never has experienced and never can expect to meet anything but humiliation from following the tortuous paths of diplomacy. If only a true history of diplomatic dealings, even in this century, could be written, what an ocean of crime, bloodshed, misery, devastation, and barbarism, would be laid bare; and yet diplomacy in every country but England is highly esteemed, and even some of our own countrymen appear disposed to condone qualities in a diplomatist, which in an ordinary man could not be excused, for example, the Times' own correspondent, telegraphing from Paris, 15 March last, 9.30 p.m. says: - "General Ignatieff has been good enough to inform me to-day that he starts to-morrow for London." He then describes General Ignatieff in the following words: - "It is necessary to have seen and heard this wonderful diplomatist to understand with what marvellous facility he dilates on the most varied themes. Let ten visitors see him, and to each of them he would describe a new policy, maintaining only some general points, which are for him like fixed flagstaff's, to which he attaches the capricious streamers of his varied narratives. Were the ten unfortunate interviewers, on leaving him, to compare notes, they would be positively amazed at this inexhaustible versatility, which intentionally obscures questions in proportion as it professes to clear them up, and, when it likes, confuses the simplest things with the air of explaining or commenting on them. All this, too, is done in the most naturally unpretentious fashion, without any apparent subtlety, the speaker looking you straight in the face, and with an animation and fluency seeming to exclude all possibility of plan." - Times, 16th March, 1877. If only one half of the above statement is true, is it not enough to make one shudder for the future? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.