More important from our standpoint are the clauses relating to the good government of the Christians of Turkey.  By article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin the Porte bound itself to carry out “the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and Kurds.”  It even added the promise “periodically” to “make known the steps taken to this effect to the Powers who will superintend their application.”  In the next article Turkey promised to “maintain” the principle of religious liberty and to give it the widest application.  Differences of religion were to be no bar to employment in any public capacity, and all persons were to “be admitted, without distinction of religion, to give evidence before the tribunals.”

Such was the Treaty of Berlin (July 13, 1878).  Viewed in its broad outlines, it aimed at piecing together again the Turkish districts which had been severed at San Stefano; the Bulgars and Serbs who there gained the hope of effecting a real union of those races were now sundered once more, the former in three divisions; while the Serbs of Servia, Bosnia, and Montenegro were wedged apart by the intrusion of the Hapsburg Power.  Yet, imperfect though it was in several points, that treaty promised substantial gains for the Christians of Turkey.  The collapse of the Sultan’s power had been so complete, so notorious, that few persons believed he would ever dare to disregard the mandate of the Great Powers and his own solemn promises stated above.  But no one could then foresee the exhibition of weakness and cynicism in the policy of those Powers towards Turkey, which disgraced the polity of Europe in the last decades of the century.  The causes that brought about that state of mental torpor in the face of hideous massacres, and of moral weakness displayed by sovereigns and statesmen in the midst of their millions of armed men, will be to some extent set forth in the following chapters.

As regards the welfare of the Christians in Asia Minor, the Treaty of Berlin assigned equal responsibilities to all the signatory Powers.  But the British Government had already laid itself under a special charge on their behalf by the terms of the Cyprus Convention quoted above.  Five days before that treaty was signed the world heard with a gasp of surprise that England had become practically mistress of Cyprus and assumed some measure of responsibility for the good government of the Christians of Asiatic Turkey.  No limit of time was assigned for the duration of the Convention, and apparently it still holds good so far as relates to the material advantages accruing from the possession of that island.

It is needless to say that the Cypriotes have benefited greatly by the British administration; the value of the imports and exports nearly doubled between 1878 and 1888.  But this fact does not and cannot dispose of the larger questions opened up as to the methods of acquisition and of the moral responsibilities which it entailed.  These at once aroused sharp differences of opinion.  Admiration at the skill and daring which had gained for Britain a point of vantage in the Levant and set back Russia’s prestige in that quarter was chequered by protests against the methods of secrecy, sensationalism, and self-seeking that latterly had characterised British diplomacy.