No such inability, however, applies to Syria.
There, if we _will_, we certainly _can_ carry out our engagements. A
mere strip of seaboard, backed by the desert, and attackable only from
the north on a narrow frontier of some hundred miles, Syria is easily
defensible by a nation holding the sea. It is probable that a railway
run from the Gulf of Scanderun to the Euphrates, and supported by a
single important fortress, would be sufficient to effect its military
security at least for many years; and Syria might thus have given to it
a chance of self-government, and some compensation for misfortunes in
which we have had no inconsiderable share. But this is an interest of
honour rather than of political necessity to England; and he must
possess a sanguine mind who, in the present temper of Englishmen, would
count greatly on such motives as likely to determine the action of their
Government. If, however, it should be otherwise, it is evident that the
success of such a protectorate would depend principally upon the
Mohammedan element in Syria, which so greatly preponderates over any
other.
A fourth interest, also a moral one, but connected with an accepted fact
of English policy, is the attempted abolition of the African slave
trade.
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