industrial positions, on their prospects of bettering their condition, and on their fiscal relations to the central government. The same measures which would improve the condition and augment the population of the Mohammedans in Asia Minor, would have even a more speedy effect in improving the condition and augmenting the Christian population of European Turkey; and what is of more importance, perhaps, in the eye of the central administration at Constantinople, they would bind together the whole agricultural population of the Sultan's dominions by ties of common interest, without any distinction of race or religion. It must also be highly interesting to some cultivated minds at home, to know that these measures are the only means of improving the condition of the Greek kingdom, though from the singular incapacity of the Greek court, ministers, and public men of every class, there appears no probability of this little Christian monarchy making any step towards this most essential improvement of society in the East, until the example be given by the Turkish government. In two countries where the public administration is so notoriously defective, and where the ministers and statesmen are so utterly destitute of all practical knowledge as landed proprietors and agriculturists, as they are known to be both in Turkey and Greece, there will probably be great difficulty in forcing the governments to commence the requisite changes. It is true, both governments are paralysed by the want of roads, by excessive corruption on the part of the officials sent by the central government to the provinces, and by the systematic manner in which the central authority has debased and degraded the local agents and municipal institutions. But in spite of all these difficulties, we must insist on the great truth that about three-quarters of the population of the Othoman Empire and of the Greek kingdom derive their subsistence from agriculture, and that nearly threequarters of the national revenues are derived from agricultural taxes; and we feel warranted in asserting that neither the integrity of the Othoman Empire, nor the existence of the

Bavaro - Hellenic kingdom, can be safely guaranteed by Great Britain until the agricultural population of these countries is placed in a very different state from that in which it is now perpetuating its existence. It will be our business to prove to our readers that a great improvement-in short, a complete change in the condition of about twenty millions of mankind-is as practicable as it is necessary, and that it may be effected in the space of a few years by some changes in the central administration, which will immediately allow the cultivators of the soil to employ their labour in the way most conducive to their own profit.

How the improvement of the great mass of the agricultural population of Turkey may be effected can be shown without much difficulty; but how far it would be advisable for Great Britain to carry her interference either with the government of the Sultan, or even with that of our pouting protégé King Otho, may admit of more discussion, and is not a question on which we feel it necessary to enter at present.

The

The agricultural population of the Turkish Empire is estimated at more than twenty millions of these, as we have already said, about ten millions are Turks and Mohammedans, dwelling in Asia Minor and the north of Syria; and about ten millions are Christians of various races inhabiting Europe. Hitherto the social and political interests of this great mass of mankind have been utterly neglected both by the Othoman government and by European statesmen. cultivators of the soil, whether Christians or Mohammedans, have been oppressed by the sultans; and in King Otho's dominions they are retained in a state of medieval barbarism by the stupidity of the Athenian parliament. In both countries agriculture is carried on in the same rude manner in which it was pursued in the early ages, when slaves alone tilled the soil, and freemen acted as graziers and herdsmen. In both it is retained in this wretched condition without any hope of amelioration, by similar fiscal regulations; and in both, the same social reforms will be required to render agriculture a

flourishing occupation, to induce the wealthy to employ capital on the land, and make Turkey a country from which grain can be exported with profit in large quantities. Strange to say, European intelligence has not hitherto done much to further these ends. Everything requires to be commenced. The Bavarian King at Athens, and the Athenian parliament in Greece, have not done more for improving agriculture than the Sultan at Constantinople and the pashaprince at Cairo. There is no carriageroad from Patras any more than from Brusa; the currants of the Morea and the silk of Bithynia are carried to the ports of export on the backs of mules and pack-horses, and the expense of transport to the place of shipment forms a very considerable part of the price, and limits the consumption of every article produced in Turkey and Greece. Indeed, whatever difference exists between Turkey and Greece, with reference to agriculture, is in favour of Turkey. The road from Adrianople to Constantinople, bad as it is, is much better than the road from Athens to Sparta. While the Sultan maintains steamers which keep up a regular communication between the capital and the principal seaports in his dominions, King Otho, on the other hand, has done absolutely nothing for improving the maritime communications of his little state, though nine-tenths of his subjects pass their lives within sight of the sea. The funds for the national navy of Greece, and the money voted by the Hellenic deputies, are employed in maintaining vessels to serve as government yachts, or in transporting German princes up and down the Archipelago. The unsettled state of the great mass of the population, whether Christian or Mohammedan, in all the countries between the Adriatic and the Persian Gulf, has been repeatedly pointed out by travellers. The Albanians, the Bosniacs, and the Greeks delight in feuds and civil broils; they prefer plundering the fields of their neighbours to cultivating their own land. The Turks, Turcomans, and Curds of Asia Minor, are gradually quitting agriculture in order to devote themselves exclusively to a pastoral life. It is conse

quently futile to hope that the Othoman government will long be able to maintain its authority, or preserve permanent tranquillity in these regions, unless some change be effected which shall place the interests and feelings of all those who cultivate the soil in unison with the policy of the Sultan. The Christian labourer must feel that it is as much his interest to support the Othoman Empire as the Mohammedan landlord, and the Christian landlord must prefer the Sultan's government to that of the Emperors of Russia and Austria, or else the task of maintaining the integrity of the Othoman Empire will be one of which Great Britain and France must ultimately grow weary.

Great changes have already taken place in Turkey. The past condition of the Othoman Empire can never be recalled, for the causes of many of the changes already consummated have been long in operation. The Mohammedan population of Asia Minor had undergone many social changes before Sultan Mahmoud commenced his political reforms. The destruction of the Deré-beys, who were the last relic of the feudal institutions of the Seljouk empire, preceded the extermination of the janissaries, who had once been the chief support of the Othoman power, and the agents by which the Seljouk Turks of Asia Minor had been originally subdued by the race of Othman. Time had completely undermined the edifices of the Seljouk aristocracy, and of the military despotism of the Sultans, by transmutations in the different ranks of society, before any administrative changes were attempted at Constantinople. The insurrections of the Christian rayahs, the establishment of the Greek kingdom, and the formation of the Servian state, were in great part caused by social changes, as well as the attempts of Ali Pasha of Jannina, and Mohammed Ali of Egypt, to erect independent principalities. The progress of civilisation, both among the Mohammedan and Christian population in the Sultan's dominions, continues with increasing speed, and a conviction that a great change must and ought to take place in the condition of the agricultural classes, is rapidly spreading among

the owners of the soil. A social revolution is inevitable, and it is not of a nature likely to be arrested by Vienna protocols, or palliated by any anodyne that foreign military force can apply. How this impending revolution may be guided and rendered conducive to maintaining the Sultan's power, and the integrity of the Othoman Empire, is the most important branch of the subject we propose to discuss.

We must observe that, the agricultural population of Turkey and Greece being placed in similar social circumstances, the same measures of improvement are applicable to both; and their interests and feelings on most fiscal and administrative questions are so identically the same, that the great body of the agricultural interest in the East, whether composed of Mohammedans or Christians, would be more easily brought to act in unity than diplomatists and statesmen appear to think possible. Both in Turkey and Greece the bulk of the landed interest is decidedly hostile to the existing governments. It is true, the Turks hate the Russians more than they hate the Constantinopolitan officials, and that the Greeks detest the Turks more than they detest the Bavarians; but nevertheless, the Osmanlee of Stamboul is thoroughly detested by the Mohammedan provincials in Asia, and the scribes, logiotatoi or kalamoradhes, of Athens, are the abhorrence of every free Greek and Albanian. Those, therefore, who think it is possible to settle the Eastern Question without paying any attention to the ground-swell of public opinion among the rural population, know very little of the subject they pretend to understand. The want of accurate attention to the direction of the distant gale, which has caused the billows to heave in dark and sullen agitation, produces the vacillation observable in the opinions of many who have been for years familiar with the east. Diplomatists actually engaged in trade have a mortal aversion to general views; while discarded diplomatists have each their own pet discovery for doing everything in the East which is impossible. In this state of uncertainty, many persons of sagacity seem inclined to reconsider the decisions

they have formed concerning the probable duration of a Mohammedan power in Europe, concerning the possibility of establishing an equal and equitable administration of justice among all the various religious sects and dissimilar races of men who dwell in the Sultan's dominions, and even concerning the practicability of rendering the Greeks and Albanians in the Greek kingdom happy and prosperous under a Bavarian king and a native legislative assembly. To many, the agricultural population of Asia Minor appears to be sunk in an apathy from which no governing power can awaken it; and the maritime population around the Egean Sea seems given up to the spirit of piracy and barratry, from which nothing can restrain it but war-steamers, and what Shakespeare calls "the charity of a penny cord." The events passing before our eyes have done much to dispel the dreams entertained by the Greek Christians of fingering Russian gold, and forming Byzantine empires. The visions of those who waited for the proximate dismemberment of the Othoman Empire, have been dispelled by Omar Pasha on the banks of the Danube, and by Fuad Effendi on the slopes of Mount Pindus. The incapacity of the Emperor Nicholas and his faithful ally King Otho to settle the Eastern Question has been proved, but the true basis on which it can be permanently settled has not yet been pointed out, even by the Sultan's government.

It requires something more than an able and energetic central administration, something, too, which the greatest military power cannot supply, to maintain the Sultan's authority in the present anomalous state of the population of his empire. The Christian population can no longer be held in vassalage by the Mohammedan, nor will the Arab any longer allow the Osmanlees to rule as a privileged race. Reform is everywhere struggling with decay, Christian progress with Mohammedan bigotry. The confusion of ideas following from the overthrow of old prejudices in all ranks of society, and the difficulty of fixing the attention universally on any attainable object, equally desired by different sects and races, is in

creased by the circumstance that in every town and province of the Othoman Empire the inhabitants consist of several nations, speaking languages imperfectly known to one another, and holding adverse religious tenets with the most orthodox bigotry, even while they are compelled to mingle constantly together in the daily intercourse of life. To unite this fermenting mass of human agitation in attachment to a government of which the Sultan shall remain the head, it is necessary that the great body of the people should feel it to be their interest to support the fiscal system of the central administration, and that they should be convinced of the Sultan's power to secure an equal dispensation of justice, and equal rights to every class of his subjects. The reforms of Sultan Mahmoud having swept away all local institutions, the people are everywhere placed in direct connection with the central administration, and the same causes of revolution and the same dangers exist in Turkey as in the Western centralised states. The hour has arrived when the policy of the Sublime Porte must be determined by the wishes of the majority of the population of the empire, or a scene of anarchy will be the consequence. Fortunately the support of a majority of every race and religion can be gained by the fiscal and political reforms most conducive to the increase of the Sultan's authority. Nevertheless, a very numerous and powerful body of officials at Constantinople and the great towns of the empire, will be found hostile to these necessary changes. The alternative, however, is the fall of the Othoman Empire; for unless the reforms we are going to indicate be very speedily effected, no human power will be able to maintain the integrity of the empire for another generation. The Christian subjects of the Sultan in Europe, the Mohammedan in Asia, and even the Fellahs of Egypt, must be satisfied that their lives and property are as secure under the government of the Sublime Porte as under any Christian potentate, or they will attempt to throw off the Sultan's yoke. Now, if the whole mass of the agricultural population were to rise in rebellion, the exertions

of the Sultan's allies would ultimately prove of little avail in restoring his authority.

Having premised these general observations, we shall now proceed to sketch the actual condition of the cultivators of the soil, and of the whole body of the landed proprietors in the Othoman Empire, and point out the changes which must be made before agriculture can flourish, and the people become satisfied with the existing government. It is not necessary for us to accumulate proofs that the whole landed interest in TurkeyMohammedan as well as Christian, proprietor as well as peasant, Turk as well as Greek-is, as a mass, ground down by the fiscal oppression of the Sublime Porte. It is notorious that for nearly two centuries the numbers and the wealth of the agricultural class have been diminishing from generation to generation. Accidental circumstances, the impulse given to particular branches of culture by the vicinity of flourishing commercial cities, casual facilities of transport to a market, and the expenditure of the central administration in many of the towns where European traders principally reside, tend in some degree to conceal the extent of the general depopulation and rapid destruction of capital vested in the soil which is constantly going on. But few travellers have visited the interior of Asia Minor without seeing mosques and marble tombs standing in solitary desolation near the ruins of an abandoned town. The signs of a departed population, which has notwithstanding left ample proof that it possessed considerable wealth at no very distant period, may be seen on every great road in the Sultan's wide extended empire. Many writers have overstated the extent of the decay, some have caricatured the causes of the evil, but no one has yet ventured to proclaim that the progress of the decline has been arrested.

The ruin of the agricultural interest in Turkey is caused by the manner in which the taxes on agriculture are levied. The evil lies in the collection of the revenue, not in its amount. All the land in the Othoman Empire pays the land-tax in kind, and it never amounts to less than one-tenth of the

gross produce of the soil, besides all the labour of gathering in, threshing, and winnowing the government share. This tax is levied in kind, from the absolute impossibility of collecting it in money, in districts where no roads exist, and consequently where considerable capital is necessary to transport the produce to any market. The regulations adopted by the government, and by the farmers of the revenue, to guard against fraud, confine the routine of agriculture within the rudest limits. These regulations fetter the industry of the landed proprietor, exclude all improvement in the application of labour, and force the peasantry to live in a barbarous state of society. The whole grain crops, in consequence of these regulations, frequently remain nearly two months exposed in the open air near the threshing-floors, merely to prevent the cultivator from abstracting some portion for the use of his family, without paying the government the tenth on this trifle. It is not too much to estimate the loss on the whole produce in grain at about five per cent, in consequence of this system of exposing the crops. We have more than once seen thunderstorms in the month of July carry off whole sheaves of wheat from the threshing-floors. Here, therefore, we have an enormous sacrifice on the part of the agricultural classes to a very questionable administrative necessity.

Another consequence of preventing the agriculturist from performing his farming operations, and employing his time in the way he may consider most conducive to his interest, is, that the whole agricultural population is kept in a state of idleness congregated round the village threshing-floors for two months every year. The price of labour generally, and particularly the cost of raising grain, are greatly increased without any corresponding increase in the wellbeing of the labourer, or in the profits of the farmer. The late changes which have increased the authority of the central administration, have greatly added to the fiscal severity of this rude system of collecting the national revenues. In each district the great bulk of the agricultural classes cultivate the same articles of produce, and pur

sue the same routine of culture; consequently every man possesses a superfluity of the articles which his neighbour is desirous of selling. It may be remarked, that at an earlier period of the Othoman government, when a numerous population existed which is now destroyed, when many vineyards, orchards, mulberry plantations, and olive groves, flourished, which have long been annihilated, when many Mohammedan merchants and capitalists made fortunes by transporting the produce of the interior to the nearest seaports, no apparent inconvenience arose from paying the land-tax in kind. The evil commenced when the central government seized the local revenues destined for the maintenance of roads and bridges, and allowed both to fall to ruin. The increased expense of transport then enabled a few capitalists to monopolise the whole trade in all articles of export. The ruin of the landed proprietors and agriculturists soon commenced, but it excited little attention, from the great profits which enriched the commercial cities on the coasts of the Mediterranean during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The trade with Turkey was at that period the most lucrative branch of European commerce; and Mohammedan merchants were among the most wealthy who visited the marts of Ancona and Venice. But the avarice of the Othoman officials was at last awakened. The pashas and their bankers and dependants first shared in the profits of the Mohammedan traders, and ultimately_monopolised the whole trade. Their oppressive regulations ruined the landed proprietors, and exterminated the peasantry; families were impoverished, villages disappeared, and in many extensive districts the whole rural population abandoned the cultivation of their native soil to emigrate into the nearest commercial cities. We must also here remind our readers that the Othoman government, though it created a powerful and energetic central administration in civil and military affairs, adopted most of the local, financial, and judicial corruptions of the degraded inhabitants of the Greek and Seljouk empires which it conquered. These empires were in a