For

is precisely the same, and no one is astonished at the rise of the one or at the fall of the other. Under this state of things, as no Mussulman makes his way in the world by the productive industry which secures wealth and consideration in other countries, all the importance he enjoys and all the luxuries he can command are due to the maintenance of his official position, or to the credit he derives from it. Hence there is not a public functionary in the country who is not openly accused of the grossest corruption, in addition to the large emoluments he draws from the state; and his life is spent, while in office, either in amassing plunder or in paying off the enormous debts contracted to Armenian seraffs under less favourable circumstances. The relaxation of the imperial authority and of public morality is such that no punishment whatever seems to fall on these offenders, though their Armenian accomplices are sometimes caught; and even the detection of a palpable fraud is not supposed to disqualify a man for holding the first office of the Empire a few months afterwards. the same reason—an inordinate love and want of place-almost every one of these fortunate adventurers is more or less closely connected with one of the foreign embassies, and lends himself to foreign influence; and their course of action on the greatest questions of state is mainly regulated by considerations arising out of their own personal position, which commonly remain wholly unknown to the politicians of Europe. Nothing is more characteristic of this extraordinary system of spoliation than the proportion of official salaries to the general expenditure of the empire. Taking the revenue at about 7,000,000l. sterling -a sufficiently moderate burden on a population of 36,000,000, and an Empire which has about twice the superficial area of France the pay of the public functionaries is estimated by Dr. Michelsen at 1,950,000l., and the civil list of the Sultan and his family, at 834,000l., without any allowance for the enormous underhand profits received by public servants of every class, by which probably one half the gross revenue of the state is abstracted before it reaches the treasury. Mr. White estimates the expenses of the imperial household at 1,250,000l., or about one-fifth of the revenue of the empire. Well may Dr. Michelsen observe, in producing these figures, that the 'Ottoman Empire, though it has now existed for more than five centuries, can scarcely be called a state, in the proper 'sense of the word. The government of the past five centuries 'represents a system which is in Constantinople very aptly 'described as a "Nizam Altyuda haidad"—an organised system ' of rapacity;' and, in spite of some recent attempts at reform, we

believe this system to be unchanged, and that no effective system of control over the finances or of personal responsibility for public trusts is in existence.

The revenue is raised by the most vicious, unequal, and unproductive means. The principal source of income is a tithe of produce collected in kind in Roumelia and some parts of Asia, and commuted in the other provinces. Then comes an income-tax, varying in amount from 10 to 25 per cent., which is frequently imposed on the same produce that has already paid tithe. The capitation-tax, or Haratch, is paid by the Christians only, and is regarded by them as an insulting burden. The custom duties of the Empire produce only 750,000l. a year, and they constitute a further burden on the productive industry of the country; for whilst all merchandise imported into the Ottoman Empire pays a duty of 5 per cent. ad valorem, all merchandise exported from the Empire pays a duty of 12 per cent. These duties are still farmed by the Government, and the collection of the revenue is in the hands of gangs of Armenian speculators, who enrich themselves whilst they oppress the tax-payer and defraud the State. Laws have repeatedly been passed against these malikianes, as they are termed, but without effect, and the system remains unaltered. About five years ago, the customs of one large town were farmed for 1,500,000 piastres, and the contractor acknowledged he had gained a million piastres on his bargain. In the following year, he would have taken the farm at two millions and a half; but a member of the government obtained it for himself under the name of one of his servants, for 1,700,000; and then, wishing to realise his profits at once, made over his contract to the former holders for the sum they would have given for it. The State was thus robbed of 800,000 piastres; and the same abuses prevail in every rank of the financial agents. To take another instance quoted by M. Ubicini. The tithes of certain villages are farmed by auction. Some few days before the public tender, the great man of the district causes it to be known that he intends to bid for certain villages, and threatens with his high displeasure any one who may dispute them with him. The auction begins, and the farms are knocked down to the great man or his agent. The forms of the law have been strictly complied with. But when the public sale is over, the real transaction begins; the holder of the farms then proceeds to resell in retail the village tithes he has just purchased in a lump, and if he manages well he may succeed in realising a clear profit of 1,800,000 piastres on a sale of tithes to the value of two millions. These are not sup

posed cases, but facts related by competent writers, who are defending what can be defended in Turkish institutions.

It has been justly observed by one of the numerous writers on the military defence of the Ottoman Empire, that to hold her vast territories, Turkey requires a good army, but that a good army cannot exist without good finances, or good finances without good administration. So another of the champions of the Sultan prescribes an admirable strategical scheme of defence, and adds, that all that is necessary to carry it into effect is a system of good roads; and this, in a country where nothing exists beyond a bullock track, even under the walls of the capital. In all these attempts to regenerate Turkey, the improvements have begun at the wrong end. As long as the laws and governing class are unchanged, it is impossible that the land should be other than a wilderness, the revenue honestly paid, or judiciously employed, or the rights of society protected. The present state of things is a scramble for private advantages of the lowest kind, and the idea of public duty to the collective interests of the Empire has scarcely a representative in the service of the Grand Signior.

Upon what basis, then, can the government of such a community be said to rest, when the idea of absolute power, founded on a divine commission, and defended by all the rigour of sanguinary force, has ceased to exist? The distinctions of birth are totally unknown: no family exists in the empire but that of the sovereign; and even family names are wanting. The distinction of permanent hereditary wealth is equally rare in a country where, till very recently, property has been habitually insecure, and where ample possessions usually caused the ruin of their owner and the downfall of his house. Every man who takes a part in public affairs belongs to that vast and rapacious tribe of functionaries who devour the revenue of the State, and the resources of the Empire. His career is diversified by plunder and prodigality while he is in power, and by debts contracted on ruinous terms when out of office. In the midst of the present crisis, and at a moment when every piastre in the imperial treasury was supposed to be devoted to preparation for war, it is a well authenticated fact, that the minister on whom the burden of public affairs mainly rested, availed himself of his vast influence to cause the Sultan to pay his private debts to an amount of 22 million piastres, or nearly 200,000l., by allying his son to the imperial family.

The distinction of superior education, experience, or ability, is equally rare. Few statesmen of education exist in the country, for what the modern school of Turks claim to know

has been picked up abroad, and their superiority is viewed with neither favour or respect by their Mussulman countrymen. At this very time one of the ablest men in the Empire, Aali Pasha, is not in office, and Fuad Effendi has only been employed as commissioner to the forces. The truth is, that the choice of ministers, the ascendancy of one set of men over another, and the distribution of the vast patronage of the Empire, which is the sole support of the dominant class, are all regulated by party intrigues little known in Europe, and changes which have spread consternation and astonishment abroad may frequently be traced at Stamboul to the lowest vices and meanest passions of humanity. In the present state of affairs at the Porte all these intrigues are wholly unchecked. The Sultan is apathetic, kind-hearted, and easily deceived, and the time is past when the favourite of to-day might have his head struck off on the morrow. The pashas have the government in their own hands. They form a species of bastard oligarchy, limited only by the fanaticism of the ulemas and the exactions of the law, and, like all oligarchies, they govern solely with a view to the maintenance of their own power. To the honour of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and of English diplomacy it must be said, that means have been found to turn even these contemptible instruments towards the improvement of the country, and to obtain from them those gradual concessions for the Christian population which will one day raise them, we hope, to the level of free men. The claim of Russia to a protectorate of the Christians in Turkey is the more monstrous, since every measure adopted of late years for their benefit has originated with the English or French embassies, and has been opposed by the Russian agents. Thus, in spite of the most untoward circumstances, the cause of reform in Turkey advanced, but it advanced by the weakness of the government rather than by its strength, and the efforts of the Divan to carry into effect some of its most praiseworthy measures were almost as injurious to its power and stability as the attacks to which it was exposed from without. The honourable refusal of the Sultan to deliver up the Hungarian fugitives who had sought shelter in his dominions was the cause of an interruption of his friendly relations with the Court of Vienna, and, perhaps, laid the first seed of that resentment which Russia has since manifested by the most violent measures. The attempt of the Porte to enforce the Tanzimat in Bosnia led to the revolt of that province in 1850, when Omar Pasha succeeded in crushing the insurrection by force of arms, but, at the same time, he destroyed the last remains of the power of those Bosnian sipahis who had been

for ages one of the best elements in the military force of the empire. The loan negotiated in 1852 in Paris and London under the auspices of the Greek envoys of the Porte in those cities, might have improved the financial condition of the empire, and would have strengthened the interest of Western Europe in its preservation; but, after the payment of the first instalment, the contract was annulled, and the money returned, whilst Prince Cantacuzene, one of the ablest diplomatic servants of the Sultan, was disgraced for no fault of his own. Power in the Divan fluctuated between bigoted, incapable, or corrupt ministers, and each succeeding month increased the difficulty of the question how an empire of so vast a frame, and so faint a vitality, was to be governed, or even preserved in existence.

Such have been the results of the experiment for the reform of Turkish institutions begun by Sultan Mahmoud, and continued during the reign of his son. But, though these reforms have not produced all the beneficial results anticipated from them, it cannot for a moment be contended that the old system of Turkish government could have been maintained. The struggle with Greece was the last effort of that merciless and barbarous domination, which was terminated for ever by the massacre of the Janizaries and the battle of Navarino. The time was past when Europe would endure to witness the subjection of a Christian people by means which perpetually reminded the world of the ferocity of the Turkish conquest, and the reigning Sultan himself accepted and ratified the new policy which raised his Christian subjects to the rank of human beings. They were emancipated by the Hatti Scheriff of Gulhani from the degrading conditions under which their forefathers had groaned since the middle of the fifteenth century. They have advanced with uncommon rapidity in industry and intelligence. Yet many of the most important franchises of social life are still withheld from them. The tenor of landed property by Rayahs is, as we have already seen, thwarted by Mahomedan law, and it is absolutely prohibited to all foreign Christians. The testimony of Christians is not received in mixed causes before the Turkish tribunals, and the great bulk of the population of the empire in Europe is thus degraded to the level of the negroes of Kentucky. This enormous abuse has lately been warmly attacked by Lord Stratford, and there is reason to hope that the firman abolishing so shameful a distinction has actually been signed, but there is a wide gulf between the signature of these firmans and their execution by the local authorities. The Haratch, or capitation tax, is still levied on the Christians in the most odious and insulting form, though a larger revenue