1874.] OFFICIAL EXTRAVAGANCE. 3 nearly half, of the Porte's revenue, more money has to be borrowed in order to meet the year's demand, and it can only be obtained on very unfavourable terms. The wretched system of farming the revenue still continues. The population is generally on the decrease, and with it those productive elements which yield supplies to a treasury. To crown all, the Government has no regard for economy. Its purchases are carried beyond its means, and even beyond its wants. The Civil List, and the salaries and pensions of numerous officials are on far too high a scale. The Turks, I doubt not, will pay the dividends on their loans as long as they can. Their good faith in that respect is seconded by their interest. incur discredit, and with it loss Christendom. The danger lies in their increasing necessities. The Porte has lately made arrangements with the Ottoman Bank, which, if made in a right spirit and fairly carried out, may warrant a cautious renewal of confidence on the part of capitalists and shareholders. But this point does not appear to have been completely attained. Misgivings are still entertained in some observant quarters, and economy is not, as yet, the financial principle adopted at Constantinople. They would not willingly of sympathy on the part of It would thus appear that there is ample reason for inquiring whether the Turkish Government can without prejudice to its safety so far reduce its expenses as to avoid the impending danger. To form even an approximative judgment on this matter we must appeal in some measure to the past. About twenty years since, when Reschid Pasha was Grand Vizier, I went with him into an examination of the financial question in so far as the revenue of his Government was concerned. According to his statements the annual receipts of the treasury did not exceed seven millions and a half, or, at most, eight millions sterling. There was a hope, he said, that they might be raised to another million in a year or two. At that period the Porte had not embarked in its present system of applying for loans to the European markets. Within the last two or three years the Turkish revenue has been proclaimed as amounting to twenty-one millions. There may be some exaggeration in this statement, but, I think, we may safely set down this increase at twelve millions. Now, what has happened politically to Turkey in the interval? First, the Crimean War, and then its termination by a general peace, which ever since, has enabled the Sultan to enjoy the blessings of quiet and security, with two or three very limited exceptions, at one time on the side of Candia, at another in Syria, and then again at Montenegro. During the same period large sums have been expended by the Sultan in building superfluous palaces, in purchasing huge iron-clads of little practical utility, and in making large additions to his army already sufficient for any immediate exigencies. The public debt has in consequence assumed by regular degrees its present gigantic proportions. In this manner a precious space of time has been wasted on objects of little or no use, and productive only of future embarrassment and eventual peril. Is no stop to be put to this unwise and untimely extravagance? Has not Her Majesty's Government a right, in virtue of its guarantees, to require the effective adoption of a less reckless employment of their protégé's resources? Is it not their bounden duty to interfere, with or without their partners in the guaranty, for the purpose of preventing, before it be too late, a disaster involving the most serious responsibility? If such were the view adopted by the British Cabinet, it may be expected that the Foreign Office would communicate with the French and Austrian Governments, though friendly suggestions might be at once conveyed, in a con 1874.] A FORECAST OF DANGER. 5 fidential form, to the Sultan's ministers. Sooner or later it would surely be fair and expedient to intimate the right of the three allies to withdraw their guarantee if Turkey continued wantonly to incur the dangers inseparable from weakness and one of its primary causes, financial destitution. Let it be clearly understood that the question is purely political. Our peculiar relations with Turkey might indeed not improbably justify an exceptional interference on behalf of our numerous bond-holders. But that is not the matter in hand. A repetition of the Eastern Question, aggravated by its more immediate causes, and attended perhaps with peril, certainly with much cost, is the apprehension which has led to this memorandum being submitted to superior knowledge and sounder judgment than its author's. A lion, he knows, is in the path. A false sympathy might be created between Turkey and Russia, and the very mischief which a wholesome policy might be employed to prevent, would be fostered into vitality by the warmth of a flattering influence. It can hardly be denied that such a contingency is quite possible, but are we sure that the snake does not already occupy a place in the bosom of its dupe, and is the diplomacy of three great Powers so defective as to find no suitable means of counteracting the supposed evil? At all events, a timely and well-conducted attempt to prevent an approaching danger, the reality and extent of which are matters of experience as well as of calculation, with right to warrant and duty to impose it, would, even if it proved unsuccessful, be creditable to the vigilance of Ministers, and turn aside any popular wish to fasten the responsibility on the Government. II. ENGLAND'S POLICY TOWARDS TURKEY. [After the repudiation of her debt by Turkey, and the commencement of the insurrection in Herzegovina, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe addressed the following letter to the Times, in which he reviewed the general position of affairs. This letter will be found to have a direct application to many circumstances in the present condition of Turkey.] DECEMBER 31st, 1875. THAT Turkey is weak, fanatical, and misgoverned no one can honestly deny; but to my apprehension it would be a great and hazardous mistake to infer from its condition in those respects that the best way for England is to leave it entirely alone. Among the Turkish statesmen are some, at least, who in spite of their religious prejudices and defective knowledge, have sagacity enough to feel their wants, and prudence enough to bend rather than to break under the force of reasonable pressure. Nor are the Sultan's Mussulman subjects so unmanageable as to give serious alarm to his Government when reforms of an unpopular kind are to be carried into effect. The Eastern question is a fact, a reality of indefinite duration. Like a volcano, it has intervals of rest; but its outbreaks are frequent, their occasions uncertain, and their effects destructive. The chief Powers of Christendom have all, more or less, an interest in the fortunes of an Empire which from being systematically aggressive has become a tottering and untoward neighbour. Its struggles for life, the agonies of its dissolution, could not fail to 1875.] ENGLAND CANNOT REMAIN PASSIVE. 7 throw all Europe into a state of hurtful agitation, if not into one of general hostilities. Ambitions, jealousies, apprehensions, and other conflicting passions would be roused into fearful activity, and the consequence of a fermentation so violent and extensive may well be dreaded. Under these circumstances, for England to be an idle looker-on seems hardly credible. Such an attitude with reference to interests so positive and perils so imminent would be a virtual abdication of her high position and its attendant duties. True it is that of two evils she has only to choose the lesser, but the choice of either would be better than indifference alike degrading and dangerous. War on one side, and an injurious dismemberment of Turkey on the other, may surely be avoided by British influence, exercised from a suitable position. The Treaty of Paris gives us the right of acting with the other parties to it wherever the affairs of Turkey are concerned. If the three Northern Powers are left to themselves, they will, of course, be guided by their own views. There is no reason to mistrust Russia at present; but Russia is, nevertheless, one of the same triumvirate which partitioned Poland, and the retirement of England might be taken as her opportunity. The moral insistance of England would in all likelihood be decisive in a conference of the five or the six Powers. Peace, the support of Turkey, its administrative, in particular its financial improvement, and the equality of all classes of its population, would naturally be the main points of her policy; nor is there ground for apprehending opposition to such principles on the part of others. The Sultan, moreover, would be more likely to assent to measures necessary to secure the execution of reforms when proposed. to him by all the Powers and recommended by England whose counsels have always had a defensive or conservative character,-defensive as to the Danube and the Bosphorus, |