The Progress of Reform.
We are officially assured that the change in the Ministry will in no way impede the progress of reform, which has already been carried out in the Department of Justice, and which is soon to be applied to the civil administration. The plan has already been elaborated. It has been sent to the Valis for their approval, and will soon be submitted to the Eastern Roumelia Commission, after which it will be considered by the Sultan and, if approved by him, will be proclaimed in the form of a new Hatt. It professes to be a plan for a reorganization of the Vilayets, on the principle of decentralization and local self-government. It does not seem to excite much interest in any quarter, probably for the reason that all this exists already on paper, and that if Aali Pacha could not execute the elaborate scheme, which he proclaimed when the Vilayets were organized, there is not much probability that the new Hatt will be any more effective. The people of Turkey have no faith in paper reforms. They are issued as easily as paper money, and are as easily repudiated; they are like leading articles in the daily papers—they are written, read, and forgotten, alike by the author and the reader, within the twenty-four hours. There is an old proverb current among the Turks which says, “The decrees of the Sultan last three days—the day they are made, the day they are kept, and the day they are forgotten.” If the proverb were a new one, the second day would be omitted.
The reforms which have been completed by Said Pacha, the Minister of Justice, are not of a nature to encourage the hopes of the people. A large number of new officials have been appointed, but they are of the same class as those already in office. Indeed, there seems to have been a special purpose in these appointments of making it known to the people that no change was to be expected in the method of administering the law. Only seventeen out of one hundred and eighty-three of these new officials are Christians, and the Turkish papers take pains to declare that it is absurd to suppose that Christians are competent to hold these offices. This is the result of the demand of Lord Salisbury that the Courts of the Empire should be reorganized under European control. They will continue to be what they have been, and it will be but a small consolation to the suffering people of Turkey to know that they have been condemned in strong terms by the British Government. The worst feature of the case is that the law offers no man any protection against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. A man may be thrown into prison and kept there for years without any trial or any knowledge of the charges brought against him. Such cases are very common. Or he may he beaten by the police, or chained in a dungeon, on the most frivolous charge. I knew a case the other day of a Greek who was severely beaten because he requested a police officer to arrest a Turk who was plundering his shop in broad day. All this was done in the presence of a European gentleman, too. There are several Armenians in prison now in Constantinople whose only offence was the wearing of hats in place of the fez. At the same time, crimes of every description are committed with impunity without any apparent effort on the part of the authorities to discover the perpetrators. Almost in sight of Constantinople, and under the immediate jurisdiction of the capital, is a district where for months the peaceful inhabitants of Adabazar have been plundered and murdered by the Circassians. They have appealed again and again to Constantinople for protection. They have tried to interest the Ambassadors in their behalf. They sent a deputation to the Grand Vizier. He had no time to see them, but turned them over to another official who requested them to present him in writing a statement of the reforms which they thought were needed in the Empire! A few hundred soldiers, or even one determined man sent from Constantinople, would have restored order; but nothing could be done. Five men were murdered while the deputation was in this city. The whole Turkish coast of the Black Sea is infested with brigands who plunder at will. They are well known, but no one thinks of arresting or punishing them. Travellers are only secure when they are provided with a safe-conduct from the leaders. The Reports of the new Consuls in Asia Minor acknowledge a state of things which is almost too bad to be believed. There is no security in the administration of the law for person, property, or life, and there seems to be no prospect of any improvement. Some more radical reform is needed than the appointment of one hundred and sixty-six new Turkish judges.
A scheme of financial reform has also been projected, and the foreign Embassies have been invited to nominate a certain number of persons as inspectors to superintend the collection of the revenue; but this is nothing new. The Imperial Ottoman Bank has nominally held this position for many years, and at times has exercised some control, no doubt with advantage to the Government. A new system of taxation, carried out under the control of honest and responsible Europeans, would increase the revenue of the Government without adding to the burdens of the people; but the place where reform is most needed is in the expenditure rather than the collection of the revenue. The present scheme does not command confidence in Constantinople in regard to the collection of the taxes, and it offers no security for the control of the expenses of the Government. The truth is that the whole financial system is hopelessly corrupt, and, however it may be patched or mended, it will be rotten still. There is no hope for the Turkish Government until it is ready to put its finances into the hands of competent Europeans who shall have absolute control over everything connected with expenditure as well as collection; and I am sorry to say that there seems to be no present prospect of any such arrangement. The enormous expenditure of the Palace is unlimited and uncontrolled, and the Sultan will not submit to any control. Financial reform must begin there, or it will amount to nothing. The present Sultan before he came to the throne was known to be a very careful and economical man, and no doubt he would be glad to be so now, but he has not the courage to break with the traditions of the past—give up his thousands of slaves, women, and palace officials, and live like a European sovereign rather than an Oriental despot. So long as he maintains the present system he must have money, no matter who starves for want of it; and he must continue to take money, on his personal order, from whatever department of the Government may be so happy as to have any in its treasury.
The Government is bankrupt; its revenues are not half enough to meet its current expenses; its army is starving; its civil service forced to live on plunder; its income mortgaged for years in advance to secure loans on which it is paying thirty or forty per cent. interest in one form or another; but still no one would dare to suggest to the Sultan the possibility of his reducing his own expenses to a sum equal to that expended by the Queen of England. Thus far all talk of financial reform is prompted by the desire to borrow more money in Europe to meet the present wants of the Government. These difficulties once surmounted, everything would go on as before. It is no friendship to Turkey to lend her money, until such time as the Sultan and his Ministers are ready for a real reform, beginning at the Palace, and conducted under the control of Europeans appointed and supported by their own Governments. But there is no prospect of any such arrangement.
The Turks do not appreciate the dangers which beset them. They see that the country is in an unsettled state, and they feel the want of money; but the evils of which the people complain are nothing new. They exist now in an aggravated form, on account of the war and the confusion which has reigned for several years at Constantinople; but the Turks see no reason why they should not be reduced to a normal state, and be quietly endured for centuries to come, as they have been for centuries past. Their attention is directed exclusively to their foreign relations, and whatever is said or done about reform is intended solely to conciliate public opinion in Europe. Could the rulers here be brought face to face with a really independent Representative Assembly, freely chosen by the people, they would be made to think less of Europe and more of Turkey. They would see that their rule has become well-nigh intolerable, even to the Mussulman population of the Empire. Then there would be some hope of genuine administration and financial reform. It is even possible that the Christian element in such an Assembly might be strong enough to secure, in time, the emancipation of the non-Mussulman population—and it should never be forgotten that this must come in some form. England does not insist upon it now, but she will, and so will all Europe. It would be far better for Turkey if it could be brought about by the Christians themselves; but if it is not, it will be forced upon the Turks by direct European intervention, or possibly by the overthrow of the Empire.