The life of Midhat Pasha; a record of his services, political reforms, banishment, and judicial murder

by Ali Haydar Mithat

The points of contention between the Palace, or the Sultan (which now become synonymous expressions), and Midhat were all contained in germ in the foregoing variations in the first speech from the throne.

(1) In the very first sentence of the Hatti Humayun of inauguration the Sultan had cut out a passage which would have introduced a change to which Midhat attached some importance—“my Grand Vizier with the title of Prime Minister.” Midhat desired to abolish the title of Grand Vizier and to substitute for it that of Prime Minister, a change which would have entailed as a consequence the collective, instead of the individual, responsibility of Ministers. What the first Minister would lose in dignity and personal influence would be acquired by the Ministry collectively, and would thus consolidate the component parts of the Constitution. Midhat was well aware that this post of Prime Minister would require strengthening and developing for some time in Turkey, in view of the power and influence which the Throne derived from the very nature of the traditions and sentiments of the Ottomans, and the position of Islam in the world.

The purport and tendency of the proposal did not escape the new sovereign, and, faithful to his own views and interests, he simply cancelled the sentence and rejected the proposal.

(2) Midhat had placed in the mouth of the Sultan the following phrase: “As the Constitutional system is one of the principal causes of the progress of nations, we hereby declare this system of government to be adopted by Us, whilst holding, etc.”—instead of which, after some colourless commonplace sentences about the non‐observance of laws and regulations and pursuing the noble object of assuring the happiness of our subjects, he speaks of the necessity of convoking “a general Assembly compatible with the habits and customs and capacity of our population” (which might mean anything or nothing according to the estimate of their capacity), and he orders his Ministers carefully and minutely to study this question (which they had done for a year past), and submit the report to his sanction.

(3) In connection with the same important subject Midhat had proposed, for the purpose of elaborating the Constitutional laws, the convention of a Grand Council composed of the Ministers of State, the Doctors of the Law, and all those whose knowledge and experience entitled them to a voice in the country, to express their opinion on the subject, and that on their report being revised by the Council of Ministers it should be submitted to the approbation of the Sultan.

This proposal evidently meant business, and would not only have fixed a limit of time for the inauguration of the new Constitution, but would have given it the imprimatur of all that was enlightened and worthy of respect and attention in the empire. The Sultan rejected the sentence in toto.

(4) Midhat, who was deeply concerned by the actual condition of Turkish Finances, and thoroughly convinced that the first step in setting this right must be the exercise of rigid economy in all branches of the administration, and who, moreover, had experience of all that had taken place in the reign of Abdul Aziz, did not hesitate to propound to Abdul Hamid what his predecessor Murad had unhesitatingly accepted, viz., that the expenses of the household and of the Imperial Palace should be diminished and reduced to what was strictly necessary, and the Civil list of the princes of the Imperial family should be in like manner reduced, and their amount paid directly by the Minister of Finance, and he left it to the sovereign to make over a sum that he should fix himself for the monthly expenses of the Palace.

The Sultan omitted the whole paragraph.

(5) Midhat attached the greatest importance to the question of mixed schools in the provinces where Christians and Mussulmans lived together. The reader will recollect (p. 40) that when Governor of the provinces of the Danube he desired to establish this system in Bulgaria, and it was this very proposal which excited the anxiety and stirred the energies of the vigilant Ignatieff to defeat the proposal and obtain the dismissal of the Vali.