Lord Lyons to Lord Stanley.
Constantinople, April 10, 1867.
The Turks stand at bay for the moment. They have sent Omar Pasha to Crete and are confident that he will reduce the island to submission. If he fails to do so in a reasonable time, they must confess that the task is too hard for them and leave the settlement of the question to the European Powers. France has played the game of Russia and apparently has not succeeded after all in satisfying her. She has brought Turkey nearer to ruin than it has yet been. It all forwards the policy of Russia, which is to keep Turkey unquiet, to prevent any approach to conciliation between Turks and Christians, to keep up a constant drain on the finances—in short, to have the country entirely at its mercy whenever circumstances render it convenient to seize it. Aali Pasha and Fuad Pasha both assure me that the dividends due in July on the foreign loans will be punctually paid; but, with the best intentions, the Porte will not be able to pay its foreign dividends much longer, if it is obliged to keep a large force on a war footing on the frontier of Greece; and to provide against insurrections excited from abroad in other quarters. The Bulgarians appear to oppose a strong vis inertiæ to the Russian and Hellenic attempts to induce them to use and demand autonomy. Their principal quarrel is with the Greek clergy foisted upon them by the Patriarchate here. I have not been able to form a positive opinion on their demands for a separate Patriarch of their own, but I incline to think that the Porte would do well to grant it. Russia now urges that the Bulgarians should have a civil representative instead, but this would come very near to autonomy.
The discontent among the Mussulmans is very great. It is particularly so at Constantinople, where the employees of the Government form an important class, and where in consequence of the non-payment of salaries, they, and all who live by them, are reduced to the greatest distress. The 'Jeune Turquie' party is produced partly by this and partly by the desire of Mustapha Fazyl Pasha and others to oust Fuad and Aali and to take their places.
Reports from the Consuls on the treatment of the Christians will have been pouring in upon you. The greater part of the grievances of the Christians are the results of bad government and bad administration of justice, and affect Mussulmans and Christians alike. Their peculiar grievances are their practical exclusion from the high offices of the State, the rejection in many cases of their evidence in the Law Courts, and what is most intolerable, the position in which they stand socially and politically with regard to the Turks. The Turks will not look upon them as equals and cannot trust them. In fact the Christians cannot feel loyalty to the Government because they are not trusted and employed; and they cannot be trusted and employed because they are not loyal to the Government. It is a perfect example of a vicious circle. It is useless to deny that the position of a Christian subject of the Porte is a humiliating position, and it is vain to expect that within any reasonable time the Christians will look upon the existing Government as anything but an evil to be endured or possibly even upheld as a less evil than revolution, but nothing more.
It will be realized from this instructive letter that however bad the Turkish Government, it had to contend with obstacles which are not encountered by other countries, and that in reality it never had a fair chance, although it is only just to add that when a real chance did occur, upon the overthrow of Abdul Hamid, in 1908, the opportunity was deliberately thrown away.
The Turks, however, had sufficient sense to concede the Bulgarian demand for a separate church, and by thus affecting a schism between the latter and the Greeks, succeeded in prolonging their hold over Macedonia for a longer period than would otherwise have been the case.
Meanwhile Lord Stanley had been thinking of other matters, and the allusions to Alaska and to Canada in the letter of April 4, afford a delightful instance of the light in which British statesmen viewed Colonial questions at that period.
Lord Stanley to Lord Lyons.
Foreign Office, April 4, 1867.