The Turks themselves perform but a very small share of the work that is done in their empire. Various causes combine to render them less active than the other races. They are the governing class, and their ambition naturally aspires to the honours and the luxury of kief; that is to say, of sweet idleness. Despising everything not Mo­ham­me­dan, and being, besides, heedless and of a sluggish mind, they but rarely learn foreign languages, and are thus in a certain measure at the mercy of the other races, most of whom speak two or more idioms. Moreover, the fatalism taught in the Koran has deprived the Turk of all enterprise, and once thrown out of his ordinary routine, he is helpless. Polygamy and slavery are likewise two causes of demoralisation. It is true that the rich alone can permit themselves the luxury of a harem, but the poor learn from their superiors to despise women, they become debased, and take a share in that traffic in human flesh which is a necessary sequence of polygamy. Yet, in spite of the innumerable slaves imported in the course of four centuries from all the regions bordering upon {148} the Turkish empire; in spite of the millions of Circassian, Greek, and other girls transplanted into the harems, the Osmanli are numerically inferior to the other races of the peninsula. This dominant race—if the term race be applicable to the product of so many crossings—hardly numbers ten per cent. of the population of European Turkey. And this numerical inferiority is on the increase, for, owing to polygamy, the number of children surviving in Mo­ham­me­dan families is less than in Christian families. We are not in possession of precise figures, but there can be no doubt that the Turks are on the decrease. The conscription, to which they alone are subject, has contributed towards this result, and becomes more difficult from year to year.

It has often been repeated since Chateaubriand that the Turks have but camped in Europe, and expect to return to the steppes whence they came. It would thus be a feeling of presentiment which induces the Turks of Stambul to seek burial in the cemetery of Scutari, hoping thus to save their bones from the profanation of the Giaour’s tread on his return, as master, to Constantinople. In many places the living follow the examples of the dead, and a feeble current of emigration sets from the Archipelago and the coast districts of Thracia in the direction of Asia, carrying along many an old Turk discontented with the stir of European life. This migration, however, is but of very small importance, and does not affect the Osmanli of the interior. Nothing is further from the minds of the Turks of Bulgaria, the Yuruks of Macedonia, or the Koniarides, who have inhabited the mountains of Rumelia since the eleventh century, than to quit the land which has become their second home. The Turkish element in the Balkan peninsula can be got rid of only by exterminating it; that is, by treating the Turks more ferociously than they treated the native populations at the time of the conquest. We ought not to forget, at the same time, that the Turks, though far inferior in numbers to the other races, are nevertheless able to reckon upon the support of millions of Mo­ham­me­dan Albanians, Bosnians, Bulgarians, Circassians, and Nogai Tartars. The Mussulmans constitute more than a third of the population of European Turkey, and, in spite of differences of race, they hold firmly together. Nor must it be forgotten that they are backed up by a hundred and fifty millions of co-religionists in other parts of the world.[42]

[Μ]

ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP OF TURKEY in EUROPE

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Let us hope that the future may not give birth to a struggle of extermination between the races of the peninsula, but rather to institutions enabling these diverse and partially hostile elements to develop themselves in peace and liberty. The Turks themselves begin to see the necessity of such institutions, and, in theory at least, have abandoned their policy of violence and oppression. All the nationalities of the empire, without reference to race or religion, are supposed to be equal before the law, and Christians are admitted to Government offices on the same terms as Mussulmans. No doubt these fine laws have for the most part hitherto remained a dead letter, but it would nevertheless be unjust if we denied that much progress towards an equalisation of the various races has been made.

Fortunately the despotism of the Turks is not the despotism of learning, based upon a knowledge of human nature, and directed to its debasement. The Osmanli ignore the art of “oppressing wisely,” which the Dutch governors of the Sunda Islands were required to practise in former times, and which is not quite unknown in other countries. The pashas allow things to take their course as long as they are able to enrich themselves and their favourites, to sell justice and their favours at a fair price, and to bastinade now and then some unlucky wight. They do not inquire into the private concerns of their subjects, and do not call for confidential reports on families and individuals. Their Government, no doubt, is frequently violent and oppressive; but all this only touches externals. Such a government may not be favourable to the development of public spirit, but it does not interfere with individuals, and powerful national institutions, such as the Greek commune, the Mirdit tribe, and the Slav community, have been able to survive under it. Self-government is, in fact, more widely practised in Turkey than in the most advanced countries of Western Europe. It would have been difficult to force these various national elements under a uniform discipline, and the lazy Turkish functionaries generally leave things alone. The Frankish officials in the pay of the Turkish Government, in fact, more frequently interfere with the prejudices and privileges of the governed than do the Mussulman pashas of the old school.

It cannot be doubted for a moment that, in a time not very far distant, the non-Mo­ham­me­dan races of Turkey will take the lead in politics, as they do already in commerce, industry, and education. The Osmanli of the olden school, who still wear the green turban of their ancestors, look forward towards this inevitable result with despair. They struggle against every measure calculated to accelerate the emancipation of the despised raya, and European inventions, in their eyes, are working a great social transformation to their injury; and, indeed, it is the raya who profits most from roads, railways, harbours, agricultural and other machines. Bosnians, Bulgarians, and Servians have learnt to look upon each other as brothers; Albanians and Rumanians are drawn towards the Greeks; all alike feel themselves as Europeans; and thus the way is being paved for the Danubian Confederation of the future.

The approaching completion of the railway from Vienna to Constantinople cannot fail to work a commercial revolution as far as the trade of a considerable portion of Eastern Europe is concerned. It will form a link in the direct line {150} between England and India, and to travellers and merchandise will afford the shortest route from the centre of Europe to the Bosporus. On its opening, Constantinople will be enabled to avail itself to the fullest extent of the highways of commerce which converge upon it. Still greater must be the political consequences of opening this line, for it will bring the populations of the Balkan peninsula into more direct and active contact with those of Austro-Hungary and the rest of Europe.