The meeting was long, and it is said that the conduct of the members was much more disorderly than that of the people and the troops in the square; but at last, a proclamation and an oath were drawn up, by which the council of state, the army, and the people, all pledged themselves to support the constitution. A committee consisting of Metaxas, Londos, and Palamidhis, was also charged to prepare an address to the king, recommending his majesty to convoke a national assembly, in order to prepare a constitution for the state; at the same time they invited his majesty to appoint new ministers, and in the list presented they of course took care to insert their own names. As soon as this business was terminated, the council dispatched a deputation to wait on his majesty, consisting of the president and five members, who were to obtain the king’s consent.
The conduct of King Otho on receiving this deputation was neither wise nor firm. He delayed returning any answer for two hours, and attempted to open a negotiation with the council of state, by means of one of the members of the camarilla. The delay excited some distrust even among the best disposed in the square, and the report was spread that the king was endeavouring to communicate with the corps diplomatique, in order to create a diversion. At this very time a train of carriages suddenly appeared at the gates of the palace, and the ministers of the three protecting powers—Sir Edmund Lyons, Mr Katakazy, and Mr Piscatory, accompanied by General Prokesch d’Osten, and Mr Brassier de St Simon, the representatives of Austria and Prussia—requested to be admitted to see the king. General Kalergy, however, declared that he had orders to refuse all entry to the palace, until his majesty had terminated his conference with the deputation of the council of state; and repeated, in the presence of the ministers of Austria and Prussia, the assurance he had given at an early hour of the morning to Sir Edmund Lyons, Mr Katakazy, and Mr Piscatory, that the greatest respect would be shown to the person of his majesty. Mr Katakazy, the doyen of the corps diplomatique, satisfied that any parade of foreign interference could only increase the difficulties of the king’s position, accepted the answer of Kalergy and began to withdraw. The representatives of the powers which had never protected Greece, deemed the moment favourable for a display of a little independent diplomacy, and accordingly the Prussian minister asked Kalergy in a tone, neither mild nor low, if he durst refuse to admit him to see his majesty. To this Kalergy, who was extremely anxious to avoid any dispute with the foreign ministers at such a moment, politely replied that he was compelled to refuse even the minister of Prussia. Mr Brassier, however, returned to the charge aided by his Austrian colleague; but as the Greeks place all Germans in the category of Bavarians, they gave some manifestations of their dislike to any German interference, which could not be otherwise than displeasing to the Prussian, who addressed Kalergy in a very rough tone. His words were lost to the spectators, but they were supported by General Prokesch d’Osten with a good deal of gesticulation. The patience of Kalergy gave way under these repeated attacks, and he turned to Mr Brassier, saying—“Monsieur le ministre, you are generally unlucky in your advice, and I am afraid his majesty has heard too much of it lately.”
The thrust was a home one, and the Prussian minister, rather discomposed, addressed himself to Sir Edmund Lyons, who, while waiting till his carriage drew up, had been quietly contemplating the scene, and said—“Colonel Kalergy is insolent; but he only repeats what he has heard in the drawing-rooms of Athens.” Sir Edmund Lyons replied—“I do not see, Mr Brassier, how that makes your case better,” and withdrew to his carriage, leaving Austria and Prussia to battle out their dispute with Greece in the presence of the mob. The spectators considered the scene a very amusing one, for they laughed heartily as the corps diplomatique retired; but, if all the reports current in diplomatic circles be true, Mr Katakazy, the doyen of the Athenian diplomatists, was made to suffer severely for his prudent conduct; for it is said that his recall took place because he did not support with energy the foolish attempt of his enterprising colleagues. It is certain that any very violent support given to any feeling, in direct hostility to the national cause at the time, could hardly have failed to vacate the throne, or at least to push the people on to commit some disorders, of which the Russian court, and the friends of despotism at Vienna and Berlin, might have taken advantage.
The king, finding at last that there was no hope of his deriving any assistance from without, signed the ordinances appointing a new ministery, and convoking a national assembly. The troops, after having remained more than thirteen hours under arms, were marched back to their barracks, as if from a review; and every thing at Athens followed its usual course. Thus was a revolution effected in the form of government in Greece without any interruption in the civil government—without the tribunals’ ceasing to administer justice for a single day—without the shops’ remaining closed beyond the usual hours, or the mercantile affairs of the country undergoing the slightest suspension. Such a people must surely be fit for a constitution.
The national assembly has now met, and terminated its labours; and Greece is in possession of a constitution made by Greeks. In three months the first representative chamber will meet. It will consist of about 120 members. The senate, which is to consist of members named by the king for life, cannot exceed one-half the number of the representatives elected by the people. Faults may be found with some of the details of the constitution; but, on the whole, it must be regarded as a very favourable specimen of the political knowledge of the Greeks; and the manner in which the different articles were discussed, and the care with which every proposal and amendment were examined, gave all those who witnessed the debates a very high opinion of the legislative capacity of the people.
The form of the Greek government, as a constitutional monarchy, may now be considered as settled. We shall therefore proceed to examine the difficulties, of a social and political nature, which still obstruct the advancement of the nation, and render its prosperity problematical. Some of our statements may appear almost paradoxical to travellers, whose hasty glance at distant countries enables them to come to rather more positive conclusions than those who devote years to study the same subject. We shall, however, strive to expose our facts in such a way as to show that we state the plain truth, nothing but the truth, and, as far as our subject carries us, the whole truth.
That Greece has not hitherto improved, either in her wealth, population, or civilization, as fast as the energy of her people led her friends to expect would be the case after she was freed from the Turks, is universally admitted. The great bar to improvement exists in an evil rooted in the present frame of social life, but fortunately one which good and just government would gradually remove. In Greece there is no clear and definite idea of the sacred right of property in land. The god Terminus is held in no respect. No Greek, from the highest to the lowest, understands the meaning of that absolute right of property “which,” as Blackstone says, “consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal by every Englishman of all his acquisitions, without control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land.”
The appropriation of Mr Finlay’s land by King Otho, without measurement, valuation, or payment, to make a garden for his palace—the formation of a great road leading to the French minister’s house, by the municipality of Athens, without indemnifying the owners of the land, though a road sufficiently good already existed—and the confiscation of half the estates purchased by foreigners from the Turks by Maurocordatos, when Minister of Finance under the Bavarian Regency, in a ministerial circular deciding on rights of property, are mere trifling examples of the universal spirit. When Maurocordatos wrote his memorable declaration, “that every spot where wild herbs, fit for the pasturage of cattle, grow, is national property, and that the Greek government recognises no individual property in the soil except the exclusive right of cultivation,” he only, in deference to the Bavarian policy of the time, which wished to copy Mohammed Ali’s administration in Egypt, caricatured a misconception of the right of property equally strong in every Greek, whether he be the oppressor or the oppressed. Even the late National Assembly has not thought it necessary to correct any of the invasions of private property by the preceding despotism. Individuals, almost ruined by the plunder of their land, have not even received the offer of an indemnity, though the justice of their claims is not denied.[C]
The origin of this national obtuseness of mind on a question of interest, is to be found in the system of taxing the land. A Greek really views land somewhat as English labourers view game. The owner of the soil is absolute proprietor only during those months in which he is engaged in the labours of preparing the land and sowing the seed. As soon as the harvest time arrives, he ceases to be master of his estate, and sinks into the condition of a serf of the revenue officer, or of the farmer of the land revenue. It is true, that the government tax only amounts to a tenth of the gross produce of the soil; but, in virtue of this right to a tenth, government assumes the entire direction of all the agricultural operations relating to the crops, and the cultivator’s nine-tenths (for it is really a misnomer to call him proprietor) become a mere adjunct of the government tenth.
Many of our readers, who are unacquainted with Eastern life, may suppose that we colour our picture too strongly. In order, therefore, to divest our statement of all ornament, we shall describe the whole of the events of an agricultural year. Our classic readers will then comprehend practically how the vulture could feast on the perpetually growing heart of Prometheus—why Tantalus tempted the gods by murdering Pelops—and they will see that the calamities of the Theban race are an allegorical representation of the inevitable fate which awaits a people groaning under the system of taxation now in force in Greece.