2. We humbly submit, for the consideration of your Imperial Majesty, the utter want of means of communication throughout the interior of the island, and the absence of bridges, whereby the conveying of produce from one part to another is materially impeded, and many persons are annually drowned in the rivers.
3. We humbly venture to submit to your Imperial Majesty that the concessions granted to us by your illustrious predecessor in 1858, through the medium of the distinguished delegates sent hither, be put into execution.
It is true that we possess a Demogerondia, Councils, and Heads of Communities ("Ephoria"), but when we are called upon to exercise the right of election, our charter, which to all appearances exists, becomes in fact a dead letter. We venture to suggest that the last Regulation, which refers to the mode of electing the members of the Demogerondia and Councils, is defective, and therefore requires modification.
4. We beseech your Imperial Majesty graciously to consider the evils to which we are subject in consequence of the possessors of oil stores assuming to be money-lenders, but who are, indeed, monopolists, thus selling the produce of the island at half its value.
As it frequently happens that the crops fail, we are compelled to pay double the price, having under pressure already effected the sale of such produce.
We trust, therefore, that this system be abolished, and a bank duly established, for which latter the Hatti-Humayoun duly provides in its 29th paragraph.
5. We venture to submit to the paternal solicitude of your Imperial Majesty the deplorable condition of the local tribunals. Unprovided as these are with a general code, the form of procedure observed therein is necessarily irregular. In corroboration of this allegation, we assert that many have been persecuted, while no redress has been granted to those who have so suffered. We are enabled to enumerate various abuses which have occurred in every province. Hence, every branch of these law-courts requires amendment, so that on a sentence being awarded no undue favor shall be shown to the stronger party, or the creed of the individual be made to serve as a bias, as happened to some of the inhabitants of Kritza, Lasithe, and others. In that affair the Khaniollis family, having at one time held the produce of "malikianeh" or the tithes, presumed to consider themselves sole proprietors of that privilege, and went so far as to take possession of half of the property of Kritza, and nearly the whole of that of Lasithe, and some other. In consequence of such a proceeding, the inhabitants of the last-quoted village incurred considerable expense in the defence of their rights, and otherwise suffered grievously. Examples of this kind are not wanting in the Provinces of Retimo and Canéa.
Moreover, the sentences of the local tribunals used formerly to be drawn up in Turkish and Greek; but nowadays, although the vernacular be modern Greek throughout the island, no judicial award, or any other official document, must be written out in Greek, but merely in Turkish; a fact at once perplexing to both parties at suit, as also to the judicial and other administrative offices.
We consequently entreat of your Imperial Majesty that the use of the modern Greek and Turkish languages be freely permitted to all classes.
At the Mekhemeh the testimony of a Christian is held invalid against that of a Mohammedan. This is contrary to the letter and spirit of the Hatti-Humayoun, which removes all legal disabilities from the non-Mussulman subjects of your Imperial Majesty.