The Press. — London, England, 1853-07-16 00:00:00

yittrature. The Turks in Europe. A Sketch of Manners and Politics in the Ottoman Empire. By Bayle St. John. London : Chapman and Hall. Tux problem propounded by the author of this treatise, and which he professes to solve, is no less than the momentous one—" Can the Otto man empire any longer exist as a European power ?" He answers, " No," and supports his view by an elaborate exposition of all the faults—mural, social, told political—cif the Turkish organisation. But, though anti-Turk ish in his policy, Mr. St. .John is equally anti- Russian. He rejects the ordinary idea, that the integrity or the partition of European Turkey are necessary alternatives ; and pro poses " Hellenic association , " or independent Christian empire, of Greek origin, as the basis of a new nationality. He assumes that the Court of Constantinople cannot be kept in ex istence ; that it is sinking under the weight of its own maladministration ; that " statesmen " must soon set about the task of finding a " successor to it '." and that, as a matter of self d efence,i io less than of treaty obligations, Russia must be inhibited from becoming mistress of the Bosphorus, and thereby obtaining the command of the Mediterranean. So far the judgment and the sympathies of most English men will go with him. But the turning-point of his theory is the capability of the unenfran chised Greek population of Turkey to govern itaelf; turd here we find much assertion indeed, but a lamentable lack of evidence. He tells us that " the imagination contemplates with " pleasure the idea of some form of freedom " substituting itself, under the prestige of an " ancient name, to (qy. for?) the brutal tyranny " of a horde of Asiatic barbarians ;" and argues that no nation can learn to fit itself for liberty under despotism—which is true enough. But, with a convenient ambiguity, he avoids defining the limits or explaining the nature of the government which ho proposes to establish ; leaving to less imaginative politicians the question whether it shall be republican or constitutional —whether united or federal — whether it shall absorb the present kingdom of Greece, or leave it intact—and what is to be done with the present Turco-European population, numbering about a million, which is not very likely to submit without resistance to the spoliation of its ancient privileges. Nor does he do more flow, notice casually, and as it were in passing, the extreme danger of such to government falling within the power of Russia, under the threefold influence of terri torial proximity, material force, and sympathy of religious creed. In a word, Mr. St. John's theory is a theory only, and chiefly valuable as it serves him for a frame in which to set and display his varied stores of information respecting Turkish men and manners. The most startling fact contained in his pages is that which ho lays before us at the outset. The Turks, he says, are dying out— the breed is becoming extinct—and nature will, at no distant period, accomplish the revolution which he proposes to anticipate : The Christian races are rapidly rising into importance; and the Ottomans are dying away of themselves. Many causes conspire to produce the latter result. Setting aside the prevalence of libertinage of a gross character, the ens. tom of, polygamy, with its neoeasary coalman' , bachelor. ship, prevents the Turks from supplying the 'daces left in their ranks by death. The army, too, until very recently, his been recruited entirely from the Muslim population, who are, moreover, from their carelessness and ignorance of the art of medicine, more liable to be swept away by die. cam.. It has already been said, that in a given time the Sultan will tind himself without a single subject in Europe of Asiatic origin ; and that, if we possessed accurate sta. tistieal tablea, we might tiz that time with precision. Why not, then, it will naturally be asked, wait patiently for this result? Why, on the above hypothesis, precipitate, probably tat the cost of munch bloodshed, a reform which is in proet'ss of peaceful development ? The very argument here used in favour of the di:imem lierment of Turkey seems to us the strongest plea for its preservation. To attempt, at a moment when external violence is threatened, the pulling down and remodelling of all her internal institutions seems an insane, and al /nest a buicidad, policy. To give entire: THE PRESS. tical supremacy to the race whose sympathies are—by no fault of theirs, but from the very nature of the case—anti-national and Russian, appears but au imliffereixt mode of strengthen ing an empire against attack. Nor are we dis posed to think quite so favourably of the ad ministrative capacities of the Greek race us does our author. They are, he says, - - - - eminently a commercial people, and, as such, fond of novelty, and movement, and liberty. They require much space to breathe in—a lofty firmament above them— and would stifle under the low leaden sky of Russian despotism. History might tell him that a people " emi nently commercial," is not on that account more disposed to risk wealth, and commerce, and life, in a struggle for national freedom ; and that the races which have left on record the most, desperate struggles in that cause have generally been poor, turbulent, averse to trade, and irregularly governed. Spain, Scotland, Switzerland, Afghanistan, are cases in point. Thu development of American com merce dates subsequently to the war of inde pendence. A purely mercantile community will value a government which imposes no re strictions on its trade; but it loves order bet ter than freedom, and puts up with much pro vocation before it draws the sword. And as regards the modern Greeks in particular, it must be remembered that the most enlight ened of English liberals look with no sanguine eye on their future prospects. We should like on this point to contrast the practical ex perience of Mr. Wyse and Sir H. Ward—both Whigs, and something more—with the visions in which Mr. St. John indulges. - - - - We now turn to our author's estimate of the Turks, and though it must be borne in mind that he is writing in support of a theory, and therefore not impartial, we cannot deny tho painful reality of the picture which he paints. Modern reforms, awkwardly and apishly copied from foreign models, have produced a sem blance of change, which only disguises the unaltered barbarism of the ruling race. Sen sual, rapacious, and bigoted, they have for gotten their old virtues without acquiring those of Europe. The character of the Go vernment fairly represents that of the go verned : - • • Every department, judicial and administrative, has in creased in venality and corruption. There may be less violence, but there is more fraud. At Constantinople the state of things is bad enough. The evil grows in propor tion to the distance from the centre. It would seem as if the Turks believed that the old prophecy is about to be ac complished, which gives the empire four hundred years of life. They are subjecting, thorefore, the provinces from which they must be driven to hurried plunder—the old habit of a hostile corps about to decamp from en occupied city at news of the approach of a superior force. The Turks have failed, indeed, to assimilate even with the country and climate, much less with the people and the man ners, amidst which they have intruded. They have never colonised, hnt have been for four hundred years billeted upon the finest portion of Europe. Offices are notoriously bought and sold, the capital invested in the purchase being subse quently replaced by plunder. No interview, no request for justice, can be granted without a fee. The state of the finances verges on bankruptcy. An instance is cited in which, of 400,000 piastres, the nomimal revenue of a dis trict, only 38,000 found their way to Constanti nople. Officers of comparatively humble rank maintain a crowd of followers three times as great as their legal salary enables them to support. Police, strictly speaking, there is none. Every provincial governor is a despot ; justice between man and man does not exist ; the sole remedy against oppression is by re volt; and revolt, when nut too powerful, is put down with an iron hand. Here arc two sam• pies of Turkish administration : Even if the Turks were not naturally brutal, the system of administration adopted in the empire, by which every official is made a sultan over those below him, would mite them to cruelty. The possession of arbitrary power scents to degrade man to a level with the beast. t.:mperors and slavedrivers, who may have smiled the smile of angels on their mother's bosom, 604111 degenerate into ferocity when the sceptre or the lash is put into their hands. Why should we wonder, then, that a brill-necked, lowbrowed Turk, invested with the koorbash and scimitar, and specially charged with the task of acting as a kind of chronic Verret; to his province, should succeed in galling everlastingly the feelings of the people placed under him ? remember nn instance o f the ex t en t to w hi c h a p us h„ , quite iiihonattire in his dealings with most peoplu, was led by a momentary impulse of avarice. 'nitre was in one of the movincial capitals a man whose reputation for probity t/11 , 1 CAtlbliallA vu IVII6 CIP‘III3WV, ttlid who IffaSearUsitcd SATURDAY, lay werchauds, ladies, and others ' with jewels fur sale, without receipt of any kind. This fact came to the yap, of the governor,—the amiable functionary 1 have alluded to,—aud as the jeweldealer was passing beneath his window one day he beckoned him iu, and salted him what he had with him. It happened that he had only a few coral necklaces and a large pearl. This was not worth while. lie was told to come next day ; and in the mean time he went from house to house antongst people %hum he knew, gathering a good stock. Every one could prove the delivery of the jewels, and every ewe was sure of th e honesty of the agent. lie disappetued, however, and the report soon spread through the city that he had been mar tiered. Presently one, and then another, person, and so on, came forward to say that he had been seen to enter the PRAIA'S palace; and indeed his corpse was found tilt the banks of the river, a few yards below. Of the jewels, how ever, there was no news. Public opinion accursed t h e kasha; and the European representatives took up the matter. Their interference was effectual in one respect— the murderer restored some of the jewels with a shrug ; but there was MI proper inquiry, and of course no went. The inhabitants of Wallachia will lung remember the presence of the Turkish agsa before their past retreat. Scarcely a morning cams fat some young boy, Or girl, was not found slanghter•4l outside the gates ; and it. is difficult to explain the reason to any one who is not inti mately acquainted with the abominable character and pre. judices of the worst class of Turks. When the army re• treated, the bodies of several hundred Christian women were found in a wood on their line of intuch. They had taken them away as temporary mistresses, and had deliberately cut their throats, that they might not return to the embraces of Giaours. Of the domestic manners of the Moslem Mr. St. John tells us a good deal ; but these arc matters on which no foreign traveller, or even resident, can possibly become a valid au thority, especially among a people who, 113 he himself repeatedly lanais, look down upon strangers and infidels, maintaining the pride of conquerors even iu the depth of their na tional decrepitude. The most practical measure of reform—per haps we might say of revolution—which he suggests is that of granting political equality to the Christian races—an idea often enter tained, and which, while maintaining the terri torial integrity of Turkey, would, in fact, change the whole character of the administra tion. Municipal self-government does in reality exist to a very considerable extent, the conquerors being content, for the most part, to levy tribute, while the apportionment of the relative quotas is left to those who have to pay. This state of things arises, not from the forbearance, but the numerical weakness, of the Turks proper, who now number less than one-fifteenth of the population of their Euro pean empire. Herein we sec the germ of a new empire ; but it is one thing to look forward to its future existence, and another to anticipate nature by trying to force it into pre mature life. We have been more careful to criticise the substance than the style of this work ; but in parting with Mr. St. John we would suggest to him that, if he desires to popularise his theory with men of various parties, he would do well to avoid obtruding certain political opinions— we will not call them prejudices—on readers to many of whom they are probably distaste ful. When he goes out of his way to liken the slaughter of the Janissaries by Sultan Mahmoud to the weakening of the landed in terest by the repeal of the corn laws, both being, according to him, necessary measures for the removal of obstructive bodies—when he ranks the principle of aristocracy among the " errors and crimes" of human nature,•—when he sneers at "men of Conservative minds, who cannot conceive the idea of improvement" —above all, when he lays it down as an axiom that the true policy of England is to "call on the revolutionary party in every country, and thus to levy an army of allies"—he is only da maging his cause with the public by appeals to popular passion, and creating a needless antagonism. There is also an offhand and somewhat dogmatical tone about his profes sions of political faith which rather provokes than disarms criticism. The book, however, is worth reading. Sty Iludeott Loteib Papers,con tattling the History 14 . Napolane at St. Helena. Edited ley William Forsyth. Loudon : Murray pocond Notice I OUR former notice gave the prologue of this tragedy or farce (so closely do extremes meet, owl su iuuTow 16 the Rubicon, loam:cu. Lilo