Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-12-28 00:00:00

TURKEY.

CONSTANTINOPLE, DEC. 16.
The interest about the proceedings in the Danu-
bian Principalities, which had somewhat subsided
by the conviction that the Governments had come
to an agreement, is again awakened by the question
—what is to be done if the Divan of Wallachia
maintains its present attitude, and refuses to
answer any questions which the Commission might
put about internal administrative matters ?
You are aware that, after discussing and adopting
the report of the Committee on the Four Points,
the majority of the Wallachian Divan has expressed
the opinion that it should be prorogued until the
Congress of Paris should have pronounced on
those four cardinal points. On this the European
Commission has addressed a note to the Divan,
asking whether it persists in this opinion. The
probability is that it will, although no news of it
has as yet arrived. The note has been referred
to a select committee, and we are waiting for the
decision of the Divan on the report of the latter.
If the Wallachian Divan should refuse to enter
into administrative questions the general impres-
sion of the European Commission seems to be that
the Divan should be dissolved and not prorogued.
But even in the case of an understanding in the
Commission, the question always remains—Who
should take whatever steps are to be taken.
As the whole affair of the P, incipalities was a kind
of logical tournament, in which all parties tried to
run down each other with logic, it would be but
fair to the Turks to have their go too, and as it is a
Turkish firman which convoked the Divans it
should be likewise a Turkish finnan which should
dissolve them. But, as usual in polities, logic will
scarcely be right this time either, for there remains
the necessary consideration for the Congress of
Paris. It is the latter which was the prime mover
for the convocation of the Divans, so it is thought
it ought to be consulted whether it has obtained
the wishes of the Principalities, or whether it will
decide about the Four Points and then let the
Divans go en again.
The latter solution would be, undoubtedly, the
more practical, for the chronic disease in this affair
seems to be that people never know their own
meaning, and all the complications have invariably
arisen from the fact that one Party attached to
some expression one and the other another
meaning ; so, if anything be done without first
referring to the Congress, it may likewise be found
that one party has had one and the other another
idea of the wishes of the Principalities which
ought to be elicited.

I wrote to you lately about the change of Rus-
sian policy in the Caucasus, and about the com-
plaints of Turks and Circassians of the impediments
and restrictions thrown by the Russians in the
way of commerce on the Circassian coast. I send
you to-day a petition which has lately arrived from
those parts, signed by ten of the most prominent
Circassian chiefs, demanding the intervention
of the European Powers to carry out the provi-
sions of the Treaty of Paris with respect to the
liberty and neutrality of the Black Sea. There are
six originals in Turkish, for each of the Powers,
with the exception of Russia ; one has been already
deposited with the Turkish Government, and the
others have been sent off to Europe.
In order to explain this unusual unity of action
among the Circassian tribes, I must remind your
readers that when the war broke out, and the Rus-
sians retired from the coast, the Turks sent Sefer
Pasha, a Circassian, who had been for some time in
Constantinople, to Anapa, in order to bring about a
combination between the Circassian tribes on the
Black Sea (to be distinguished from the Lesghis
under Sehautyl, in Daghistan). He was only partly
successful, for Emin Bey, the Naib or Lieutenant
of Schamyl, who had come over to the Circassians
from Daghistan, had already long before begun his
religious and political agitation in a rather diffe-
rent sense. While Sefer Pasha's object was to
work in the interest of the Sultan and the chiefs,
the Naib was working for himself, religion, and