The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-11 00:00:00

THE FUTURE OF TURKEY.

Amid the din of war, or in the more awful SUP
pense which precedes its first ontburst, it may
seem unseasonable to criticize institutions or re-
commend financial experiments. But, as far as
human knowledge can foresee the future, the hos-
tilities which now threaten the world will have no
common duration, and, even should peace be re-
stored more speedily than a thinking man cap
venture to hope for, still its security must de-
pend on the elevation of a.moral barrier against
aggression, and on the enlightenment and pros-
perity of those who, after all, must really decide
their own destiny. The material improvement of
this country cannot begin too soon. If the war
were a thing of six months, we might be content to.
await its termination ; but in the approaching
struggle of years, with the whole commerce of the
East swept away, witkvast armies to be fed, clothed,
paid, and pensioned, with few of the Ottoman pro-
vinces strongly attached to the Imperial rule, some
notoriously disaffected, and some in actual revolt,
it becomes us to see that what resources remain
are duly developed, and that above all, facilities
are made for the supply of food during the coming
trials, not only in the armies, but also to the
po-
pulation, whose attachment or disaffection may
turn the scale at the crisis of the struggle. The
Sultan's rule is virtually limited to Constantinople,
and his counsellors are elightened and liberal only
under the eye of Ambassadors and Consuls. Funds
have been squandered and orders disregarded on
this very subject of internal communication, and it
is. not likely that a better state of things will follow
except under the authority and through the close
supervision of men more upright and active than
Pashas and their satellites. The geographical con-
figuration of the country, indented with inland seas
and possessing capacious harbours, may be in part
the cause of this neglect of land communication ;
but the time is past when these can be considered
sufficient, and the attention of those in authority
must be sternly called to the facilitation of internal
traffic, as the first condition of real improvement.
Closely connected with this subject is one which
has already received some attention at home. We
are every year sending to the extremities of the
globe bands of emigrants, the outcasts of our
crowded shores or the hopeful pioneers of a new
state. But why should they expatriate themselves
to regions so distant that a letter only gives the in-
telligence of what is long past, and to revisit their
country seems an idle ddream? Here, within a mo-
derate distance of their place of birth, is a land
blessed with all that can afford the means of wealth
and happiness. Here the emigrant does not find
the blazing sun and sandy plains of Australia, nor
is he exposed for months to the insufferable cold of
a Canadian winter. He comes to a portion of the
earth the geography and productions 9f which are
known ; he establishes himself in the neighbourhood
of civilised nations, on the banks of the great sea
which is the historical centre of the earth ; he is on
the highway between East and West ; by his exer-
tions another generation may see the commerce of
the Old World, from Cadiz to Canton, take the
route of the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf ; and
he advances the interests of the mother country by
linking more closely to her those Indian depen-
dencies with which her greatness is bound up.
Vast tracts of country in the neighbourhood of the
noblest harbours, and watered by navigable streams,
only want the hand of the cultivator to yield an
abundant harvest. The corn of Russia, the wool of
Australia, and the wines of France might be ri-
valled by the productions of Anatolia and Syria,
and the deserted cities of antiquity once more raise
their heads in the centre of a new race and a more
durable civilisation. The only obstacle to the
regeneration of these glorious regions is the
domination of an effete religion and an in-
capable race. The authority of the Mahomedan
ecclesiastics extends over three-fourths of the
land which forms the fairest portion of the
Turkish empire. By the system of vacoufs the
church has gradually drawn to itself all that is
most valuable in the territorial property of the
country. The wealth of mediaeval Rome in Wes-
tern Europe did not approach the proportions to
which the resources of the Ottoman church have
attained in our own day, yet the last has become
great by the same means, and through the influence
of the same social conditions. On the conquest of
new territory a part has always been set aside by
the Turks for the service of religion ; but these
lands form but a small part of the ecclesiastical
possessions, which have accumulated for centuries,
chiefly in the following manner :—As the possessor
of land, whether Osmanli or Rayali, was exposed
to the plunder and oppression of his superiors,
while the property of the church was in-
' violable, lie was willing and was encouraged
by the class who were both ecclesiastics and
lawyers to conclude a fictitious sale, by which
the land was nominally transferred to the church,
while the original possessor received the benefit—
, on these conditions, however, that if he died with-
out children the land became altogether the pro-
perty of the church, who thus, in return for her
protection, purchased the reversion, on certain
conditions, of vast tracts of land. By the extinc-
tion of families most of them are now ecclesiastical
property, and this accumulation of wealth in the
hands of the most bigoted and intolerant priesthood
forms the chief obstacle to any improvement, and
is one of those deep-seated evils which neither
Mahmoucl nor Abd-ul-Medjid have until now dared
to touch.—Constantinople Correspondent of the