The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-08 00:00:00

Imperial master will be found upon examination
to be a most farcical travestie upon the style and
manner of documents of this class among the more
civilised of European statesmen. He reminds his
MAJESTY of the important commission intrusted
to his care and abilities by his MAJESTY—namely,
that of inquiring iato the validity of the complaints
put forward in the complaints of the Christian
population of Roumelia. With what result the
mission has been conducted the reader will see from
the paragraph in which the Grand Vizier writes :
—" Your Imperial MAJESTY will see by the docu-
ment submitted to your high appreciation, and I
affirm it in the most solemn manner, that I have
found no indication of the alleged system of perseeu-
tion organised by the Mussulman fanaticism against
the Christians ; the assassinations, violations, rob-
beries, and spoliations, the list of which had even
been put before friendly and allied Courts, have
almost all disappeared before the conscientious
examination of the court. Each matter has been
the object of special inquiry; no legal method has
been omitted." It is the Turkish mode altogether
of reading the Christian axiom, as articulated by
PoPE—

" Whatever is, is right."

All the complaints from Roumelia go for
nothing—they have been inquired into, saith
his Highness, and have proved to be in
every way purely imaginary—purely visionary.
Not—quoth the sapient Minister of the " Turbaned
Turk" at Constantinople—not by any means that
he would wish to insinuate that he has had in
Nish and other contiguous provinces to repress no
crimes, to punish no misdeeds. Far from it. All
that he undertakes to assert is this, and he does
assert it most formally,—" That it is completely
untrue that your Christian subjects have to eom-
plain of the least systematic persecution on the
part of their Mussulman fellow-countrymen; that,
as in all human society, each community furnishes
its contingent of criminals calling for the seve-
rity of justice; and that the contents of the list
above named have existed only in the minds of
those who seek to lower us in the sight of foreign
Powers." And all the while—let his Highness
aver the fallacy of such measures as energetically
as he pleases—all the while it is notorious that the
evils he declares to be absolutely non-existing
abound to an extent frightful to bear for an instant
in consideration. Having simply given this gross
denial—a denial of the most generalised and com-
prehensive kind, as will have been remarked
—the GRAND VIZIER has the effrontery to
finish up his task with a flourish about the
reforms more urgently called for, and intimated
by him to be actually in contemplation ! Enume-
rating the more conspicuous abuses visible in
Turkey to even casual travellers, " The method of
farming," he writes, " the tithes, the organisation
of the rural police, the state of the roads, give to
all subjects without distinction just cause for com-
plaining of the administration. The creation of a
few criminal courts offering to accused persons all
kinds of guarantees, is one of the reforms which
would answer to the wishes of the country and to
the paternal desires of your Imperial MAJESTY. The
regulations which at present establish the levying
of the land-tax, and of the indirect taxes, also
require some reforms." Later on in his state-paper
his highness observes,very suavely,very charmingly,
" Your MAJESTY'S Government, in conformity with
your commands, sire, is occupying itself actively and
seriously with the preparation of measures for each
of the matters in question ; these measures will
shortly be submitted to the high approbation of
your MAJESTY." Precisely. It is the normal state
of the Turk and of Turkey. " Man," there (again to
quote the Christian poet from whose works we
have already here made one brief excerpt)—" Never
is but always to be blessed." Before that time can
arrive, we may rest perfectly certain of this—that
the Turkish Power in Europe will have to take
CIIARON'S boat and re-cross the Bosphorus into
Asia.

THE TRIUMPH OF BRITAIN.