The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-22 00:00:00

Address to the Sultan.

Address to the Sultan from the Foreign Affairs'
Committees Deputation—presented at Buckingham

Palace, July 20,1:
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY,
We the subscribers to this address desire to ex-
press to your Majesty the satisfaction with which
your presence is welcomed on the soil of Britain.
The relations which have so long existed between
the Ottoman and the British Empires, founded, in

the first instance, on the interests of trade, have
been confirmed by community of political interest.
We never can forget those times of danger to Eng-
land, when the Continent was sealed against our
commerce, and when Turkey, faithful and high-
minded, amidst threats and alarms, threw wide her
ports to our merchants, and by her single resolution

rendered nugatory the conspiracy against us.
This lofty, honourable, and independent spirit we
have again witnessed when powerful States have
endeavoured to threaten your Empire into an
abandonment of its maxims regarding the sanctity

of asylum. These efforts to extend political per-
secution within your frontiers have ignominiously
failed; the character of your Majesty's Government
and people has been maintained ; and the exile, so
long as he has abstained from unlawful acts, has
never ceased to be secure under the shadow of your
throne.

We also rejoice to remember the character which,
according to universal testimony, is so deeply rooted
in the race to which your Majesty belongs. The
British merchant has ever round reason to
the special integrity and even the sensitive honour
of the Turk. No elements of civilisation can
ENnet,,. in i'nnortance with such qualities as these,
where they exist not true civilization is either
impossible or on the wane.
This national virtue is reflected, as might be an-
ticipated, in the Government of which your Majesty
is the supreme head. Observance of treaties and
fidelity to obligations are prevalent characteristics
of your annals. There is no record amongst them
of guarantees undertaken one day in order to be
explained away the next.
In like manner the whole world knows the public
credit of Turkey to be unimpeachable. She has de-
frauded none, and is known to be morally as incap-
able of wilful default as she is financially above the
risk of it. Her public debt, the recent and unhappy
result- of external action, is still utterly insignifi-
cant in proportion to the revenue ; and that revenue
is far within the limits to which, by a complete
return to her ancient system, it can easily be ex-
tended. Her character is unassailable, and her re-
sources almost unlimited.
Not less universally acknowledged is it that your
Majesty's Government is one utterly without design
against the life and independence of any other
State. If laborious treacheries have ever to be
spoken of, in connexion with the name of Turkey,
they are, as a matter of course, directed against her,
never for or by her. We, therefore, see in your
Majesty the representative of things rare in his-
tory, and rare in our own day, an honest
people and an honest Government. How shall a
fair measure of respect, and sympathy, and confi-
dence be withheld from such a State?
There is another remarkable feature of Ottoman
rule which, as a commercial people, ought to strike
and instruct us. Wherever your Majesty and your
Majesty's predecessors have been free to act accord-
ing to the traditions and maxims which you regard
as obligatory, commerce, too, has been free to an
extent not yet obtained for it by all the efforts of
our political economists and legislators. Custom-
house fetters, so far as they have existed,
have been of unwilling adoption, and the
direct fruit of foreign action ; and they have,
after a time, in a great measure succumbed not only
to your sense of interest, but of conscience and
self-respect. The wonderful position of your capital
is a security, not a danger, to other nations, so long
as the commercial system which you profess is to
any considerable degree realised. May no event—
indeed untoward—reverse these conditions, and
transfer such a maritime throne to hands skilled in
the use of the Custom-house for ends other than
those of revenue and trade. England would quickly
know the significance of the new combination of an
omnipotent commercial position, and.a lawless poli-
tical code.
We therefore more especially rejoice to note the
striking expansion of the commerce between Turkey
and England. Notwithstanding the profoundest
efforts to thwart this development, it continues
rapidly to advance. It becomes impossible to hide
by any dexterity the truth that Turkish law main-
tained means commercial freedom and prosperity,
and that Turkish law interfered with, and Turkish
rule disturbed or withdrawn, means pro tanto the
reverse.

We zee in your Majesty the head of an empire
in which reigns unenfeebled the idea of law as bear-
ing on the questons of peace and war. No dis-
tinction can be greater ~han that between a people
which holds war to depend on a judicial process ;
and one which unconscious of, or indifferent to, the
possible misuse of its collective power, and forgetful
of the religious sanction which distinguished blood-
shed from murder, allows war to be initiated by
merely political persons and on merely political
grounds. To virtuous men and intelligent students
of history it is no less consolatory than extraordi-
nary that there should exist, in modern times, au
empire in which war is an event which can only
occur after deliberations to ascertain its justice, ac-
companied by formalities intended to secure the