The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-15 00:00:00

town and village is to contribute ; and in these the
Ayans, or elders, in their turn, with the concur-
rence of the Medjlis, make their assessment on
individuals. To trace the numberless abuses by
which this tax is rendered so unequal in its inci-
dence would furnish matter for a curious and not
uninteresting chapter on Turkish maladministra-
tion. The result is that, on one pretext or another,
a large number evade the tax altogether, at the
expense of their more honest or less influential
neighbours, and that in some places the assess-
ment amounts to 5, and in others to 20 and even
25 per cent. Even in neighbouring cazas the
difference is oaten great. That of Smyrna, for
example, pays about 5, while those of Baindir
and Thyra pay 18 per cent. of their annual
rental and produce. It would seem that house
property and land are very unequally taxed,
the assessment being often made on the rent of the
former, and on the gross end not the net annual
produce of the latter. It is, of course, impossible
to speak with much precision on the subject, but 16
may be taken as not more than the average percen-
tage of this tax on agricultural produce in Anatolia.
Tithe.—The tithes are payable in kind, and are
collected by persons who farm them of the Govern-
ment. The abuses of this system need no exposition
here; they are so innumerable and so glaring that
the Turkish Government, ever slow to acknowledge
the demerits of its own administration, has long
since, by a formal Act, recognised the necessity of a
change. Early in 1851 a firman was iseued, direct-
ing the substitution of a tithe commutation for the
system of collection in force. Like every other pro-
mise of reform of the present reign, it was couched
in the most benevolent terms, raising public expec-
tation to the highest pitch, and remaining a dead
letter for evermore. I (11 it injustice; the result
was worse than I have described. The amount of
the commutation was to be fixed at the mean annual
value of the tithes of the five preceding years:
These had been years of comparative plenty. In
1851 there was a general failure of the crops. That
year the farmer had the benefit of the new firmen ;
that is to say, he had in effect to pay tithe on crops
which had no existence. Had the new mode of
levying the tithe contribution been persevered in,
he would have been amply compensated in after
years; but in 1852 the crops were good, the old
system was reverted to, and it exists to this day.
In Egypt a less benighted e dministration has super-
seded the tithe by a land-tax, assessed with tolerable
equity; and this and other reforms have told most
beneficially on agriculture in general, end on cotton-
growing in particular. As it exists in other parts
of the empire, the tithe, despite its name, must be ,
taken to mean a charge of one-eighth, or about 12
per cent. on the produce of land.
Customs' or Export Duties under the Commercial
Treaties.—These, as I have shown, amount nomi-
nally to 12 per cent. This is assessed upon the value
of the goods at the port, and must not be mistaken
for the proportion which the duty levied bears to
their value at the place where they are grown.
From want of roads and proper means of convey-
ance, the expenses of transport from the interior to
the seaboard are enormously heavy. With articles
the bulk of which is large in proportion to their
value the price at the places where they are grown
will necessarily diminish rapidly Ps those places
recede f:om the coast, and thus the duty actually
levied will be 13, 14, 15, &c., in lieu of 12 per cent.
of their value on the land which produced them.
The above imposts, then, levied upon goods for
exportation grown under the most favourable cir-
cumstances—i. e., in the neighbourhood of a sea-
port—amount to a tax of no less than 40 per cent.
of their value. When to this is added a number
of small local burdens, known as " Roussoumiats,"
45 per cent. will not cover the real charges imposed
upon them by the State.
The following is a calculation of the average price
at which Turkish cotton wool may be grown and
prepared for exportation. The figures are taken
from an anonymous pamphlet, entitled " Internal
Economy of Asia Miaor," printed for private circu-

lation some four or five yee,.s ago. The greater
part of it was written by a gentleman intimately
acquainted with the country of which he treats,
and who has himself made experiments in cotton-
growing. I may acid that inquiries which I have
made in other quarters have tended to corroborate
his statements.

The cotton crop prc lueed from Turkish seed is
of such a nature that it has to be gathered in the
pod. It would require on the average 4; enters
of Anatolian cotton in the pod to produce one
cantar or 1201 b. of English marketable wool. This
quantity the farmer can in ordinary years afford
to sell in the pod on his cm a premises for 140
piastres, or at the rate of 30 piastr^s per cantar, a
price which amply remunerates him. Forty of
these 140 piastres are consum' I by the tithe and
salquin. Did these taxes not exist he could there-
fore sell 4; cantars in the pod for 100 piastres. One
cantar of cotton wool grown in the province of
Aidin would cost, on an average, laid down in
Smyrna ready for. shipment, 214 piastres, made up
of the following items :

Piastres

4;2', cantars in tho pod, at 30 piastres
Expense of separating the seed-cotton from the
pod
Expense of native ginning, or sopc-ating wool
from the seed
Expense of carriage of one cantar of wool 40
f" miles, at about Gd. per ton per mile
Customs' duties
Minor expenses, faetorage, &?,.

Total Ps. 214

The 24 piastres represent the export duty actually
chargeable under the tariff in force on every cantar
of cotton-wool from Anatolia. If from the total
sum of 214 piastres we deduct the 24 piastres Cus-
toms' duties and the 8 piastres minor expenses,
factorago, &c., we shall have 182 piastres worth of
cotton, paying 24 piastres export duty, or at the
rate of nearly 14 per cent.
The result in English weight and money of the
figures set forth above is, that this cotton wool may
be delivered on the quay at Smyrna ready for
shipment, and free of all duty, for about 4d. per lb.
Owing to the shortness of the staple, it can only
be sold for cotton-wicks in the English market,
and the demand for it is, consequently, limited.
Certain it is, however, that American cotton of
a very superior staple may be grown in the same
place with equal facility, and with no larger outlay,
Other advantages would attend the cultivation
of the middling qualities of American cotton in
this country.
In the first place, that seed-cotton, in lieu of
being got in as the Turkish is in the pod, and at
one or two gatherings, may be picked from the pod
as it hangs on the plant. By this means the cotton
gathered in day by day as each pod attains ma-
turitythe is in far more perfect condition, arid
ant so
yield is largely increased, because the
treated will go on throwing out fresh p
pods until
the time when the first frost sets
Again, although picking tike cotton from the pods
day by day involves more labour in the
first instance
practised in Turkey, yet the
than the gathering as
expense of subsequently separating the seed-cotton
from the pod would be saved, and one-half of that
expenditure would amply provide for the extra
labour of the other mode of getting in the crop.
Not the least important among the many improve-
ments necessary to the success of cotton-growing in
the East is the introduction of a better method of
separating the wool from the seed. For this pur-
pose the American saw-gin, and perhaps the Ame-
rican rollers for the finer samples, should be used.
The saw-gin, which has long since been introduced
into Egypt with great advantage to the cotton-
grower, would save three-fifths of the expense
incurred by the use of the clumsy machine known
in this country, and moreover, the work would be
better done.
While the Turkish cotton has been labouring