The Sun.
London, England, 1857-07-01 00:00:00

THE PORTE AND TiM BELGIAN

MINISTER.

CONSTANTINOPLE, June 20.—The' Journal de
Constantinople, of the 17th inst., contains in its
official part the following communication :
" In the evening of the 15th inst., by order of his
Majesty the Sultan, Ali Ghalib Pasha, Minister of
Foreign Affairs, sent to M. Blondel Van Eiselbi uck,
the Belgian Minister, his passports, the Sublime Porte
being unable to continue its relations with his person,
The Sublime Porte, at the same time, announced to
him that she would resume her former relations with
the Royal Legation immediately after his departure."
To any one who does not know this place a step
like this, by which the representative of a friendly
Power is sent away, must seem' extraordinary and
incompatible with the received usages of the law of
nations, but every one who is acquainted with the
circumstances, and is really desirous that the treaty
of Paris, which recognises Turkey as a member of
the European family of States, should not be a
farce, must applaud the resolution of the Turkish
Government, and will see in it only a measure of
strict self-defence.

Already during the war, or rather during the
complications which ultimately led to it, the Bel-
gian Minister made himself rather conspicuous by
iiis sti ong Russian sympathie4, which might have
been less openly avowed by the representative of a
friendly Power. However, no notice was taken of
this by the Turkish Government, but during the
War the Belgian Minister became notoriously the
centre of all the intrigues which were got up to dis-
credit the allies and the Turks, and most of the
spurious news circulated here to the prejudice of the
latter was traced to the same source. There are
many persons who maintain that it was from this
Selfsame source that the Russian paper Le Nord
got most of its most edifying information.
The time immediately after the conclusion of
peace WAS too much taken up by other matters to
think of the Belgian Minister, and he and his over-
activity were forgotten, but he has managed to put
himself again into the foreground. While the
finnan for the convocation of the Divans ad hoc
in the Danubian Principalities was being discussed
at Constantinople he went on a tour to those
provinces, and began there a gratuitous and un-
called-for agitation in favour of the union,
assuring the people that the European great Powers
were agreed about the union, and letting them
understand that they had even made up their
minds to put the Count of Flanders as sovereign
over the new State. These facts are not based
alone on the reports of the local authorities, who
informed the Turkish Government of the excite-
ment produced by such assertions of one of the re-
presentatives of the European Powers, but they
were likewise confirmed by the accredited agents
of other Powers in those provinces, whose reports
had been communicated to the Turkish Govern-
ment.

Under these circumstance; the Turkish Govern-
ment made, through its Charge d'Affairs, a remon-
strance to the Ministry at Brussels, and was as-
sured that, if it made an official complaint, M.
Blondel should be recalled. This was done ; but
in the meantime, it is supposed, a higher influence
mixed itself up in the question, and the Ministry
refused to comply with the request which it had
called forth itself. It was only after this refusal,
and after having come to the conviction that such
barefaced interference in purely internal matters,
not concerning Belgium at all, could not be tole-
rated, that the Turkish Government came to the
resolution to send the Belgian Minister his pass-
port, declaring his readiness to maintain its friendly
relations with that country as soon as the person
who had made himself so obnoxious should be re-
moved.