, 1875-12-15

or Herzegovina. IrOncladS and palaces
must be built to crafty Imperial whims.
Ministers must receive salaries three times
as large as the amount which this country
the richest in the world-pays to its First
Lord of the Treasury. Pashas must accu-
mulate large fortunes ever during brief
tenures of command. The SULTAN has
doubtless ''generous sentiments, " but he
knows as little about his distant Provinces
as he does about Yorkshire. The Ministers
are so much the creatures OF his caprice,
and they can count on so short a lease OF
power, that they have little inducements
to do more than make their position
comfortable for themselves and their friends.
More might be expected from the Pashas
who govern the Provinces, because they
see the tangible effects of misrule, and some
of them have strenuously tried to govern
honestly and well but they, too, are SO
much at the mercy Of the incalculable
influences which affect the SULTAN that
the more eager they are tOmake reforms The
shorter is often their tenure OF authority.
Most OF them, therefore, content themselves
with helping the taX-cOllectors to send as
large a sum as possible to Constantinople.
Tt is easy, then, to believe the statement
of our Turkish Correspondent that, al
though the Government promises to tor
give the arrears of taxes, it has already
fully collected them by diut Of extreme
severity, so far, at least, as the poverty Of
the people would permit. The story that
some Of the people in a Bulgarian city
have been compelled to sell all their pro-
perty to pay those arrears is, |unhappilY,
but too like what we know Of Turkish
fiscal practices. Nor is there the slight
est reason to believe that the Government
will be more merciful in the future. The
present Ministers will soon vanish, how
ever well they may rule, aud they will
disappear all the sooner if they fail to eX~
tract the requisite amount of taxes but
the necessities of the public service aud
the waste CT the Palace will remain.
The emptiest of all the promises, how
over, is that the Christians will henceforth
be adequately represented in the Provincial
Councils and in the Grand Council OF State.
The GRAND VIziER, in a Circular, recon-
mends the Governors of the Provinces to
see that the representatives. of the people
really enjoy the confidence of the several
classes and neither the rank, posi-
ton, nor religion of the members"
he adds " should constitute any distinction
i" between them and no opinion expressed
" by any member should, on such grounds,
" be received with disdain or contempt
Verbally no instruction could be better,
and it might seem to open a beneicent
prospect to the Christian population. But
in reality it is merely the repetition of a
pledge often made and as often broken.
Every Grand Vizier begins, as MAHMoUD
PASTA has done, with grand promises OF
reform, and every one is baffiad by cir
cumstances over which he has no control.
Profuse pledges of amendment are phrases
without which no Grand Vizier's vocabu-
larry would be complete. The Provincial
Councils about which the PORTE has late
ly said so much already exist, and the
Christians have seats in them but their
representation Of Christian interests is the
merest mockery. However small may be
the minority of the Mahomedans in any
district, they have always a crushing
majority in the Councils, and the Chris
tan members dare not act independently.
It is useless for the Turkish Government
to preach liberation when the Mahomedan
population knows that it may browbsat
the Christian with impunity. Nor is the
representation of the Kayaks in the Grand
ConnciI of State more of a reality. Ont al