The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-06-01
TURKEY---HBR CONDITION AND
PROSPECTS,,

NSt0A oO@Nf
AprOpos to the present conflict that is
raging between Russia and Turkey, and
threatening to draw other nations into
the dread maelstrom of conflict and car
mage, we find in looking over an Edin-
burgh RevieaO for 1859, journal kept in
Turkey and Greece in '57, some para
graphs of which perhaps may bear re-
calling from their musty oblivion.
This was time when the war was
just over, in which armed intervention
of the Western Powers had rescued Tur-
key from the impending peril of Rus
sian invasion, and hence was time Pc
culiarly calculated TO give interest and
value to observations made in and
about the Ottoman Empire. Now was
the time, if ever, when hopes of the re-
generation of Turkey could be reason
ably entertained. Yet the belief is ex-
pressed that the exertions of united Eu-
rope had only served to rescue Turkey
from external danger, without adding
anything to its internal strength or vi
tality. Turkey is said to exist for two
purposes: first, to act as 'dog in the
manger and prevent any Christian
power from possessing a country which
she is totally unable to govern or pro-
tect; and second, for the benefit of the
Pashas who make fortunes out of her
spoils." Speaking of the deterioration
of the nation, of the difference between
the Turks when rich and prosperous,
and the Turks of the present era, this
chronicler says: "The first and great
cause is that they are not producers.
They have neither diligence, intelli-
gence, nor forethought. If Turk has
money, he spends it or employs it in
stocking a shop where he can smoke
and gossip all day long. He cannot en-
gage in foreign commerce, as he speaks
no language but his own" They are
probably not more idle, wasteful, brutal
and improvident now than they were
400 years ago in the days when Turkey
was rich and prosperous, but it is only
within the past fifty years that these
qualities have shown themselves fully.
When the barbarian hordes first
swarmed over Asia Minor, ROumelia
and Bulgaria, they seized on a country
very populous and of enormous wealth.
For three and half centuries they kept
on consuming that wealth and wearing
out that population. If Turk wanted
a house or a garden, he turned Rayah;
if he wanted money, he put a bullet
into a handkerchief, tied it in a knot,
and sent it to the nearest opulent Greek
or Armenian. Three centuries and
half of idleness and depreciation upon
the internal resources of the nation and
it is poor.
They kill their female children; con-
scription takes off their men, and they
disappear. Where fifty years ago stood
populous Turkish village, perchance
now remains but a crowded burial
ground. Thus between internal eorrup-
| tion aud mismanagement and external
interference, Turkey as an Empire is
rapidly falling into decay. This writer,
speaking of remedying these evils, says:
''The Pashas will not remedy them for
they profit by them; the Sultan will
not for he knows nothing of them; he
can know nothing of anything that his
ministers do not choose to tell him. He
does not read, and if he did, there is no
press; he sees nobody except his broth
ers-in-law, his sons-inlaw, his women,
and his servants, except occasionally
minister or ambassador who comes to
bully or deceive him."
When we consider the weakness, de-
cay and corruption of the Turks on the
one hand, and the increasing numbers,
energy, wealth and education of the
Christian population on the other, and
add to this the fact that Europe has her
eyes upon Turkeys Western provinces,
nay that her strong, covetous and ancient
enemy has already her powerful armies
on foot, with faces set toward the capi-
tai, citadel and key to the Turkish En-
pire, there remains but little doubt that
her barbarous, thriftless and corrupt
hordes will be subdued, her territory
curtailed and parceled out, and her
place, as one of the nations of the earth,
be blotted out.