324 THE CRISIS IN AFFAIRS OF THE LORD OF MISRULE. THE Empire of Turkey may be said, "not to put too fine a point upon it," to exist chiefly for the embassies. It is the great diplomatic battle-field of Europe, and the time is quite come when it should cease to be so. While the present state of affairs lasts, Turkey will be a constant subject of quarrel and discussion; in the end it will certainly and inevitably cause an European war. It is hard to describe, it would be impossible to exaggerate the fearful state of things that the great name of England is employed to support. The internal government of Turkey is a tissue of low intrigue, lying, corruption, oppression, weakness, incapacity, rashness, vice, nonsense, waste, absurdity, and eunuchs. It has never been anything else. The conduct of its foreign affairs is a solemn farce, under the special patronage of the embassies-first one, then another, whoever bullies loudest or bribes most cunningly has the upper hand for the time being. In a word, we are supporting a barbarous race of fanatic infidels; of men half savages, who curse us in their prayers; who blaspheme our God and deface his image; who trade in human flesh; who murder and imprison women; who are debased beneath the beasts of the field by such vices, that our northern nature shudders to reflect a moment on them; in whose streets it is unsafe for a Christian man to walk alone in broad daylight; whose houses it is death for him to enter. The Arab was a fine fellow; but no good ever came of the Turk. He was always lazy, insolent, debauched, and cruel. His right to the country he burdens and eats up, was that of violence and conquest; it was followed by unheard-of horrors. The world owes the Turks nothing. During the whole four centuries that they have inhabited one of the finest countries in the world, they have produced no single individual eminent in any one art or science. Their reign has been one weary history of savage wars, or ignoble concession abroad; absurd, or melancholy misrule, rebellions, murders, usurpations, licence, corruption, and oppression at home. Such is the system which healthy-hearted honest-minded England has been supporting for years. There is no denying the facts; every one who knows anything at all of the Turkish Empire cannot have even the satisfaction of a doubt about them. There is no escaping the deduction. Every statesman must have made it internally for these last hundred years. But if the governments of Europe take half a dozen busy, important, elderly gentlemen, and say to each of them-" We will make you de facto a co-sultan of a pleasant country, we will give you more powers and influence than is good for you; you shall have a palace to live in as large as the three chief offices in Downing Street put together. We beg your acceptance of from 6000l. to 10,0007. a year. If you want any more to keep up your dignity, pray draw upon us, we shall always be happy to honour your drafts for secret service money. You shall have a large staff of subordinates (the country is warm, and you may be sometimes out of temper). We will give you a delightful country-house, and place a fleet of line of battle ships more or less at your disposal. You shall be, in fact, the only great official now going on the face of the earth, an embarrasser at Constantinople. All we ask of you in return is to try to bind up a bundle of rotten sticks. We know they cannot hold together long, but still do try, you will oblige us." I say, that if you speak to an elderly gentleman in these terms, it is highly probable that this elderly gentleman (be he who he may, for I bluffly disclaim any idea of personality) will do his best to comply with your desire, and will make a great fuss in his efforts to do so. But he cannot change the sticks. There they are rotten as ever, and if he binds so fast and so close, and uses such a considerable amount of expensive red tape, that the rotten sticks really cannot come asunder, why they can still do, as they have been doing for years, and crumble to pieces internally in the perfection of their rottenness. It would be impossible to estimate the immense sum of money which is spent yearly by England, France, and Austria to maintain a state of things which never ought to have existed, which is a disgrace to the rest of Europe. A state of things which has made Mussulman rule wherever it has been known on the face of the earth, another word for tyranny and wrong; a state of things which makes good men sigh, and bad men sneer, which calls aloud to man and Heaven to end it. The great European powers have each a highly paid ambassador with two or three secretaries, more attachés than he knows by sight, dragoman, and sub dragoman (interpreters), policemen, boatmen, and servants, all paid by his government to contribute to his glory .The real worth, the only part of the business important to anybody, is performed by a consul-general, who is appointed besides, and who has a fresh staff of hangers-on, also paid by government. The commerce at Constantinople is indeed considerable, but nothing like what it would be under a good government and laws, which rendered property secure. A great deal too large a portion of the goods consigned here also are sent by traders, who commit large commercial frauds elsewhere. Hence the market is often glutted, and goods may be bought at Galata under the cost of manufacture. Of the difficulties at the Custom House, of the vexatious delays, and of the open bribery by which they can alone be remedied, nothing need be said here. Thus much is certain. If the Turkish Empire, as it is, exists much longer, Russia will infallibly take possession of it. We may prop it up now and again. But we cannot, and we shall not prop it up always, and the day our support is withdrawn, will be the beginning of the end. We cannot support Turkey for ever, because it seems extremely probable that, at no very distant period, we may have to fight for ourselves, perhaps even for our hearths and altars. We shall not support it for ever, because a new race of statesmen are growing up among us, who will not see the public money squandered so uselessly, so sinfully. Yet if it is plain that for Russia to get possession of Constantinople might turn out a dangerous thing for the liberties of the world, there is certainly no reason why the world should run any such danger. Let a Congress be summoned at London, Vienna, Paris, or Berlin, for the final settlement of this troublesome and costly question. Austria, France, and Prussia, are quite as jealous and alarmed at the policy of Russia as we can be. If the Czar mean mischief, the sooner we master his hand the better. To this congress let us contrive to send for once a few sensible, conciliating, prudent, practical, men. Suppose they should not be lords, with an eye to Government patronage, but only men of high known ability-let their business be to found a new kingdom of Greece, of which Constantinople shall be the capital. It is generally understood that there would be no great difficulty in persuading the childless king Otho to abdicate. In the contrary case there should be much less difficulty in deposing him. The interests of no man should be allowed to stand in the way of progress and civilization throughout the world. Do not let us be met with silly observations about the miserable state of Greece as she is. Such a kingdom as king Otho rules is an absurdity. It has been a melancholy absurdity from reasons known to all the world-reasons it revolts one to recapitulate, but from no fault of the Greeks themselves. Greece was almost the only country where kingly ambition would have been possible, and even truly great and glorious in its results, without, for once, being identified with war. We mean no harsh personality in saying, had Leopold ruled over Greece, instead of Otho, he would have left as fine and promising an inheritance to his son as any in the world. But when the banished and patriot Greeks, the heart and sinews of the new country, came to it, they were driven back and discouraged. The population of the land is less than that of a petty German grand-duchy, while Greek arms are fighting and Greek intellects exhausting themselves in the service of the infidel. The land they would have tilled in that mother-country which was their very soul-dream, lay waste; the commerce they would have established blesses other States. Baron S., with his millions, lives at Vienna, and the splendid talents of M. A. waste themselves uselessly with the subtleties of the schools, and the glories of other days, as he looks from the balconies and terraces of his palace on the Bosphorus. There would be no insurmountable difficulty in establishing a new kingdom of Greece upon a wise and proper footing-let diplomacy try to puzzle us as it will. There is a capital way of getting rid of a diplomatic difficulty; it is to ignore its existence. Princes we have in plenty. There is the Duke of Cambridge, a clear-headed, sensible man, who has been well brought up. The Duke of Brabant; any of the Orleans' princes, except the Duke de Nemours, who would be as likely to get into difficulties speedily as the brothers of the Emperor of Austria. Lastly, or firstly, as you will, the land that was ravished by the red hand of Mahomet the Second from the brave Constantine Paleologus might be restored to the chief of the honourable house of Cantacuzene. I see but little reason why the Turks should not be driven back from the Hellespont to the Euphrates, and all their bigotry, violence, ignorance, and eunuchs with them. Let the United Powers impose upon the new sovereign the necessity of making railroads, and establishing a good system of communication throughout his country, for it might be made one of the largest food-producing kingdoms in the world, if the food when grown could only find its way to a sure and a fair market, instead of being seized by a tribe of rapacious Pashas. If the country were once civilized it would be safe. It would be able to protect itself. Russia knows this so well, that it is owing to her intrigues even the railway between Constantinople and Belgrade has not been commenced long ago. The Greeks are a fine race of men, too, and we may hope in them. Hope in their energy, ambition, self-denial; their thirst for knowledge, their heroic bravery and keen wit. Let diplomacy cry out as it will, there is little reason to fear but that the other Christian subjects of the Porte would be glad to live under a better state of things, and that a few years of good government and equal rights would eradicate the jealousy existing among them. As it is, they are simply what misrule has made them; what it will make any race of men, Hungarians or Irishmen, Jews or Poles. After the settlement of the question in the manner we have indicated, the world may be quite easy about the designs of Russia. No Czar will ever march his rude hordes into a well-governed country if he can help it. He will dread too much the infection of ideas, the winning charm of freedom, and will know, that wherever ignorance grows enlightened, the days of absolutism are numbered. We give no more than the rough outline of our project; but are quite ready to consider it in detail, if any one were disposed to break a lance with us. And of one thing we are quite convinced: there is no middle course. Constantinople must pass away from the rule of the Moslem, or Russia will take it the first time she dares. Finally, if there existed as many sound political reasons for supporting Turkey as there are for not doing so, they could not for a day justify us in aiding the continuance of the evil enacted there-and before God and posterity we are answerable for it. 328 THE ROOKS, THE RAVEN, AND THE SCARECROW. A FABLE. A FLOCK of rooks in conclave stood "Blind gulls ye are! For shame! for shame The fearful figure which you see Is but a man of straw to me- In another report of the honourable and somewhat " fast" gentleman's maiden speech, this passage is rendered as follows: "First let us have our grain, and after Chaff,' if you please (loud cheers and laughter)." |