LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
ARMENIA.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—A telegram from Constantinople, dated September 22nd, has appeared in the leading daily journals announcing that " Safvet Pasha has promised Sir Henry Layard and M. Fournier to remove immediately Ismail Ilakki Pasha, the Governor of Erzeroum, from his post."
It may be interesting to your readers, as bearing upon the question of the amount of influence we are likely to exercise in improving the administration of Asia Minor under Turkish rule, to know that Ismail Pasha, whose recall is just now promised, was, in June, 1877, the Civil Governor in Erzeroum whose con- duct was described by Mr. Norman, the correspondent of the Times at Erzeroum, as "little short of criminal." "By his [vide "Armenia and the Campaign of 1877," p. 100, by C. B. Norman, Special Correspondent of the Times] apathy in all matters relating to the defence of his capital, and his neglect in not punishing his own tribesmen, the Kurds, who are harassing the whole district, he has exasperated the popula- tion to such a pitch of excitement, that his recall becomes a matter of imperative necessity." Ismail Pasha is then described as having shortly before telegraphed to the Porte that he was about to invade Russian territory with 40,000 Kurds, for which boast he had just been decorated with the First Class of the Medjidie. Of course, he had taken no steps even to initiate his preposterous scheme. Ismail Pasha subsequently appears, on page 389, as publishing an order to the troops to the effect that intelli- gence had reached the Russian General of an insurrection in Russia, in which the Panslavonic conspirators had dethroned the Emperor, and set up the Czarewitch in his stead. For the name- less atrocities perpetrated by the Kurds, and the consequent exodus of the Christians from the Van district, conduct which no Turkish officer attempted to defend, and which Ismail Pasha alone ventured to describe, in his despatches to the Porte, for foreign circulation, as evidence of Russian cruelty and oppression, I must refer to page 332 of Mr.
Norman's book. But I would ask now, as I shall later in the House of Commons, what possible guarantee for decent civil
administration our Government can ever hope to extract from the Porte, if, only after more than a year's delay, the joint remon- strances of the English and French Ambassadors have succeeded in removing such a man as this, from so important and responsible a post as that of Governor-General of Erzeroum?—I am, Sir, &c., ARTRIIR D. LIAY7'ER. Tintagel, Camelford, Cornwall, September 26th.
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