LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
CHRISTIANS IN THE OTTOMAN SERVICE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:] SIE,—May I be allowed to correct one rather important but not uncommon error into which the writer of last week's in- teresting article on" The Kaiser in Constantinople "has fallen? "Outside the Navy," he says, "a Turkish grandee must be a Mussulman." This is far from being the case. On the contrary, in the Navy as in the Army, no Christian, unless he be a foreigner in the Turkish service, can rise to the higher ranks. But in the civil and diplomatic services, Christians have, during the last quarter of a century, been repeatedly promoted to the highest offices, except that of Grand Vizier. To quote only a few of the most signal instances, Karatheodory Pasha, formerly Minister for Foreign Affairs, and one of the Ottoman Plenipotentiaries at the Berlin Congress, is a Greek Christian. Artin Pasha, the present Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who belongs to the princely Armenian house of Dadian, was raised last year by Imperial firman to the rank of Vizier, the highest in the Turkish official hierarchy. Agop Pasha, who holds at Rresent the two important Ministries of Finance and of the Civil List, is also an Armenian Christian, and is credited, nevertheless, with enjoying the special con- fidence of the Sultan. Rusteni Pasha and Photiadis Pasha, the Sultan's Ambassadors in London and in Rome, are both Christians, as was also Musurus Pasha, Rustem's predecessor. Christian functionaries abound in all the public departments, both in the capital and in the provincial Governments. Un- fortunately, it must be added, that they are generally viewed with jealousy and distrust by their Mussulman colleagues, and are too often disposed to disarm suspicion by being more Turkish than the Turks. Many a time have I heard the Christian rayah complain bitterly that his official co-religionists were harder upon him even than the Mussulman Pashas. This has been notoriously the case in Macedonia, where Greek functionaries have disguised their racial jealousy towards the Bulgarian national movement under the cloak of zeal for Turkish interests, in order to stimulate the hatred of their Mussulman colleagues and superiors against everything Bulgarian, a cruel and malignant task in which they have unfortunately been largely aided and abetted by the Bishops and clergy of the Greek Orthodox Church.—I am, Sir, &c.,
VIATOR.
[We ought to have excepted Armenians, who as Asiatics enjoy exceptional chances ; but for the rest, the statesmen named are not grandees in the sense we intended. They are either exiles with ambassadors' functions, or decorated experts who are consulted, but do not rule. No non-Mussulman is really a ruler in Turkey.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
