NEW TURNISIT LOAN.
Athens, 6th January 1857. • Sin—Those of your readers who know anything of the East will be surprised by an announcement in the Constantinople Gazette of the 1st, that the Porte has just concluded with an English company a loan for twelve millions sterling, at 6 per cent and at par. This seems a small sum, and a fair interest, to the Englishman who looks at the immense space which the Turkish empire occupies on the map, and who knows that its debt, in the market at least, is next to nothing, say five millions at 4 per cent guaranteed by England and France, and as much more at 6 per cent secured of I remember rightly) by the Egyptian tribute. Before investing in this new loan, your readers will do well to inquire what guarantee has been given for this new loan. Its sufficiency and stringency is a most essential point ; for the privilege of establishing a bank at Constantinople, where so many rivals already exisn—rivals who do business in a way which no Englishman can, or we may hope would, compete with or even understand,—is, to say the least, a most precarious benefit. The debt of Turkey may be email, but who can pretend to know the position of its finances ? According to the most trustworthy statements, its revenue is about seven millions, at least one-third of which is absorbed by the seraglio ; it has a paper circulation, (a real debt on which no interest is paid,) to be redeemed with the produce of this loan, of about eight millions sterling; every department of the Administration has its separate creditors with long accounts of long standing' and every province or nearly every province has its debt. The last dividend on one of the loans was paid with money borrowed at more than 8 per cent from Mr. Rothschild ; within the last three months the Palace was found to be insolvent, with a debt of 800,000/. and two loans at 8 per cent have in the same time been obtained by two branches of the Administration unconnected with the so-called Ministry of Finance. Six months ago, (it is difficult to obtain more recent information,) the province of the Hidjaz, with an annual revenue of 40,0001. a year, in addition to the income of nearly 140,0001. assigned to it on the Egyptian revenue, had a debt of half a million, and that of Tripoli, which like the Hidjaz yields nothing to the Central Government, owed, notwithstanding large sums sent from Constantinople, about 100,000/., and six months' pay to the troops. The value of money ill Turkey varies from 12 per cent the minimum to 30 per cent which is perhaps the maximum, but as a very low average on good security 18 per cent may be named. When in the present state of the markets BO large a loan is contracted for at so low an interest, the security should be of the most unexcep
tionable nature. PIILLA.LETHES.
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