The Sultan on the 14th December decreed a number of
re- forms in the Administration. Forced labour is abolished ; non- Mussulmans may hold property ; Christians will only pay the military tax from twenty to forty years of age, and may collect it for themselves ; each creed may elect its own Judges ; all official positions are open to non-Mussulmans ; religious belief is to be free,—and so on, and so on, in t he mouthing Turkish style. Every one of these reforms, except the abolition of forced labour, was granted in 1856 by the celebrated Ilatti Humayoon which decreed the equality of the creeds. That has remained a dead-letter, and so will these reforms remain. There will be no forced labour, but anybody who refuses to woi k for wag s will be cut down, and after working, his wages will be left owing. 'There will be Christian tax- collectors, chosen because they will obey Mussulmans. There will be " mixed " councils and tribunals, in which any Christian who opens his mouth will be insulted. The reforms are useless without guarantees, and the only internal guarantee worth six- pence is steadily refused. No non-Mussulman in the Empire between twenty and fog ty may be a soldier, and every non- Mussulman is taxed because he is deprived of the privilege. As a taxpayer he swells the Turkish Treasury, while as a soldier he might take it into his head to bayonet Turkish oppressors. Con- sequently he remains a taxpayer, subject whenever any dis-
turbance occurs to be treated as an enemy, by Asiatic soldiers who regard him as of rather less account than a wild animal.
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