TOPICS OF THE DAY.
litE SITUATION IN CONSTANTINOPLE.
WE cannot as yet see any ground for the confidence which some of our contemporaries feel, or affect to feel, in the immediate future of Turkey. When the weak voluptuary, Abdul Aziz, fell, mankind felt relieved, and justly, for there were three chances for the better government of Turkey. The first and best was that he might be succeeded by a great Sultan, a strong, calm man, who could make his will felt out- side donstantinople, who could control the ruling Osmanli oligarchy, conciliate the rest of the Moslem population, and give justice instead of freedom to the Christians, such justice that rebellion would seem to all but a few fanatics a useless risk of life and property. Mussulman sovereigns of that sort have reigned, —as witness Akbar—the House of Othman is perpetually renewed by mothers taken from among the people, and a great Sultan of the sacred line would find among Moslems an enthusiastic -willingness to serve. The second chance was the rise of a man to the Vizierate capable of preserving his position, of governing in this spirit, and of strengthening the Adminis- tration without borrowing, and spoiling, the ideas of the West. A strong Vizier would be valueless compared to a strong Sultan, for the religious hold of the Khalifate on all Mussulmans and the superstitious reverence attaching to the House of OtIman among all Turks are incommunicable ; but still Turkey has been saved in this way three times, twice by the single family of Kibrizli, or as it used to be written, " Kipriuli," one of the few renegade families heartily adopted by the Turks. Hussein Avni might have made rebellion, and outrage provoking rebellion, alike too dangerous. The third chance was the ascendency of a party strong enough to control the Sultans, to admit the whole body of Christians into the army—the only substantial guarantee for their just government—and to control theAdministration through some Assembly of notables, chosen irrespective of creed. We are unable ourselves to believe in this chance, this " reform " ap- pearing to us inconsistent alike with circumstances, with Ma- hommedanism, and with the genins of the dominant race ; but as the Government find it convenient to believe it, as a few Turkophiles think it possible, and as Englishmen in general do not see the obstacles, we admit it among the number of possibilities. Not one of these three chances has been realised. The new Sultan, though not yet maddened by unrestrained power, and the consequent indulgence of caprice, is obviously a weak man. We think little of the stories about the uses to which he is applying his uncle's money, for supposing them all true—supposing, that is, that he is quieting the garrison by donations, making lavish gifts to his harem, building a palace, and paying off old debts,—he is but using or wasting what he regards as his personal wealth. The new palace is demanded by Ottoman etiquette. But in despotic countries men rarely misunderstand their ruler, and every account from Constantinople speaks of Murad as the -man we might expect from the story of his accession,— weak as water, nervously timid, and so wholly devoid of will, that each statesman who can obtain his ear is sup- posed to be able to dictate his policy. If Hussein Avni rules, Murad will be absolute ; if Midhat, he will be constitu- tional ; that is the chatter of Constantinople. It is even re- ported that the secret reason for the inexplicable delay in the investiture at the Mosque of Eyoub, is fear of assassination, and though we disbelieve it, the report sufficiently indi- cates the current 'of popular opinion. This is not the 'Sultan to control the Osmanlis, or reinvigorate Mussul- man loyalty, or hold down that vast human menagerie, the Turkish Empire, with a determined and tranquil hand. There is nothing to be hoped for there ; we should even fear, when the truth is known, that another Revolution would not be beyond the bounds of possibility, and -there is as little evidence of the great Vizier. Hussein Avni, bred a peasant, or rather yeoman, a competent soldier, a de- termined man, and =enfeebled by that Western whitewash which takes the pith out of Osmanlis by revealing their defects to themselves, might have filled the place, but he has been assassinated. How he was assassinated does not matter, except so far as his death has probably alienated the army and the old Turks from Midhat Pasha, who is suspected of promoting it. We should say, on the evidence, that he had nothing to do with it, though he may have been glad of it ; that Ifassaal a Circassian} 44,0 o 4b44 .44 and his son, just irritated by an order to die of the plague—for that is how he interpreted his exile to Bagdad, where the plague is raging— and talking hourly with people who fattened his rage, avenged himself and his master by a bold attempt to massacre the chief agents in that master's fall. Be his object what it might, Hussein Avni died, and Murad has no one to succeed him, while every aspirant feels a little less desirous of a place which involves such risks. That is to say, the Government of Turkey is a little weaker for the crimes of the past week.
The third chance also has disappeared. As we understand the telegrams, Midhat Pasha, the head of the so-called '" Con- stitutional" party, has rather lost than gained by the assassina- tion of his rivaL The Council of Ministers have postponed his scheme indefinitely, the old Turks are boiling with sus- picion, and Murad V. is not strong enough without Hussein Avni to introduce a Western innovation shocking to his only loyal subjects, the ultra-Mahommedans, by his mere fiat. He has not appointed Midhat to the Grand Vizierate, and Mahommed Ruchdi remains head of the Administration. He is an old, a conservative, and a cautious man, and his opinion, as expressed in the remarkable pamphlet analysed in the Standard of Wednesday, is of the most pessimist kind, being nothing less than this,—that the reuniting of the general body of Moslems with the Osmanli caste will be difficult though not impossible, but that when reunited, they will concede nothing to Christians, neither the right to office—that, he evidently thinks, would be followed by Mahommedan insurrection—nor the right to bear arms, nor the right to genuine equality before the law. Without a strong Sultan, without the Grand Vizier, with the Sheikh nI Islam openly hostile, with the soldiers all. Moslem, and with the' multitude jealous of all deferences to the West, whence is Midhat Pasha to obtain the force to revolutionise a system sanctioned by superstition, by the practice of five centuries, and' by the opinion of the classes who must consent to its alteration We say nothing of the absurdity of any representative scheme in a country where three-fourths of the population think their ruler certain of hell, and well deserving it, where an armed minority rules by terror an unarmed majority in constant in- surrection, and where a true Parliament would vote, first of all, the disarmament of the Army, and confine ourselves to asking by whom the experiment is to be even tried ? Of course a great Divan is possible. There is nothing opposed to Oriental ideas in a Sultan allowing advisers to speak freely ; but a great Divan is not a Parliament, but an as- semblage of noteworthy individuals, nor is the right to speak freely equivalent to a check on an absolute ruler, or his satraps at a distance. As a matter of fact, the Osmanli Pashas and Beys are terrorising Bulgaria in a style which, if the facts were known in Europe, would bring Turkey to the ground ; and Murad does not hinder, and his Ministers do not punish, and Midhat's great Council, if Mussulman, would heartily applaud: We see no reason to believe that Midhat will find the force to carry his ideas even as far as an Irade embodying them, while no Irade couldareest or modify the Khalif' s right of action without rousing in every Moslem the belief that this Padishah also was a Giaour, and must pass. The heir is not Yussef Izziddin, thee son of the late Sultan, but Murad's brother Ahmed.
All this while nothing is altered in the situation to the North. The insurgents have rejected the armistice, and fighting goes on daily ; Prince Nikita is stripping his little State for action, sending away all women, and laying in stores of food ; Servia lays down no weapon ; and Karageorgevitch, the rival pretender to Prince Milano's seat, and a man who, if all tales be true, will risk any policy to obtain it, has appeared to aid the insur- rection. The old necessity for invading Servia and Montenegro is as strong as ever, the old restraining influence of Ignatieff is broken, and the Turks believe that, do what they will, Great Britain will hold them harmless. Why should they, from their point of view, suffer all this insolence V The slightest event may precipitate a collision, and considering the state of excitement which has become permanent at Constantinople, the confidence of the Turks, the despair of most of their statesmen, the weakness of the Sultan, and the sense of outrage and in- sult which every day's news from the North must produce— for Hussein Avni was right as to the complicity both of Servia and Montenegro in the insurrection—it is hard to believe that the incident which will cause the explosion cannot occur. If a Turk enters Servia or Montenegro diplomacy is over, and if no one enters them, the situation at Constantinople, which is one of intolerable strain, owing to the losses caused by the war and the passions excited by it, cannot be improved. We wish to add a sentence which we frankly acknowledge we cannot justify by written reasoning, and which we should not add, were it not that in our own eyes the situation is ill- described without it ; and that is, that there ought, by all the teaching of history, to be more bloodshed, and speedy bloodshed, in Constantinople yet. The factions and the per- sonages and the forces there in conflict have broken through the limits of the accustomed, have learned by experience how death changes all things, and have, nevertheless, finished nothing. Blood has been spilt, yet there is no new hope for the Moslems, no new relief for the Christians, no termination visible of the personal intrigues. No one is satisfied, and no one is strong enough to say " Hold !" under penalty of death. In these circumstances, and in that city, the cess- pool of two worlds, more blood and much blood should, if history teaches anything, be spilled without delay. We give it as an impression only, and not as a calculation in which our readers should confide, but in our judg- ment, and in the language which Turks alone in Europe still understand,—Saturn is in opposition to the House of Othman.
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