it may take a somewhat unexpected form. All the accounts
as yet nothing ; but the moment want touches the Seraglio, the from the Bosphorus, cautiously as most of them are worded— moment an order for an ironclad, or a palace, or a set of jewels the Government of Abdul Aziz, like the Government of Louis cannot be obeyed, the Sultan will know all, and will probably XVL, being still strong enough to punish libels—point to an rush to some extreme of despotic fury.
theless, the decay is creeping visibly inwards from the pro- meat may occur, an active demonstration from some class vinces to the capital, and upwards from the people to of the community, and that, disliked by Christians as the palace. The provinces still obey, but the taxes in an oppressor, distrusted by Mohammedans as a Giaour, cash cannot be levied, and one cause at least of Turkish and despised by the officials as unable to govern, the prostration is that, in spite of grinding oppression in col- Sultan, like Louis Philippe, may find no one to defend him. lection, the revenue does not arrive at the central Treasury. In that event, the Revolution would succeed, the present ruler It has long been impossible to pay civilians in the provinces would be sent away, and a new Sultan would try the doubtful regularly, and now it is openly proposed, by men who can press experiment of reinvigorating an empire which we believe to be the Treasury, to stop the salaries and allowances of all the past all hope, except from the aid of a man of genius sprung Embassies. It has long been the practice to compensate the from the House of Othman. No Grand Vizier, whatever his soldiers for deferred pay by license to plunder the provincials, ability, could do anything considerable, but a competent Khalif and now their very food as they march northwards is only pro- might, and it is hard to believe that the Pashas of Turkey, who vided by ruinous little loans. The bondholder has been openly know that perfectly, and who have every reason to dread a robbed, and now even the bankers of Galata are told that they stoppage of the machine, will not try a change in the Sultan must give up half their claims. The unstatesmanlike and before they throw up their hands. It is impossible for an timid policy of a half-repudiation has destroyed Turkish credit outsider, scarcely possible even for General Ignatieff, who hears without relieving Turkish wants, till, though every sixpence is everything, to know how far the Sultan is protected by the exacted that can be obtained, the Treasury is unable to borrow organisation which, for a hundred years, has now kept the Head abroad at any price, or to sell obligations sufficient to raise of the House of Othman safe upon his throne, and exempt from fractions of a million. It is believed by grave politicians that the danger which every few years threatened the predecessors the bankruptcy of an Empire which holds the most fertile per- of Mahmoud the Terrible ; but the accounts now pouring in day
splendid decoration, and ask only whether her Majesty really ! tions of Europe and Asia in direct sovereignty may arise from desires a new dignity offered by a transient lirmistry, I the impossibility of raising £800,000. The power of borrow- offered unwillingly, after repeated divisions, offered before the Ling little sums even for a moment is departing. The Grand people it directly affects have been so much as consulted on Vizier, already without aid from abroad, has been obliged to the gift, and offered before those who offer know what they tell the money-dealers of the capital, hitherto always may be giving away. Her Majesty herself would admit that paid at any sacrifice, that they must be treated like the
she did not know wherein the influence of the historic King- bondholders, and they will give him no more. It requires a suffering at last as the provinces have long suffered, and even if the last fraction of credit is destroyed by the confiscation
by day, the evidences of Mohammedan rage, and the teachings to be derived from the history of Turkey, all point in the same direction,—to a sudden and successful Inzerste in Constan- tinople. Such an Imeide just now might be one of the most serious in history, for if it were suppressed the misgovernment would only be intensified, while if it succeeded the new ruling party might be compelled to show itself fanatically Mussulman, and would certainly be compelled to refuse all compromise with the enemies of the Empire. A Sultan who was distinctively " faithful," or who insisted on coercing the European feudatories, would in a monthbe attacked, and the Eastern question would be upon Europe in a manner which would almost inevitably lead to a general war. As a rule, in our day, every prediction of political evils is falsified by the event, mankind, or at least their rulers, having grown more moderate and better informed, but such a state of affairs as now prevails at Constantinople has never gone on for long. Governments survive repudiation, but not the exhaustion, even for a time, alike of their resources and their, credit.
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