The Government of Turkey is getting deeper and deeper into
the financial mire. The correspondent of the Times, who on this subject has never concealed the truth, now states that in addition to all other expenses, the Porte owes fifty millions nominal, or, allowing for depreciated paper, thirty-five millions sterling of Floating Debt, contracted in the form of short loans to bankers at ruinous interest. This debt is secured by pawning every source of revenue available, and renders the issue of any regular loan impossible, even if any human being with a memory and a slate would trust the Porte. All the stories, therefore, of plans to pay certain sums to the Bondholders, secured upon the Bulgarian tribute, the Roumelian surplus, the new taxes, or the customs dues beyond a certain figure, are pure fictions, circulated to deceive the European public. Nothing will or can be paid to the bond- holder,—his single chance is in a compromise after the extinction of Turkey, that is, in the dismissal of Lord Beaconsfield ; and even that is a very remote one, The purveyors of the Palace have struck this week again, and an order has been issued to the provincial treasuries to send every shilling to Constantinople, even if Government drafts upon them already sold in the market remain unpaid. If the Palace is worried in this way, there will be a revolution inside it very quickly. Cash payment is the nexus there, if nowhere else in the world.
Previous page
