it says that "the believers ought to be governed by a National Council." In the same way, we are told that MIDHAT PASHA is occupied in combining a plan for a Consultative Assembly which is to be composed of representatives chosen by each province of the Empire, and representing all races and religions. The danger then that is immediately apparent is that they will institute an elective assembly instead of restoring the Old Council. Even those who have petitioned for the latter may not distinctly see the vital difference between the two. What the Turks have to consider is this. A representative Assembly is not a Council. To represent is to declare, to produce, to show forth. To counsel is to advise and decide. Our House of Commons is called representative by a confusion of ideas which has been embodied in language, and the confusion has been thus perpetuated. The members elected for Shires and Burghs were formerly delegates who represented-that is presented-the grievances of those who had elected them and empowered them to speak on their behalf. In those times there was no question of making laws, but of applying the Law, "the Common Law," as it existed, and inquiring into the violation of it. When the King summoned his Parliament it was generally to ask for an "aid," or "benevolence." Hence the occasion was taken by the Commons to state their "grievances,” and until the grievances were redressed, the "aid" was not granted. The tradition of this still remains in the faculty which private members retain of moving resolutions before going into a Committee of Supply. It is this rational mode of proceeding which has been changed into a representation of numbers and opinions. Men elected for the purpose of producing their grievances, and representing the evils which call for a remedy, would naturally be chosen from different classes, and different localities. They ought to be chosen for their knowledge of what they have to speak about. Councillors have from time immemorial been appointed on account of their wisdom and experience, and could have nothing whatever to do with the idea of representation. The Councillors are the Court, the representatives are the advocates. Our House of Commons is now a body useless except for evil, because formed out of incongruous elements and ideas. To which has been superadded the further anomaly of there being no separation between administration and control; and from the moment that the House of Commons has virtually appointed the Ministers it has ceased to control them. Most remarkable testimony to find on such a subject in an ordinary newspaper, has appeared in the Economist. Speaking in reference to public expenditure, it cites the old notion that a House of Commons in which the people were properly represented was an effectual control upon improper or excessive expenditure, while the Government could be trusted to propose whatever expenditure was desirable. It asserts that both these maxims have now become erroneous; that the House does not check expenditure, and that the Ministry cannot be trusted to propose any expenditure that is unpopular, even if required, for the following reasons: 66 66 "The truth is, that two great changes have occurred since these "Constitutional maxims were framed, and that we have not observed "how great an alteration in our financial position they have produced, "When these maxims grew up the Government-the Administration "being really chosen by the Crown -was always independent of, "and often hostile to, Parliament. Parliament, therefore, could be "trusted to check it: at any rate it was the best possible body for "such a purpose; it was elected by the people, breathed only the spirit of the people, and had no special sympathy with those who managed affairs. But now Parliament has to check its own nominees, "or rather those nominees have indirectly to check themselves. A Com"mittee of the two Houses, called the Cabinet,' decides what money "shall be spent; that Committee is, in fact, though not in name, "chosen by the majority of the House of Commons, of the House "whose special office it is to restrain and criticise expenditure. But "in such a case an effective scrutiny is impossible. We have identified "author and critic. Of course the Government, which is a Govern"ment only because it has a majority in the Lower House of Par"liament, will use that majority to pass its estimates, and so long as "it does so, all which is left to other members of the House is the 66 right of voting at fatiguing hours in unpopular minorities—a right "which very few care to make use of."* These are words that Turks, who have the idea of copying the representative" institutions of Europe, will do well to lay to heart. Let us now see what "Reform" has already done for Turkey. The representative Chamber here spoken of is to be elected by the present provincial Parliament, or Medjilis. These might appear at first to resemble our ancient Shiremotes. But all resemblance ceases when the nature of the population of Turkey is considered. The Vilayet system, as it is called, is composed of a series of Medjilis, belonging to the Vilayet, the Sandjak, and the Casas. Everything is in the hands of these assemblies, justice, police, finance, administration, public lands, so that if the country is ill governed it cannot be the Porte, but the people themselves, that have to be blamed. In Mr. URQUHART'S elaborate work on the Lebanon (1850), there is a full account given of the Medjlis of Beyrout, at whose sittings he frequently assisted. He says: "Certain it is that no people ever "had so large or so direct a part in its own Government." Nevertheless he augured ill of the ultimate results from the multiplicity and incongruity of the functions confided to them, and the want of a definite rule for their proceedings. Also from the administrative functions of the Pasha being interfered with by them to such a degree that no decision could be taken on the smallest matter, or the humblest functionary dismissed without their sanction. The province of Beyrout contained thirty of such minor bodies, controlling the subordinates of the Pasha in each place, as the provincial * Economist, April, 1876., Medjilis controlled the Pasha himself at Beyrout. All this elaborate machinery has superseded the old village municipality. It is also founded on representation. That is, in each Medjilis there must be a certain proportion of Mussulmans, and of each of the other religions and races. This is the "Reform" and this has ruined the country. In old times there was no mixing up of the various races and religions. Each village governed itself both temporally and spiritually according to its religion and its laws. The law for the Mussulman was the Chéri or sacred law, but the Christian had nothing to do with that, he was ruled in his own fashion. Here is the testimony of a witness whose evidence on such a point cannot be disputed. GALLENGA, the Times correspondent at Pera, intending to describe a monstrous and impossible state of things says: "The Turks cared as little about governing as about converting "their new subjects. Satisfied with the exaction of a tribute, they "allowed every race and creed its self-government. The Jews, the "Armenians, the Greeks, and in later times, the Latins, constituted so "many distinct communities, and as the Mussulmans themselves put "up with a Sovereign who is at the same time High Priest, so they allowed or directed the, non-mussulman communities to organise "themselves under their respective ecclesiastical hierarchies."* At home our educational difficulties have been created by the idea that it is necessary to force children of various creeds to be educated together. This is defended as a "liberal" measure and as having a tendency to unite the creeds and promote charity between them. Whereas both reason and experience lead to the conclusion that it is indifference that is cultivated as regards religion and heartburnings and discord in reference to persons. What we apply to education is there applied to every branch of public affairs. The result of this forced amalgamation is represented by Consuls and foreign correspondents, to be the tyranny of the Mussulman over the Christian element. Whereas it is exactly the reverse. Take the province of Bulgaria as a specimen. The description which we are about to give and the incidents we will relate are given on the authority of an English gentlemen who has become a proprietor in the Balkan and has been many years resident in that country. The Vilayet system and the Medjilis machinery have there resulted in the complete domination of the country by a set of usurers; men who live by the process of doubling a small capital in money every year. Thsee are Bulgarians, Jews, Greeks, and Armenians, who hold the public functionaries in their dependence, and tyrannise over the peasant. The Medjilis have prisons at their disposition. By their means they have put down even the right to petition. Our informant, the English gentleman, related the following incident. Having been one day visited by several inhabitants of some Christian village who came to complain to him of their condition, he Times correspondent, Pera, May 16, 1876. told each man to sit down and write a petition which he offered to present to the Grand Vizier. Nine out of ten prayed for the abolition of the Medjilis. He took them with him to Constantinople and presented them to the Grand Vizier, then MAHMOUD PASHA during his first Vizeriat, when he succeeded to AALI PASHA. The latter read them through carefully and seemed much struck. As he did so, the English Ambassador was announced. MAHMOUD turned to him and said "you are always speaking of the oppression of the Christians by the Turks. "Here is an English gentleman whom I suppose you will believe. He brings me all these petitions from Christians in Bulgaria, and it is of "the oppression of their fellow Christians they complain, and not of "the Turks. They appeal to us against their own people." Sir HENRY ELLIOT replied, "If that is so, those petitions must have "been drawn up under Mussulman compulsion." The English gentleman who had brought them indignantly exclaimed "Sir, are you "acting as the representative of England or of Russia?" To sum up the whole case: these new experiments have superseded the old institutions under which the Empire was great and flourishing. Instead of remedying the abuses which grew up under that system by an effectual control over the Pashas, they invented a new machinery, with the result of raising up a middle class of a most obnoxious character, and which literally lives upon usury and peculation. The Christians do suffer; not from the Turks, but from the general state of misgovernment. The petitioners whose case we have mentioned were thrown into prison by the Medjilis for having dared to petition! In such a case, Christians suffer and are ready to revolt in consequence. If the petitioners had been Mussulmans, the same thing would have happened, and does happen. The Christian may get personal relief by appealing to a Council. The Mussulman has no redress. The danger then is, as we have always pointed out, in a Mussulman revolt. The remedy is easy; but it requires either a powerful or a simple mind to put it into execution. The village inunicipality has to be reorganised by sweeping away the new machinery, and by restoring to it the collecting of its own taxes, and so getting rid of the tithe farmer and the peculation that now goes on at every capital of Casas, Sandjak, and Vilayet. Usury has to be put down. The right of petition has to be restored. The real wants of the people have to be discovered, which can be done by a custom common to Turkish Sovereigns and Saxon and Roman Kings. We read of the Commission of Justices in Eyre sent forth by EDWARD the THIRD: "First to inquire of all manner of oppressions, wrongs, "damages, grievances, and molestations done by every the King's "Ministers and of their deportment toward our Lord the King and "the common people."* The peasants of the Balkan speak of the time when the Sultan would send his officers to salute them for him, and inquire if they had any complaint to make. A representative assembly at Constantinople would mean that the • Anstey's Laws and Constitution of England, p. 155. same evil elements of corruption would be established in power at the head of affairs, and so all hope of redress for the existing wrongs would be done away with. Can there be found Turks to desire such men to be in power, or to imagine that such a system has anything in common with the great Council spoken of by the Koran? Finally Russia desires "Reform," and she is also seeking to destroy the Empire. Every Turk knows this. Let him also know that one of her cleverest servants (General VALENTINI) said of his people: "We shall not be able to subdue the Turks so long as they remain "themselves." Mr. Urquhart's Communications to the "Rome." WE should wish to insert all these letters. But those only which have appeared since our last number would occupy many numbers of this Review. We make a selection of those more immediately bearing on present events. THE ULEMAS AND NOTABLES OF PHILIPPOPILIS TO MR. URQUHART. (Translated from the Turkish.) 14 Safav, 1293 (10 March, 1876). We have had the honour to read in Turkish your letters to the Newcastle Committee, dated the 19th November, 1875, concerning the present state of the Ottoman finances, explaining the dangers of these debts into which we have been made to fall, and indicating the remedy by which we may be saved from this yawning gulf. This letter, full of wise counsels, contains the true salvation of the Ottomans, for each of its phrases is the eloquent expression of truths which have long pierced the heart of every one of us. While reading it, we shed tears and thanked God for having sent upon the earth a wise and learned man, who is not sparing of his profound knowledge to enlighten the world, and we prayed GOD to prolong his life. The Greeks erected a statue to Lord BYRON, who served with them against the Mussulmans. We Mussulmans, whose laws forbid us to erect statues, will do better; we will engrave your wise counsels in our hearts, and in those of our descendants. At a time when the Ottoman Government has fallen into an abyss by the act of its enemies, you take pains to give it the good advice to undertake a struggle against its adversaries and its false friends. Comprehending all that we owe to you, we think it our duty to tell you in writing how sincerely we and all the members of our families offer up prayers for your health and success; but, alas! we cannot find words capable of expressing the strength of our gratitude, and can only entreat you to pardon the inadequacy of the terms in which we address to you our thanks. Hoping that your indefatigable labour in behalf of our Government and our people will never cease, Believe us your humble servants, |