542 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



has been any trade in the empire, it has been 

 among the subject races, especially those whose 

 yoke has been loosened, not among the Turks. 

 Political organization has never got beyond the 

 coarse and barbarous form of military satrapies, 

 whose rule is cruelty, and whose taxation is rap- 

 ine. Even for military science the Turk has 

 recourse to the foreigner. There being no se- 

 curity for the fruits of labor, production has 

 failed, and the blight of barrenness has spread 

 over some of the fairest regions of the earth. 

 The provinces are heterogeneous, and under such 

 a system of government no progress toward as- 

 similation could be made. A fatalist religion has 

 repressed effort, even the effort necessary to save 

 life from the plague. The same religion, by its 

 political intolerance, has precluded the fusion of 

 the conqueror with the conquered, and kept hos- 

 tile races facing each other in every part of the 

 empire. The numbers of the dominant race have 

 been always dwindling under the effects of vice 

 and of the military conscription, which, as the 

 slaves cannot be trusted with arms, falls on the 

 masters alone. By the institution of the Jani- 

 zaries, which constantly infused new blood into 

 the military system, the period of conquest was 

 artificially prolonged, and, in measuring the ra- 

 pidity of Turkish decay, it should be borne in 

 mind that less than two centuries ago the Turks 

 were still conquerors. But, in the absence of 

 external intervention, a century would probably 

 have sufficed to complete the process of dissolu- 

 tion; the ill-cemented provinces of the empire 

 would have fallen apart, and the satraps would 

 have defied the bow-string, and set up for them- 

 selves. The revolt of Egypt was an example 

 which, had things been left to their natural 

 course, other pashas would have followed. Di- 

 plomacy intervened, and held together the crum- 

 bling mass. "When the resources of fiscal rob- 

 bery were exhausted, and the sheep of the rayah 

 had been sheared in winter to pay his taxes, Eng- 

 lish coffers, opened by the 'confident assurances 

 of English ministers, supplied money, of which 

 the greater part was squandered in barbarous 

 and bestial luxury, while the rest provided a 

 standing army, which, by rendering internal in- 

 surrection against the tyranny hopeless, com- 

 pelled the oppressed to stretch their hands for 

 aid to a foreign liberator, and thus embroiled 

 Europe ; just as our ancestors under James II., 

 who had a standing army, were compelled to call 

 in a foreign deliverer ; whereas, under Charles I., 

 who had no standing army, they were able to re- 

 dress their wrongs with their own hands. The 



present Turkish army may be victorious, but it 

 will be the last, unless, by a miracle, confidence 

 can be planted again in the bosoms of capitalists 

 who have been swindled. Russia would, perhaps, 

 have acted more wisely had she paused awhile, 

 and allowed bankruptcy and repudiation to do 

 their work. The question is one, not of senti- 

 ment or religion, but of political science ; and it 

 is a thing to be noted that a man so sagacious in 

 a certain sphere as Palmerston, so adroit a man- 

 ager of party, so clever a diplomatist, with all 

 possible means of information at his command, 

 should have persuaded himself that the Ottoman 

 Empire was in course of rapid regeneration, only 

 needing loans to complete the process, and should 

 have induced his countrymen to lay down their 

 money on the strength of that belief. It shows 

 that in such questions the wisdom which styles 

 itself practical, because it excludes general views 

 and considerations, may lead to conclusions the 

 reverse of wise. An ancient philosopher is said 

 to have convinced his sneering countrymen of the 

 utility of his science by a successful speculation 

 in olives. We should be surprised to find that 

 any one versed in the philosophy of history had 

 been seduced into investing in Turkish bonds. 



Fall the Ottoman Empire will, by corruption, 

 if not by the sword ; and its fall will apparently 

 bring on a crisis in the destinies of England, who 

 will be called on to decide whether, out of the 

 wreck, she will take Egypt. If she does, she 

 will be committed far more deeply than ever to 

 the policy of aggrandizement ; foreign dominion 

 sustained by arms will assume a greatly-increased 

 importance with her relatively to domestic ob- 

 jects ; and the spirit of her people will undergo 

 a corresponding change. Egypt obviously means 

 Eastern Africa, probably, indeed almost certainly, 

 Syria, from which the fatal canal is commanded 

 almost as much as from Egypt ; possibly Crete, 

 or some other convenient island. But it means a 

 good deal more than this. It means that England 

 is to undertake to secure against any possible 

 attack the whole of the overland route to India : 

 for, of course, there is no use in holding" the gate 

 when the avenue to it is in other hands, and, if 

 Port Said is the gate, the avenue to it is the Medi- 

 terranean. To India by the Cape we had, as it 

 were, a private way, not leading by many hostile 

 doors, nor obliging you to appear as dominant 

 under the noses of rival nations ; but the over- 

 land route runs by the coasts of a whole line of 

 maritime powers, to which will be added Ger- 

 many, if she ever acquires Trieste, and Russia 

 (exasperated by our demonstrations of enmity), 



