EASTERN ROUMELIA. 



229 



persons whose incomes are less than $31 per 

 annum, who will pay a tax of $0*93 each, and 

 the twelfth class includes those who receive 

 more than $1,215, who will be assessed at the 

 rate of one and a half per cent. The intermedi- 

 ate classes will be assessed at fixed rates. A vote 

 of censure was passed against M. Schmidt, Di- 

 rector-General of the Finances, in consequence 

 of which he resigned his office. M. Strankya, 

 a Bulgarian, was appointed to succeed him. 

 Among the recommendations which the Gov- 

 ernor-General made to the Assembly was one 

 for a vote of a loan of $14,500,000 for the con- 

 struction of a railway from Bourgas to Philip- 

 popolis and Yamboli. The proposition was not 

 acceptable to the Porte, for the reason that the 

 existence of such a line would make it easier 

 for Russian troops to enter the province ; and 

 a question was suggested as to the right of the 

 East Roumelians to construct railways without 

 special permission. 



A number of the items of the budget as laid 

 before the Assembly were objected to by the 

 Turkish Grand Vizier, on the ground that the 

 Governor-General had included in the revenue 

 statement a sum of 4,000,000 piasters (one pi- 

 aster=fotir cents), resulting from the sale of 

 landed property, crops, and effects belonging 

 to Mussulman refugees, and that he had allot- 

 ted a subsidy of 1,000,000 piasters to the Bul- 

 garian schools, while nothing was granted to 

 the Turkish schools. The Grand Vizier fur- 

 ther objected to the sum for the relief of the 

 poor in Eastern Roumelia being fixed without 

 any mention being made of the proportion in 

 which the Mussulman refugees should partici- 

 pate in its distribution; and he opposed the 

 insertion in the budget of a clause respecting 

 the posts and telegraphs of the province, on 

 the ground that those works belonged to the 

 Turkish Empire. 



The Provincial Assembly was again opened 

 October 25th, with a speech by the Governor- 

 General, who, after announcing that several 

 bills would shortly be submitted, said that the 

 present peaceful condition of the country was 

 the best pledge of a happy future in store for 

 the province. About thirty projects of law 

 were presented before the 1st of December, 

 some of which had been submitted to prelimi- 

 nary discussion. The most important of these 

 bills related to four classes of subjects, viz. : 1. 

 Improvement of the law courts and of the mu- 

 nicipal and rural police ; 2. Land-law reform, 

 including the secularization of ecclesiastical 

 property ; 3. Changes in the system of taxa- 

 tion ; 4. Public instruction. 



The Eastern Roumelian Commission held its 

 first sitting in Constantinople, June 17th, and 

 constituted its bureau, electing four secretaries 

 of Turkish, Russian, English, and French na- 

 tionalities. Petitions were presented to the 

 commission from Greeks asking that the na- 

 tionalities of the border towns be respected as 

 far as practicable in determining boundaries. 

 At the end of July the commission had adopt- 



ed financial provisions determining that the 

 revenue from all the provincial taxes should be 

 paid into the branch offices of the Imperial Ot- 

 toman Bank. It further decided that all the 

 costs of local administration including the ex- 

 penditure for the gendarmerie and police 

 should be a first charge upon the revenue, after 

 deducting which, the revenue, exclusive of the 

 indirect taxes on salt, tobacco, silk, fisheries, 

 and spirits, and the customs duties, should be 

 divided into two parts, of which 15 per cent, 

 should be devoted to public works and educa- 

 tion in the province, and the remaining 85 per 

 cent, should be sent to Constantinople. The 

 General Assemblies of the vilayets were given 

 control over the budgets. By the middle of 

 August the commission had virtually com- 

 pleted the project of reform for those parts of 

 European Turkey which are not included in 

 the principality of Bulgaria or East Roumelia, 

 and had still to consider the means of applying 

 the reforms. 



A disturbance took place between Bulgarians 

 and Greeks at Philippopolis on the 6th of Jan- 

 uary, when the Bulgarian militia forcibly seized 

 the church of St. Petka, belonging to the 

 Greek community, on the ground that it had 

 formerly been wrested from the Bulgarians by 

 the Greeks. The Governor-General took pos- 

 session of the keys, but the church was on the 

 next day returned to the Greeks, pending the 

 investigation of the question of title. A party 

 of Greeks, rejoicing over the restoration of 

 the church, and some Bulgarians became en- 

 gaged, in the afternoon, in a slight riot, which 

 was promptly quelled. 



An insurrection of Mussulmans broke out in 

 the latter part of February in the district of 

 Kirdjeli, where the insurgent bands gained a 

 strength of three thousand men. The Gov- 

 ernor-General consulted with Reouf Pasha, 

 Governor of Adrianople, concerning measures 

 to put down the rising, and two battalions of 

 infantry, a squadron of cavalry, and a detach- 

 ment of local militia were sent against the 

 insurgents. Four Mussulman villages were 

 burned by order of a Russian officer of the mi- 

 litia, and a number of Mussulman families were 

 compelled to emigrate from the province in 

 consequence of the rudenesses to which they 

 were subjected. The proceedings of General 

 Strecker, the commander of the militia, were 

 not satisfactory to the Governor-General, and 

 he addressed a report concerning them to the 

 Turkish Government. A commission, consist- 

 ing of four Bulgarians, Colonel Borthwick, the 

 commandant of the gendarmerie, and three 

 Turks, was dispatched into the disturbed dis- 

 trict early in April, to investigate the com- 

 plaints of the Mussulmans and examine into 

 the losses which they had sustained. The re- 

 port of the commission was presented in June, 

 and, in consequence of the conclusions embod- 

 ied in it, three officers of the Bulgarian militia, 

 two of whom were Russians, were dismissed 

 from the service of the province, and a num- 



