TURKEY. 



639 



ram festival the palace hall in which the cere- 

 mony took place was shaken by an earthquake, 

 but the presence of mind displayed by the Sultan 

 averted a panic among the 3,000 people present. 

 On June 15 a fire occurred in the Yildiz Kiosk 

 which was attributed to incendiaries, and after 

 investigation a large number of palace officials 

 were banished to Yemen. The seizure of the mail- 

 bags by the Turkish postal authorities took place 

 on May 6. On 'the same day the embassies were 

 informed that in the future the foreign mails 

 would be delivered through the Turkish post- 

 office. The foreign postal bureaus were told that 

 if they would not agree to this the departure of 

 the mails for Europe would be stopped. They 

 were stopped, but on the demand of the ambassa- 

 dors the mail-bags were released, though only 

 after they had been opened. The Turkish post- 

 office, established after the Crimean War, was at 

 first farmed out to contractors, then taken over 

 by the Government in 1861, but the postal rates 

 were reckoned according to distances until 1888, 

 when uniform postage in conformity with the 

 regulations of the universal postal union was in- 

 troduced. Postal stations were spread all over 

 the empire, until now there. are no foreign post- 

 offices outside of Constantinople except at Jeru- 

 salem, Janina, and Adrianople. The ambassadors 

 paid no attention to the demand of the Porte 

 that the postal traffic be surrendered to the Gov- 

 ernment post-office, and the Porte yielded for the 

 moment, reserving the right to exercise its sover- 

 eign rights at some more convenient time. Reshad 

 Pasha, Minister of Finance, was relieved of his 

 functions on May 6, and Zuhdi Pasha, Minister 

 of Public Instruction, temporarily assumed the 

 duties of that post in conjunction with his own. 

 The necessities of the treasury became so pressing 

 that advances amounting to 480,000 were ob- 

 tained from the tobacco regie and the Ottoman 

 Bank. On Sept. 17 Reshad Pasha was called back 

 to the Ministry of Finance. A dispute with the 

 French Government over a concession to a French 

 company gave rise to strained relations between 

 the two governments. The company had com- 

 pleted quays in Constantinople at a cost of 

 1,800,000 which produced a revenue of only 

 41,000, and complained that the Turkish Gov- 

 ernment did not give it the full benefit of the 

 dues. The company claimed furthermore the 

 right to sell lands which the improvement had 

 made valuable, but the Government refused to 

 sanction the sale. The Turkish Government 

 wished to purchase the quays, deeming highly 

 dangerous the facilities they afford for landing 

 and embarking passengers, but as the company 

 asked 45,000,000 francs the ministers could not 

 raise a loan for the purpose because the quays 

 do not yield enough revenue to pay the interest. 

 Various claims of French citizens against the 

 Turkish Government were combined with those 

 of the quay company when the French Govern- 

 ment determined on bringing pressure on the Sul- 

 tan. There was an old claim to the inheritance 

 of one Lorando which a 1 French court had as- 

 sessed at 12,500,000 francs. A French jeweler 

 had a claim for articles supplied to the harem of 

 the Sultan Murad. French bankers in Constan- 

 tinople had a claim of 20,000,000 francs which was 

 long overdue for advances to the Government. 

 There was also a claim for money advanced for 

 the construction of railroads, amounting with un- 

 paid interest to 45,000,000 francs. These old 

 claims, which consisted chiefly of compound in- 

 terest at 9 per cent., the Sultan considered ques- 

 tionable, and desired a compromise. The pecu- 

 niary rights of the quays company he recognized, 



but he maintained his rioR f o expropriate the 

 quays for state reasons. The Sultan promised 

 to borrow 100,000,000 francs through the Otto- 

 man Bank, and with this sum pay its French 

 creditors and purcha.se the quays for 41,000,000 

 francs. When the Turkish Foreign Mini-tea- came 

 to M. Constans on the following day with a dif- 

 ferent proposition, the French ambassador refused 

 to listen to him, and said that if the arrangement 

 which the Sultan had approved wort not carried 

 out he would not see the Sultan any more. The; 

 Sultan then removed the interdict which pre- 

 vented the quays company from establishing a 

 ferry between Galata and Stamboul, extending 

 the quays up into the Golden Horn, and building 

 on adjacent land, rights which were embraced in 

 the original concession. The quay company hav- 

 ing been placed in possession of its full rights, 

 the main question between the two powers was 

 settled. A claim of the lighthouse board for the 

 Adabazar marshes, which the Government had 

 taken, then restored, and then taken away again, 

 was also settled by the agreement to pay an 

 indemnity of T. 27,000. The Turkish Govern- 

 ment still held out for a reduction of the indi- 

 vidual claims dating back to Sultan Murad's 

 time. M. Constans, who had received from hia 

 Government authority to act at his own dis- 

 cretion, insisted that in these minor matters the 

 arrangement made on Aug. 17 with the Sultan's, 

 approval be literally carried out. On Aug. 23 he 

 announced that he would leave if this were not 

 agreed to, and on Aug. 26 he left Constantinople. 

 Munir Bey, in Paris, received his passports. The 

 Porte requested Russian mediation in the matter 

 of the Lorando and the bankers' claims, which 

 were the cause of the rupture. No reply was 

 made to this communication until a rupture be- 

 tween France and Turkey became imminent, when 

 the advice came from St. Petersburg to yield to 

 the French demands. The French Government 

 decided to make a naval demonstration in the 

 Levant in order to enforce its demands after giv- 

 ing ample time to the Turkish Government to 

 make amends. As a condition of the renewal of 

 diplomatic relations France demanded the recog- 

 nition by Turkey of the treaty of Bardo, made 

 in 1881, wherein Tunis acknowledged the estab- 

 lishment of a French protectorate. Turkey after 

 the rupture gave fresh cause for offense to France 

 by exacting from the French religious orders in 

 the Turkish dominions the payment of a tax of 

 5 per cent, on real estate in spite of the capitu- 

 lations, reestablishing the 5-per-cent. customs- 

 duty for the Roman Catholic monks in Jerusa- 

 lem, and forbidding religious orders to settle on 

 Ottoman territory without previously obtaining; 

 authorization. The Sultan yielded on all the 

 points involved in the original controversy. These 

 new regulations, however, were objectionable to- 

 France as the power protecting Roman Catholics 

 in Oriental countries. The cause of the rupture 

 was not the denial of the private money claims of 

 private individuals of doubtful French national- 

 ity, but the deliberate failure of the Sultan to 

 keep his word after giving it to the French am- 

 bassador. The French Government therefore de- 

 termined to carry out its intention of making 

 a naval demonstration. On Nov. 1 a French 

 squadron, composed of the battle-ships Gaulois 

 and Charlemagne, the armored cruisers Amiral 

 Pothuau and Latouche Treville, and the cruiser 

 Galilee, proceeded to the island of Mitylene to 

 seize the customs dues of the port of Kastro. 

 On Nov. 7 Rear-Admiral Caillard occupied the 

 telegraph office with 60 men. The Sultan and his- 

 advisers had supposed that the concessions al- 



