GREECE. 



507 



it was accorded, and during this time the culti- 

 vator must remain by to watch it. On an 

 average three months were lost to each culti- 

 vator in this way. and all inducement to in- 

 crease the quantity of the crops was taken 

 away. Except in the immediate vicinity of 

 Athens there were neither roads nor bridges, 

 although the country is preeminently one of 

 swift flowing streams, high hills, and deep 

 ravines. There were not 120 miles of tolerable 

 roads, and but half a dozen bridges in the king- 

 dom. Manufactures were discouraged by heavy 

 imposts, till there remained only some gold 

 and silver embroidery work at Athens, some 

 iron ware at Tripolitza, a little silk gauze at 

 Calamata and Mistra, and some woollen fabrics 

 on a very limited scale manufactured at Le- 

 badoea. While five or six short and inexpen- 

 sive railroads, connecting important points, 

 would have soon quadrupled the production of 

 Greece, the Government not only would not 

 interest itself in their construction, but opposed 

 and forbade any application of private capital 

 for the purpose. Centralization was the policy 

 of the court. Athens, as the royal residence, 

 must be aggrandized, but all the rest of Greece 

 might go to waste. 



At the close of her struggle for independence 

 Greece had a constitution of a somewhat lib- 

 eral character, but this the regency and the 

 king himself, when he came into power, ut- 

 terly ignored, and the despotism of the Gov- 

 ernment grew more intolerable with each year, 

 till in 1843 the people rose in revolution, with 

 the rallying cry of ZfjTca TO Swraypa ("Long 

 Live the Constitution"). Gen. Kalergy was in 

 command, and the army on which the king re- 

 lied to defend him from the people, fraternized 

 with them. After attempting in vain to es- 

 cape the alternative presented him of resigning, 

 or dismissing his Bavarians, appointing a new 

 ministry, calling a national assembly, and accept- 

 ing a constitution drawn up by them, he finally 

 acceded to the latter, signed the ordinances 

 presented to him. and when the national as- 

 sembly had drawn up a constitution, he accept- 

 ed it. The constitution thus prepared was de- 

 fective in many particulars, but Otho and his 

 queen did not observe its provisions, and hence 

 any good, there was in it failed to enure to the 

 benefit of the people. The two chambers, in- 

 stead of being elected by fair popular vote, 

 were packed with adherents to the crown ; the 

 ballot was tampered with, and if by any acci- 

 dent a Greek patriot was elected, spurious bal- 

 lots sufficient to defeat his election were substi- 

 tuted for the true ones. The ministry were 

 notoriously takers of bribes, falsifiers of bal- 

 lots, and tools of the despotism, and were 

 openly accused of every species of baseness. 



For ten years the people endured these in- 

 creasing evils, which were aggravated by the 

 growing rapacity of the queen. The revenues 

 had been increasing : but this fact was care- 

 fully concealed from the people, and the pay- 

 ment of 900.000 drachmas annually, guaranteed 



by the constitution toward the liquidation of 

 the debt of $12,000,000, contracted by Greece 

 at her independence, with the endorsement of 

 the three powers, was withheld by the king, and 

 used for the purposes of the court, as a consider- 

 able portion of the principal of the loan had been. 



In 1854 another revolution became imminent, 

 and was only avoided by the adroitness of the 

 Government (an adroitness never manifested 

 on any other occasion), in bringing forward the 

 project of a Byzantine empire. The questions 

 which led to the Crimean war were in agita- 

 tion, and the queen and ministers prompted 

 the people to side with Russia, and to make the 

 effort to alienate from Turkey the provinces of 

 Epirus and Thessaly, and the Grecian islands, 

 to form a new Greek domain. Infatuated with 

 this idea. Otho for once became popular, and 

 his already despotic powers were enlarged, 

 while the wealthier Greeks subscribed large 

 sums of money, which were greedily absorbed 

 by the court to promote so desirable an end. 

 In less than a year they woke from their dream 

 to find they had been duped. The allied pow- 

 ers threatened them, and occupied their capital 

 with an armed force ; Turkey was exasperated, 

 and their money had been spent on its own 

 projects by the Government which had become 

 more absolute than before. The people became 

 satisfied that their Bavarian rulers cared noth- 

 ing for them, but only for their money, and 

 that there could be no improvement or progress 

 till they were rid of them ; but who could be 

 substituted for them, was the question, and a 

 very difficult one it was to solve. 



In 1856 the three protecting powers appoint- 

 ed a commission to investigate the administra- 

 tive and financial state of Greece. This com- 

 mission, consisting of an English, French, and 

 Russian member, spent more than two years in 

 their inquiries, and published their report in 

 1860. According to this report the interest of 

 the debt already referred to had not been paid 

 since 1843, and amounted in 1859 to $11.22-.- 

 476. and at the present time would amount to 

 about $16,400,000. There was besides this a 

 home debt of about $12,500.000. The Govern- 

 ment, the commission reported, had used with- 

 out accounting for them the communal funds, 

 had encroached systematically upon the public 

 domain, had published no account of the finan- 

 ces, and though the revenues had increased, 

 had carefully concealed that fact from the peo- 

 ple, whom they had constantly plundered. 



This report did not lessen the utter distrust 

 and contempt of their king and queen which 

 was possessing the minds of the Greeks : and 

 it required but a slight incident to develop it 

 in another revolution. On the 28th of May a 

 conspiracy, supposed to be of great extent, was 

 discovered in Athens, but it turned out to be a 

 false alarm, and the kin<r and queen soon sub- 

 sided into their old condition of apathy. Otho 

 went in the summer as usual to the German 

 spa. and left the queen as regent. On the loth 

 of September, at 9 o'clock in the evening, as 



