perilous station required. If, as there is room to hope, his younger brother, the reigning Emperor, should carry out the reforms and improvements adopted by Abdul-Mehjid with the energy displayed by Mahmoud, Turk and Christian, the Empire and its allies, would have reason to rejoice. Appearances are, so far, favourable to this expectation, and if it be true that Sultan Abdul-Aziz intends in good earnest to limit his connubial establishment to a single wife, the prospect may soon ripen into a reality. Economy would be the least advantage of such a limitation. The morals and manners of the seraglio would undergo a transformation much to be desired. The example would operate most beneficially throughout the whole range of Turkish society. The harem would cease to be a curse, and a great step would be made towards an intermixture of classes. But we must be content to wait a while in suspense. It is not the first time that a new reign has commenced with a clearance in the palace. Four thousand ladies and attendant officers are described in the Turkish annals as having been dismissed on one occasion. A vast increase of paper currency and its intended application to the payment of the army are measures of ominous import. The dismissal of the late Grand Vizir in favour of the present incumbent is a very questionable move. Other personal changes in the administration have no distinct character, and, with the exception of Riza Pasha, may be referred to motives of mere convenience. Reduction of expense is an excellent thing to begin with, especially after the measureless extravagance of the late reign. But much more is wanted. Economy itself, to be remedial, must be applied with judgment. It is said that even the army is to be reduced. Now, the army is already too small for the defence of the Empire. I repeat that it does not exceed a third of the numbers displayed on paper. It is not equal to the maintenance of internal order, except by harassing and wasteful exertions. Its increase is more to be desired than its diminution, and means for that purpose should be sought in other reductions, particularly in the reduction of salaries and pensions, and also in a more effective management of the revenue, including its collection and administration. Be it remembered that the Sultan's dominions, whether we look to climate, soil, or position, are rich beyond conception in resources of every kind. We have only to name the countries which are comprised within their limits, and every doubt on this point must vanish from our minds. The wonder is that regions so blest with all varieties of produce, with climates so favourable to labour, with coasts so accessible to commerce, and with full experience of these advantages transmitted from age to age, should have been brought to such degradation at a period when other countries far less happily endowed by nature reached so great a height of prosperity and power. Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, the vast plains of Thessaly and Adria nople, those in Asia watered by the Hermus, the Mæander, the Cayster, the Caïcus, and the productive provinces extending on both sides along the Danube from Hungary to the sea-all these and many other districts of surpassing fertility are only waiting for the long-expected signal to enter upon a new career of industry, wealth, and glory. Let the doors be thrown open to the arts, the science, the capital of Europe; let the emulation of the natives be encouraged and their fortunes sufficiently protected; let the reforms to which the Imperial Government is pledged be put into a regular course of execution, and the most satisfactory results would be sure to follow. Even as it is, the Porte's revenue has increased by a fourth since the Crimean war, and the financial embarrassments which have accompanied that progress may be fairly attributed to extravagance, corruption, and mismanagement, or to the cost of putting down disturbances engendered by a vicious course of administration, The reforms which are here recommended must be viewed as a whole in order to be fully appreciated. They are comprehensive in principle and also in application. They are by no means limited to the Christian subjects of the Porte. They are calculated to promote the welfare of all classes, whatever may be the separate creed of each. The imperial proclamation, in which the new concessions are embodied together with the earliest, is a real charter of franchises, the Magna Charta, in a broader sense than ours, of the Turkish Empire. Honour to Sultan Abdul-Mehjid who gave it, and to Reschid Pasha with whom its leading ideas originated! The various provisions it contains may be severally classed under the following heads : I. Confirmation of beneficial ordinances already proclaimed. III. Removal of existing abuses. IV. Securities for the observance of new measures. V. Improvements of a material kind. The field, it must be allowed, is a wide one, and surely in its compartments there is no want either of liberality or of apparent sincerity. A system of reform which aims at the removal of all abuses, the perpetuation of all franchises, the fusion of all classes, the development of all resources, the entire liberty of public worship and of private conscience in religious matters, the extension and security of civil rights, and an enlarged intercourse with foreigners, can hardly fail to engage our sympathy, and, considering the difficulties which surround it in a country like Turkey, to command our admiration and hearty concurrence. We boast too much of the spirit of our age to be indifferent to one of its greatest and least expected achievements. Our free institutions, our Protestant faith, our commercial enterprise, our skill in manufactures, all these sources of our national greatness are deeply interested in the triumph of such principles over bigotry, ignorance, and corruption in one of their strongest and most extensive holds. What our Mussulman allies now stand in need of is a practical application of those principles in full, with an earnest enforcement of corresponding measures. Unfortunately fresh obstacles occur at this point. The Sultan looks to his ministers; the ministers look to each other. Some are restrained by the fear of responsibility, some by their personal interests; others have to contend with false impressions contracted in their youth, and others again with an indigenous love of ease and habitual self-indulgence. Among those statesmen at the Porte who admit the necessity without promoting the progress of reform, no allegation is more common than the deficiency of suitable agents. There is no doubt truth, but there is also much exaggeration, in this plea. Men of sufficient ability are seldom wanting for the public service, when the authority under which they act is clear and determined in its views, and adequate motives for individual exertion are brought into play. It will soon be forty years since the present era of Turkish reforms began. A new generation has sprung up within that period. The young men of Sultan Mahmoud's time have now attained the experience of age. Those who were only children then have already overstepped the halfway road of life. It would be strange indeed if there were none among them whose natural intelligence had taken the impress of the time, none who felt that in serving a reform government with zeal they could best fulfil their public duties and consult their own interests. Their minds have ripened in the warmth of new ideas; they have had access, in maturity, to broader avenues of knowledge than were open to their predecessors, who nevertheless sent out from their ranks the earliest instruments, the most active pioneers of reform. Between the two classes, the elder and the younger, a sufficient supply might surely be found, if not for giving full effect to all the ministerial offices, at least for conducting the principal departments, and setting an example of vigour and consistency to other branches of the government. A Turk of good manners, who can talk French, who has visited the chief cities of Christendom, and has some acquaintance with European literature, is no longer, as in the last century, a phoenix or a black swan. The Greeks have ceased to monopolise the main channel of communication between the Porte and the foreign ambassadors at Constantinople. The functions of chief interpreter are performed by a Mussulman. What serves to counteract the natural tendencies of so important a change is favouritism, which is still but too often the arbiter of public appointments in Turkey. This practice may be traced to three distinct sources. The candidates for office receive their education in general either at the Porte or in the seraglio. Their first appointment is made on the recommendation of some influential person at one of those two seats of power. Their promotion is frequently the result of a similar exercise of patronage. The relations of patron and client, which formed so strong an element of public life in ancient Rome, survive to a certain degree at Constantinople. The great man is at times sustained by his political dependants, who, in turn, look up to him for the advancement of their fortunes. Official establishments, though of late curtailed, are still expensive, and the plurality of incumbents have little but their salaries and their expectations wherewith to support them. Debts are consequently incurred, and the bankers, who lend, employ their credit, which is considerable, in keeping or reinstating in office their respective debtors. Hence a routine most favourable to misconduct, incapacity, and corruption; hence a discouragement to those who seek to rise by honest means and honourable exertions; hence an assurance that no amount of disgrace will permanently exclude the most undeserving characters from office and power. Such pashas as Riza and Saffeti must laugh at being dismissed, since, however clear their delinquency, they are allowed to keep their ill-gotten spoils, with the certainty of returning to office at no distant period, and in the enjoyment meanwhile of colossal pensions. There is much, we must confess, in these abuses to dishearten the advocates of Turkish revival. But they are not irremediable, and other countries have succeeded in throwing off the same impediments. Even here, in our own country, the struggle of private interest with public spirit was long and anxious. It survived both the Reformation and the Revolution. It was a cloud on our expanding prospects in the last century. It required the resolution, the integrity, and the genius of a Burke to check its progress; and even now we look for its death-blow to a doubtful experiment-that of our competitive examinations. If, in this respect, we are better, on the whole, than those who went before us, what securities have we against the dangers of a relapse? The answer is obvious. We are less exposed to temptation, and we act under the control of public opinion. The servants of the State, whatever their rank or denomination, are regularly if not abundantly paid, and an act of peculation brought home to the delinquent would, at least, be stamped with ignominy and hopeless dismissal from office. Appointments also are made in the public service on sounder principles and under a stricter responsibility. The Turks, it is true, have no parliament, and still less a parliament composed of individuals responsible to a popular constituency. But they have a Sovereign whose power is absolute, whose interest is that the Empire should be honestly served, and who has no aristocratic, municipal, or party combinations to manage. In fact, without the immediate sanction of the Sultan, no issue of money, no official appointment is made; no act of administration, no decision of council, no sentence of criminal justice, goes into effect. The laws against malversation, bribery, and corruption are stringent, and to every breach of them a penalty, more or less severe, is attached. f In aid of the Sultan there is a Privy or Cabinet Council for affairs of state, whether internal or foreign. There is also a more comprehensive council, having judicial as well as deliberative powers, and comprising, together with the Grand Mufti and others of the Ulemah, most of the principal functionaries. To these may be added a Board of Reform, whose president is a member of the administration, and occasionally, under urgent circumstances, a Council of Notables convened by supreme authority from the provinces and in part elected there. However, in each province there is a separate council for local affairs under the presidency of the respective pashas. In these assemblies the elective principle is in some degree employed, and a representative of each non-Mussulman community sits among the members. The pashas are no longer invested, as of old, with plenary powers. They are now little more than civil commissioners. The troops are placed under a military commander, and the provincial revenue is administered by a separate authority. No capital sentence can be carried into effect without a special order from Constantinople. This new distribution of power, though doubtless in some respects useful, has the drawback of leaving too much in the hands of the council, whose leading members are men of influence in their neighbourhood, swayed by local interests, indifferent, if not hostile, to the imperial policy, and capable at times of giving law to the pasha. A surer and stronger link is wanted between the supreme government and the provincial authorities, and such a link might perhaps be found without disturbing the present divisions of the Empire. The existing pashaliks might be grouped into clusters determined by territorial conformation or by local convenience, and each of the clusters might be superintended by a Governor-General or Lord High Commissioner, representing the Sultan, and enjoying the full confidence of his government. Examples of this kind of delegation are to be found in Turkish history. One of them has lately been given in the person of Fuad Pasha, who, under peculiar circumstances, was invested with extraordinary powers for the restoration of order in Syria. Another took place a few years before, when the two adjacent provinces of Thessaly and Epirus were united for a time under the administration of a single pasha, who in earlier days would probably have received the appropriate and well-known title of Bey-ler-bey, or Lord of Lords. There would be little difficulty in arranging a sufficient control for the exercise of so high a trust, and the body of Turkish statesmen would not be required to supply more than twelve or fifteen individuals capable of fulfilling its duties, and giving |