The Eastern Question

THE present ruler of Turkey is said to be effeminate, in ill health, and chiefly occupied with being the husband of a multitude of wives. But with an income of more than $3,000,000, and the exercise of economy, he is able to meet current expenses. The manner of raising revenues in Turkey is given in the following paragraph:—

"The land in all Turkey and her dependencies belongs to the reigning sultan, and is only occupied at his will. It is parceled out to those who wish to cultivate it at a nominal rental of one fifth of the produce, which goes directly to the crown. Three fifths more are taken from the lessee on other pretexts, all for the maintenance of the government, the pasha in each district having the authority to lease the ground and collect the taxes, which may be in kind or money. If crops are short, they take four fifths of all the man has in animals and even household utensils, sometimes all, to make up the deficiency which Providence has withheld. Everything that can produce, be it a tree, beast, fowl, worm, or the labor of a man and his family, is subject to the four-fifth tax. Those who toil at any labor or trade other than agriculture, are taxed also pro rata according to their wages, and must pay, or go to prison if caught."

Bayard Taylor, in his "Lands of the Saracen," bears the following testimony to the condition of Turkey:— In spite of all efforts, the Ottoman power is rapidly wasting away. The light of the Orient is nerveless and efféte; the native strength of the race has died out, and all attempts to resuscitate it by the adoption of European institutions, produce mere galvanic spasms, which leave it more exhausted than before. Turkish rule is a monstrous system of deceit and corruption. These people have not the most remote conception of the true aims of government. . . . [Public officers] only seek to enrich themselves and their parasites, at the expense of the people and the national treasury. . . . The people, and most probably the government, is strongly prepossessed in favor of the English; but the Russian bear has a heavy paw, and when he puts it into the scale, all other weights kick the beam.

The inspiration of the Mohammedan religion in an age of great moral darkness, contributes largely to raise the Turk to national power; but the penetrating light of Christianity has rendered the further conquests of Islamism by the sword next to impossible, and as a consequence, their fierce fanaticism, and with it their national life, is dying out, and even though Russia were not permitted to give the coup de grace, the end must soon come.

A new danger now menaces the life of Turkey, in the revolt of the Arabs against the Ottoman caliphate. On this point the REVIEW of recent date has the following :—"It is led by a descendant of the grandson of the prophet, and is making steady progress. These fanatical Arab Muslims regard the Turks as little better than infidels, hence their effort to cast off their authority, and establish a pure Arabian caliphate. The latest news from Yemen was that they had defeated three Turkish armies sent against them, and were within five days' march of the holy city of Mecca. The success of this movement would be to deprive the sultan of his spiritual supremacy in both Asia and Africa, leaving him only his territory north of the Bosporus. And with Russia crowding down to take this and Constantinople from him, the poor sultan may well consider himself between the upper and nether millstones."

RUSSIA'S ATTITUDE.

During the time of Turkish supremacy, when the bloody contest between the Crescent and the Cross was raging, and as a consequence, men sought death and found it not, and desired to die, but could not (see Rev. 9:6), the Slavic race occupying the eastern portion of Europe always received the first and most severe shock of Mohammedan onslaught, and as a consequence, a dislike of the Turks, and a purpose to expel them from European soil became indelibly inwrought into the Slavic. heart. This deep purpose was inscribed in the policy of the government by Potemkin, a favorite of Catherine the Great, who for more than forty years enjoyed almost regal honors under that dissolute queen; it is said he conducted all-powerfully the foreign diplomacy of the empire, consolidated the Russian power in the Black Sea, conquered and annexed the Crimea, and founded Sebastopol and many other cities. To foster and inflame the public feeling, he caused finger-posts to be erected in some places, pointing southward, with the inscription, "This is the way to Constantinople."

This policy of the government has been steadily adhered to ever since. But the other powers of Europe, foreseeing the consequences that would follow, should this policy be carried into effect, have from time to time called a halt to attempts in this direction, and the coveted boon has not yet been secured.

Napoleon, foreseeing the result of Russian occupancy of Constantinople, said to his governor, Sir Hudson Lowe, while a prisoner at St. Helena :—"The object of my invasion of Russia was to prevent this, by the interposition between her and Turkey of a new State which I meant to call into existence as a barrier to her eastern encroachments."

The disasters of that campaign frustrated the purpose of Napoleon, but the other great powers of Europe are effecting what his ideal State was designed to do, in checking Russian aggression by propping up and supporting a nation that is a disgrace in religion and government to modern civilization. The antagonism of faith between the Greek and the Muslim is an ever fruitful source of menace to the peace of Europe. By a clause in the treaty with Turkey by Catherine II of Russia, in 1774, perfect religious freedom was guaranteed to all members of the Greek Church in Turkey. This stipulation was interpreted by the Czar Nicholas, as implying the right of Russian protection over all such subjects of Turkey, and as the result, Russian spies abound in Turkish territory, working for Russian interests, a procedure that renders peace impossible.

The Detroit Sunday News, in an editorial on modern Jerusalem, bears the following testimony concerning the interests and influence of Russia in that city:—"The most powerful religious element in the city to-day is the Russian, or Greek, Church. More than 5,000 Russians each year make pilgrimages to Jerusalem. In a suburb of the city the Russian government has extensive premises surrounding the consulate. Here nothing but the Slavic tongue is spoken, and the dress and customs of the Russians prevail, and even the booths and shops are Russian. This is only one of the ways, but it is a very important way, in which the white czar is honeycombing the Turkish Empire with Russian ideas. The more Russian pilgrims go to Jerusalem, the stronger becomes the incentive of the nation to fight for the land when the right time shall come.

It is said that there is scarcely a village in Russia in which a bottle of Jordan water cannot be found; and Palestine relics are held in the highest veneration. Already the orthodox Palestine society of Russia, has secured the ground over which Christ passed on his way to Golgotha; and it is fast buying up other shrines. Thus it happens that every devout Russian looks forward to the day when he shall not leave Russian ground in his pilgrimage to the holy city.

On the Mount of Olives the Russians have lately built a church, which mounts a bell weighing eight tons. The church is built over a medieval Armenian monastery, and in excavating for the foundations, an old chapel and a rock-cut chamber with sixteen sarcophagi were found."

The late rumor that the sultan has conceded to Russia the free passage of the Dardanelles by the war vessels of that power, though not officially confirmed, is yet clothed with the utmost probability by the recent order of the British government for the immediate occupancy and fortification of the Turkish island of Sigri, within steaming distance of the Dardanelles. "A movement," says the Toronto Vail of Sept. 16, 1891, "of the utmost strategic and precautionary import, and to that extent, in an international sense, an event of acute political and military consequence." This transaction between Russia and Turkey "is," says the Hail, "a direct violation of a leading clause of the Treaty of Paris in 1856." It is also a disregard of the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. (To be continued.)