the owners of the soil. A social revolution is inevitable, and it is not of a nature likely to be arrested by Vienna protocols, or palliated by any anodyne that foreign military force can apply. How this impending revolution may be guided and rendered conducive to maintaining the Sultan's power, and the integrity of the Othoman Empire, is the most important branch of the subject we propose to discuss.

We must observe that, the agricultural population of Turkey and Greece being placed in similar social circumstances, the same measures of improvement are applicable to both; and their interests and feelings on most fiscal and administrative questions are so identically the same, that the great body of the agricultural interest in the East, whether composed of Mohammedans or Christians, would be more easily brought to act in unity than diplomatists and statesmen appear to think possible. Both in Turkey and Greece the bulk of the landed interest is decidedly hostile to the existing governments. It is true, the Turks hate the Russians more than they hate the Constantinopolitan officials, and that the Greeks detest the Turks more than they detest the Bavarians; but nevertheless, the Osmanlee of Stamboul is thoroughly detested by the Mohammedan provincials in Asia, and the scribes, logiotatoi or kalamoradhes, of Athens, are the abhorrence of every free Greek and Albanian. Those, therefore, who think it is possible to settle the Eastern Question without paying any attention to the ground-swell of public opinion among the rural population, know very little of the subject they pretend to understand. The want of accurate attention to the direction of the distant gale, which has caused the billows to heave in dark and sullen agitation, produces the vacillation observable in the opinions of many who have been for years familiar with the east. Diplomatists actually engaged in trade have a mortal aversion to general views; while discarded diplomatists have each their own pet discovery for doing everything in the East which is impossible. In this state of uncertainty, many persons of sagacity seem inclined to reconsider the decisions

they have formed concerning the probable duration of a Mohammedan power in Europe, concerning the possibility of establishing an equal and equitable administration of justice among all the various religious sects and dissimilar races of men who dwell in the Sultan's dominions, and even concerning the practicability of rendering the Greeks and Albanians in the Greek kingdom happy and prosperous under a Bavarian king and a native legislative assembly. To many, the agricultural population of Asia Minor appears to be sunk in an apathy from which no governing power can awaken it; and the maritime population around the Egean Sea seems given up to the spirit of piracy and barratry, from which nothing can restrain it but war-steamers, and what Shakespeare calls "the charity of a penny cord." The events passing before our eyes have done much to dispel the dreams entertained by the Greek Christians of fingering Russian gold, and forming Byzantine empires. The visions of those who waited for the proximate dismemberment of the Othoman Empire, have been dispelled by Omar Pasha on the banks of the Danube, and by Fuad Effendi on the slopes of Mount Pindus. The incapacity of the Emperor Nicholas and his faithful ally King Otho to settle the Eastern Question has been proved, but the true basis on which it can be permanently settled has not yet been pointed out, even by the Sultan's government.

It requires something more than an able and energetic central administration, something, too, which the greatest military power cannot supply, to maintain the Sultan's authority in the present anomalous state of the population of his empire. The Christian population can no longer be held in vassalage by the Mohammedan, nor will the Arab any longer allow the Osmanlees to rule as a privileged race. Reform is everywhere struggling with decay, Christian progress with Mohammedan bigotry. The confusion of ideas following from the overthrow of old prejudices in all ranks of society, and the difficulty of fixing the attention universally on any attainable object, equally desired by different sects and races, is in

creased by the circumstance that in every town and province of the Othoman Empire the inhabitants consist of several nations, speaking languages imperfectly known to one another, and holding adverse religious tenets with the most orthodox bigotry, even while they are compelled to mingle constantly together in the daily intercourse of life. To unite this fermenting mass of human agitation in attachment to a government of which the Sultan shall remain the head, it is necessary that the great body of the people should feel it to be their interest to support the fiscal system of the central administration, and that they should be convinced of the Sultan's power to secure an equal dispensation of justice, and equal rights to every class of his subjects. The reforms of Sultan Mahmoud having swept away all local institutions, the people are everywhere placed in direct connection with the central administration, and the same causes of revolution and the same dangers exist in Turkey as in the Western centralised states. The hour has arrived when the policy of the Sublime Porte must be determined by the wishes of the majority of the population of the empire, or a scene of anarchy will be the consequence. Fortunately the support of a majority of every race and religion can be gained by the fiscal and political reforms most conducive to the increase of the Sultan's authority. Nevertheless, a very numerous and powerful body of officials at Constantinople and the great towns of the empire, will be found hostile to these necessary changes. The alternative, however, is the fall of the Othoman Empire; for unless the reforms we are going to indicate be very speedily effected, no human power will be able to maintain the integrity of the empire for another generation. The Christian subjects of the Sultan in Europe, the Mohammedan in Asia, and even the Fellahs of Egypt, must be satisfied that their lives and property are as secure under the government of the Sublime Porte as under any Christian potentate, or they will attempt to throw off the Sultan's yoke. Now, if the whole mass of the agricultural population were to rise in rebellion, the exertions

of the Sultan's allies would ultimately prove of little avail in restoring his authority.

Having premised these general observations, we shall now proceed to sketch the actual condition of the cultivators of the soil, and of the whole body of the landed proprietors in the Othoman Empire, and point out the changes which must be made before agriculture can flourish, and the people become satisfied with the existing government. It is not necessary for us to accumulate proofs that the whole landed interest in TurkeyMohammedan as well as Christian, proprietor as well as peasant, Turk as well as Greek-is, as a mass, ground down by the fiscal oppression of the Sublime Porte. It is notorious that for nearly two centuries the numbers and the wealth of the agricultural class have been diminishing from generation to generation. Accidental circumstances, the impulse given to particular branches of culture by the vicinity of flourishing commercial cities, casual facilities of transport to a market, and the expenditure of the central administration in many of the towns where European traders principally reside, tend in some degree to conceal the extent of the general depopulation and rapid destruction of capital vested in the soil which is constantly going on. But few travellers have visited the interior of Asia Minor without seeing mosques and marble tombs standing in solitary desolation near the ruins of an abandoned town. The signs of a departed population, which has notwithstanding left ample proof that it possessed considerable wealth at no very distant period, may be seen on every great road in the Sultan's wide extended empire. Many writers have overstated the extent of the decay, some have caricatured the causes of the evil, but no one has yet ventured to proclaim that the progress of the decline has been arrested.

The ruin of the agricultural interest in Turkey is caused by the manner in which the taxes on agriculture are levied. The evil lies in the collection of the revenue, not in its amount. All the land in the Othoman Empire pays the land-tax in kind, and it never amounts to less than one-tenth of the

gross produce of the soil, besides all the labour of gathering in, threshing, and winnowing the government share. This tax is levied in kind, from the absolute impossibility of collecting it in money, in districts where no roads exist, and consequently where considerable capital is necessary to transport the produce to any market. The regulations adopted by the government, and by the farmers of the revenue, to guard against fraud, confine the routine of agriculture within the rudest limits. These regulations fetter the industry of the landed proprietor, exclude all improvement in the application of labour, and force the peasantry to live in a barbarous state of society. The whole grain crops, in consequence of these regulations, frequently remain nearly two months exposed in the open air near the threshing-floors, merely to prevent the cultivator from abstracting some portion for the use of his family, without paying the government the tenth on this trifle. It is not too much to estimate the loss on the whole produce in grain at about five per cent, in consequence of this system of exposing the crops. We have more than once seen thunderstorms in the month of July carry off whole sheaves of wheat from the threshing-floors. Here, therefore, we have an enormous sacrifice on the part of the agricultural classes to a very questionable administrative necessity.

Another consequence of preventing the agriculturist from performing his farming operations, and employing his time in the way he may consider most conducive to his interest, is, that the whole agricultural population is kept in a state of idleness congregated round the village threshing-floors for two months every year. The price of labour generally, and particularly the cost of raising grain, are greatly increased without any corresponding increase in the wellbeing of the labourer, or in the profits of the farmer. The late changes which have increased the authority of the central administration, have greatly added to the fiscal severity of this rude system of collecting the national revenues. In each district the great bulk of the agricultural classes cultivate the same articles of produce, and pur

sue the same routine of culture; consequently every man possesses a superfluity of the articles which his neighbour is desirous of selling. It may be remarked, that at an earlier period of the Othoman government, when a numerous population existed which is now destroyed, when many vineyards, orchards, mulberry plantations, and olive groves, flourished, which have long been annihilated, when many Mohammedan merchants and capitalists made fortunes by transporting the produce of the interior to the nearest seaports, no apparent inconvenience arose from paying the land-tax in kind. The evil commenced when the central government seized the local revenues destined for the maintenance of roads and bridges, and allowed both to fall to ruin. The increased expense of transport then enabled a few capitalists to monopolise the whole trade in all articles of export.

The ruin of the landed proprietors and agriculturists soon commenced, but it excited little attention, from the great profits which enriched the commercial cities on the coasts of the Mediterranean during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The trade with Turkey was at that period the most lucrative branch of European commerce; and Mohammedan merchants were among the most wealthy who visited the marts of Ancona and Venice. But the avarice of the Othoman officials was at last awakened. The pashas and their bankers and dependants first shared in the profits of the Mohammedan traders, and ultimately_monopolised the whole trade. Their oppressive regulations ruined the landed proprietors, and exterminated the peasantry; families were impoverished, villages disappeared, and in many extensive districts the whole rural population abandoned the cultivation of their native soil to emigrate into the nearest commercial cities. We must also here remind our readers that the Othoman government, though it created a powerful and energetic central administration in civil and military affairs, adopted most of the local, financial, and judicial corruptions of the degraded inhabitants of the Greek and Seljouk empires which it conquered. These empires were in a

declining condition, and had so completely exhausted every resource of fiscal tyranny, that the sultans were unable to feed their armies in many provinces except by receiving payment of the land-tax in kind. As long as able sultans controlled the collection and employment of that portion of the produce of the soil which the government received, the natural abuses of this wretched system of taxation were restrained. The early government of the Othoman Empire was a vigorous and intelligent despotism, and the habits of the sultan's officers were then extremely simple. None but slaves and tributechildren for some time occupied the highest offices in the empire; and as the sultan was the heir of all his officers, there was no great inducement to avarice. Accordingly, we find that for more than a century after the conquest of Constantinople, even the Greeks boasted of the fiscal moderation of the Porte. But the whole nature of the Othoman government was changed when the corps of janissaries became a hereditary militia. The amount of the sultan's moneyrevenue then became the measure of the imperial power. All agricultural taxes were farmed, and every kind of monopoly and extortion was pardoned to those who brought ready money to the Porte. No words can describe the cruelties which were perpetrated by the pashas, who were partners of the farmers of the revenue, and who monopolised the sale of various articles of produce. Men have been impaled by the road-side for selling the remainder of their crop after they had paid the tenths; and we have known a man killed in full divan with a battle-axe, for refusing to sell his crop to the governor of the town in which we were residing at the time.

We will not attempt to describe the fiscal oppression that takes place daily in Turkey, because we might be suspected of exaggeration; for we are aware that in some districts the public revenues are collected with moderation, and liberal concessions are made to the tax-payers. The system, however, operates universally to keep agriculture in a stationary condition, even under the mildest rulers. We may take the Greek kingdom as offer

ing the most favourable aspect under which this mode of taxation can exist. The land-tax is voted every year by a chamber elected by universal suffrage, in a kingdom where every adult is armed. The judicial administration at Athens is respectable, and the city is filled with professors and statesmen, who are always talking of their superiority in political knowledge, and of the great advantages they derive from the liberty of the press. Yet, in spite of universal suffrage, liberty of the press, Albanian perseverance, and Greek vanity, the condition of the agricultural population-that is, of about three-fourths of the inhabitants of King Otho's dominions-is one of medieval barbarism. The soil yields the minimum of produce, the labour of the husbandman is wasted, fiscal regulations to guard against fraud prevent all agricultural improvements, and cause a waste of the gross produce of the land, and a loss of the labour of the cultivator. The whole grain crops, as in Turkey, remain exposed in the open air, where they may be seen by travellers near the temple of Theseus, and under the columns of Olympian Jupiter, for many weeks, with the families of the peasantry encamped round the threshing-floors; and the King and Queen of Greece may very often also be seen riding past with their suite, without a feeling of shame that their kingdom is in such a state of barbarism. A proprietor has been refused permission to house his crop, and use a threshing-machine in his own yard, on the plea that the tax-collectors could not prevent frauds should the practice become general. From this it is evident that a great loss is inflicted on society by the ignorance of the Greek statesmen who perpetuate this wretched system. The whole agricultural population of an agricultural country is kept in a state of forced idleness, and their labour is withdrawn from the cultivation of summer crops at the very period when that labour could be most profitably employed. The increased stringency of the fiscal regulations in Greece has already compelled the peasantry to abandon the cultivation of several articles of produce which they formerly exported. But it is needless to adduce examples of the ruinous con

sequences of the financial incapacity of the liberated Greeks. The small amount of agricultural produce raised in the kingdom, the miserable quality of the greater part of this produce, the failure of all attempts to improve cultivation, the impossibility of employing capital profitably on the land, and the great accumulation of arrears of the land-tax due to the government -all testify that no improvement in the condition of the agricultural classes can take place under the present system.

Another great evil of this system of taxation, both in Turkey and Greece, is, that it leads the government to neglect the rights of property, and thus increases the aversion of capitalists to employ their money in the purchase of land, or in the cultivation of the soil. The proprietor of the soil who neglected its tillage, was, even by the Roman law, viewed with less favour than the squatter who occupied it. The hope of increasing the revenue of the State by extended cultivation was supposed to be of more advantage to the government than the tolerated invasion of the rights of property could be injurious to the public. The Othoman legislation, and the laws of the Greek kingdom, have adopted this provision of the Roman emperors; and any person who can contrive to till the land of another for a year without molestation, obtains a right of possession which leaves the lawful proprietor to establish his right of property before he can eject the intruder. This is notoriously a very imperfect remedy for a great injury, for, all the world over, possession is nine-tenths of the law.

It would be waste of time to describe all the evil results of the insecurity of property caused by this law. In our age, capital is the symbol of civilisation and progress; and whatever prevents capital from vesting itself in the soil, tends to retain the agricultural classes fixed in a barbarous and indigent state. The condition of liberated Greece affords an admirable illustration of the evil effects of the Eastern system of taxing land, and of the Roman law, which prefers the right of cultivation to the right of property. Though Greece has enjoyed the protection of the

three great Powers for more than twenty years-though she possesses a German king, a luxuriant crop of courtiers, court balls, and court carriages, a constitutional government, and an orthodox church—still agriculture is not more advanced in the plains of Attica than in the most secluded districts of Asiatic Turkey.

There is, however, one vice of the Othoman administration from which liberated Greece is exempt. The rapid depreciation of the metallic currency which has taken place in Turkey, at intervals, since the commencement of the present century, has undoubtedly aided in accelerating the decline of the agricultural population. Indeed, they have ultimately borne the whole amount of the loss inflicted on society. Whenever the specie in the Sultan's treasury has been found inadequate to meet the immediate payments, the deficiency has been supplied by the addition of the quantity of base metal necessary to augment the bulk of the precious metals in hand; and in this way, a debt of three ounces of silver has often been paid with two ounces of silver and one ounce of copper or tin. This depreciation of the Turkish coinage is an evil of old standing, and has been going on ever since the conquest of Constantinople. In the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, a Venetian sequin was worth sixty aspers. At the death of the late Sultan Mahmoud II., it was worth six thousand aspers. The asper, which was originally a silver coin of the value of sixpence, has long been an imaginary piece of money. Perhaps no measure of the Turkish government has tended more to annihilate capital and impoverish the landed interest in the Sultan's dominions than this mode of defrauding his subjects.

The first step towards the social improvement of the population of Turkey, must be to commute the tenths, and devise some other system of taxing the land which shall leave the agriculturist at full liberty to conduct his farming operations and employ his time at every season in the way most conducive to his own profit. The change can at present only be introduced in the vicinity of large towns, which afford an immediate and