ASIATIC TURKEY-ITS PRESENT CONDITION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS.

At the present moment the condition of Asiatic Turkey is one of decay, enlivened in many places by signs of vitality.

As the oasis in the desert is welcomed by the weary traveller, so there are fertile spots in the midst of desolated regions leading to the belief that life exists, but that the pure oxygen of good laws and just administration, combined with commercial enterprise, is needed to invigorate the blood and cause it to pulsate through the veins, until the remotest part of this once beautiful land is again brought into a healthy condition.

A recent writer in the Times, one who has travelled over the greater portion of these lands, writes as follows:

"When steaming up the Shatt-el-Arab to Bussorah you have Turkish territory on the left hand and Persian on the right. The land is precisely the same on both banks-smooth as a bowling-green as far as the eye can see, fertile in the highest degree, and, as if for convenience of

on.

irrigation, scarcely two feet above the sea level. The wash of the steamer often sends the water over the edge and on to the grass. Cultivation is easy enough, but it is only on the Turkish bank that extensive or systematic cultivation is carried There the desert is being rapidly reclaimed and an immense extent of ground has been brought under cultivation. Plantations of young datetrees stretch league after league up the river. These plantations go back into the desert from four to six miles. To irrigate them little canals from five feet to six feet in width, and about four feet in depth, are cut at right angles to the river. The cutting of a couple of these canals and the setting in regular rows of date saplings by the thousand-not a very expensive process-form a plantation, which in four years brings in a considerable revenue. Grain is cultivated between

the trees."

Comparing the Persian Government with the Turkish the above writer gives the advantage to the Turks. He says:

"It may be asked why the desert should be in course of reclamation along the Turkish bank of the Shatt-el-Arab, while land is going out of cul

tivation under that which owns the sway of the Shah. The answer to such a question is simply this, that the Persian Government is as oppressive and deadening in its tyranny as that of the Ottoman empire is, in Europe, popularly supposed to be. The Turkish Government has many sad faults, but it is at all events an organised Government, with well-contrived institutions which need to be only honestly and energetically worked to place the country on a very different footing. In Turkey individual officials, rapacious tax-gatherers for instance, sometimes oppress the people of a given district, but from all I could learn such oppression is by no means general."

A recent writer in the Standard, speaking or Turkish officials and the oppression under which the subjects of the Porte in Asia are suffering, states: There are two methods of extortion which do more to depopulate the empire than, perhaps, anything else. The first is the farming of the tithes. In theory the tenth part of all agricultural produce belongs to the Government; but it neither collects this for itself, nor has it commuted the obligation for a money payment; it lets the tithe of a district to the highest bidder,

leaving him to remunerate himself by grinding the tillers of the soil, and necessarily arming him with extraordinary powers. The tithe farmer enriches himself by taking much more than his due, and he does this by means which inflict upon the unfortunate cultivator the maximum of injury. As the tithe is due in kind, the corn, cotton, tobacco, and rice must not be removed from the ground, nor even gathered and secured until the tithe farmer has obtained his portion. If a husbandman disputes the farmer's extortion, the latter takes care to be living elsewhere and to allow the crops of the recalcitrant party to waste and spoil before he puts in an appearance; and when at last he does so he presents himself accompanied by a posse which almost eats the unfortunate man out of house and home. other grievance is the sale of judicial decisions and the want of secure titles. What is meant will be best explained by a case reported by Viceconsul Jago One of the wealthiest Christian natives of Syria bought from the Government a large tract of land containing thirty-five villages. He imported labour at great expense, advanced to the peasants proper means of cultivating their

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holdings, and, in short, proved himself an enterprising as well as an intelligent landowner. His speculation was most profitable, returning about 30 per cent., the peasants were greatly benefited, and the tax paid to the Government nearly trebled. Yet, although he had bought the land from the Government itself, his title was questioned. Luckily for him he was rich, and able to fight the matter. Journeys to Constantinople and endless special commissions were the result, and it was only after a liberal expenditure of money, time, and labour, that the judicial courts of the country gave a decision which, it is to be hoped, has set the matter finally at rest.'"

Alluding to another class of Turkish officials, not entirely above corruption, the Custom-house officers, Thomson, in the Land and the Book, relates a somewhat amusing incident in which he was concerned. "On a former occasion one of them (a guard of the Custom-house) seized my bridle, and rudely demanded my passport. I replied that it was not customary for residents in the country to carry such documents, and that I had it not with me. This did not satisfy him. He ordered me back, swearing roundly that he