28rd August.
A stripy of one of the most recent books on Turkey in Europe shows some extraordinary resemblances between the condition of that country—the sick man of the Fast—and of China, the sick man of the Far East. Political physicians on either side of the Asiatic continent could not fail, ov comparing notes, to decide that their patients are suffering from almost identical complaints. On the other hand, natives of Turkey and of China may take this much comfort to themselves, that however ill they may be to outward appearance, their malady is not one of the galloping kind. "It is now two centuries and a_half since a British Minister to Turkey foretold the speedy collapse of that Empire.
Turkey, as in China, theory and practice are as wide as the poles asunder, There isa real and a paper Turkey, as there is a zealand a paper China. Judged by the one, we should expect in both lands a state of unexampled prosperity arising out of a regime in which theoretically every rule is perfect and every law humane. Trade should be flourishing, life and property secure, taxation light, and the general state one of almost unalloyed happiness. That matters are nob quite so rosy in reality, we know only too well.
As in China, so in Turkey, the ruling power is based ea one principle—superiority. Individually and collectively the Moslem believes himself infinitely above all Christians, whether'in detail or in bulk. The Chinaman has no loftier contempt for the outer barbarian than the Turk for the unbeliever in the Prophet. And here (pace Sir Robert Hart and all other apologists) we probably have the one all-sufficient e of friction betwixt East and est. Alike in their contempt for others, the Turks and Chinese are similar in their practical unchangeableness, "The Turk changes not: his neighbours, his frontiers, his statute-books change, but his ideas and his practice remain the same the Turkish state is simply what it always has been." Its officials know precisely, as Chinese officials do, when their Govert ment has been forced to give way against its will: they know when orders are meant to be obeyed: they also know when they are not, and then the persistent foreigner finds that the almost superhuman effort needed in the first-place to secure the issuing of the order is thrown away, since no one thinks of carrying it out.
Business methods, so far as Governmental affairs go, have a strong family likeness in East and Far East. In Turkey it is generally understood that everybody connected with any commercial or official undertaking shall make something out of it. How, otherwise, is he to live? On his salary? Salaries are inadequate for two reasons: firstly, they are ludicrously insufficient, and_ secondly, they are never paid. Hence our Moslem friends could possibly give points even to their Chinese contemporaries in the partof squeezing.
We complain rightly enough of the obstacles thrown in the way of all progress both in China and Turkey; of the, to us, insane jealousy which, acting after the dog-in-the-manger fashion, will not allow others to do what it cannot do itself. This is what we read of Turkey "One cannot logically expect the Ottoman Government to encourage the spread of trade and commerce, or to develop the material resources of their dominions, because they know that Christians will profit thereby at the expense of Turks and, worse even than this, foreign companies, not amenable to Turkish jurisdiction or Turkish methods, will establish themselves in the Turkish dominions and curtail the Turkish power."
Tax-collecting, where no system of audited bookkeeping exists, is certain to end in practically the same result, and the description of the mauner in which the Turkish official sets to work reads strangely familiar to the resident in China. "We see that on paper the taxes are modest enough, less per head than those in any other European country. "But they are usually farmed."" Then the firmer has hix profit to make, his agents have their pockets to fill, and the actual collecting is done by soldiers—whose pry is months and months in arrears—and even soldiers must live.
Some people have wondered why China should have taken so kindly to the telegraph and so strenuously resisted the railway. The following extract will be of interest to them: "Little as the Turks like railway they are great patrons of the telegraph, because it is the most powerful instrument for a despot who wishes to control his own officials.
It is no longer necessary to leave a province to the discretion of a governor, and trust that he will come home to be beheaded when that operation seems desirable. With the telegraph one can order him about, find out what he is doing, reprimand him, recall him, instruct his subordinates to report against him, and generally deprive him of all real power."
So, too, the Turk is quite the equal of his Celestial confrere in granting with one hand and taking away with the other at the same time. In compliance with outside pressure, he relieves his Christian subjects of some gross injustice, or he appoints Christian Governors, but he invariably attaches conditions which result in a continuance of the status quo. His Christian Governors always differ in sect and origin from those over whom they are supposed to have some control, and in Turkey as in other places, there is no love lost between Christians of differing communions. Hence in most places the concession of Christian Vice-Governors has provedthefarcethe Ottoman Government intended it should. Christianity isa standing trouble both to Turk and Chinaman.
"Young" Turkey, like " Young" China, is dissatisfied. It wants changes. It has read and thought. Its objects are matters of grave distrust to the authorities. An outburst of Armenian Christians is less dreaded than a cabal of college students. But even young Turkey has no idea of recognising any equality, between Moslem and Christian, and it is doubtful if young China has lost any of the antiquated conceit handed down by its ancestors for thousands of years. If there were to be a general practising of European methods it is likely that the following extract would do as well for China as for Turkey, for the young Chinaman as for the young Turk "Tf he tries to do so (i.e, to introduce Western methods), the control will pass out of his hands into those of people cleverer than himself. But though he may think them clever, he does not on that account feel any respect for them. He regards them as conjurors who can perform a variety of tricks, which may be, according to circumstances, useful, amusing, or dangerous; but for all Christendom he has a brutal unreasoning contempt, the contempt of the sword for everything that can be cut, and to-day the stupid contempt of a blunt sword."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.