Turkey and the victims of its bad faith and its mis-government, financial, religious and political: a memorial addressed to the Right Hon. the Earl of Derby

Turkey and the victims of its bad faith and its mis-government, financial, religious andpolitical: a memorial addressed to the Right Hon. the Earl of Derby.Author(s): Rathborne, Anthony BlakeSource: Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection, (1800)Published by: The University of Manchester, The John Rylands University LibraryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60228504 .

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J TURKEY

r

®&* mrtms of its 18aa faiilj ana its

JKis-dSoterttttmti, !K_

TINANCIAL, RELIGIOUS, AND POLITICAL

A MEMORIAL

AKDKLsSED TO THE

RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DERBY,

HER M\JEST\'b IPINCIIA.L SECrET\F\ Or ST \TE TOR FOREIGN AlTAIRS

1875-



London: J. G. Ta\lok, io, Gkay's Inn Pi ace, Gray's Inn

asss



TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF

DERBY, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, &c„ &c.

OF THE UNDERSIGNED

Most respectfully sheweth :

That your Memorialist is the holder of two Turkish Bonds of

,£1000 each of the Six per Cent. Loan of 1858, which have been in his possession for many years. He has never held any other Bonds than those, with the exception of two for ,£100 each of the 1862 Loan, which he had for a short time, and then disposed of. The amount he has at stake, therefore, is not a very heavy one, but it is sufficient in his opinion to justify the course he has adopted of appealing to Her Majesty's Government. And this he does—as much in the interest of his brother and sister Bondholders—as his own, many of whom are much greater sufferers than he is, and at the same tirne less able to make

any stand against the wrong they have suffered at the hands of the Turkish Government.



His case—and it is a representative one—is as follows :—•

In consequence of the independence of Turkey being threatened in the year 1854 the Crimean war was undertaken, in which France and Italy, as well as England, sent large numbers of troops to its support, and expended in the contest

many valuable lives, as well as a vast amount of treasure.

The sacrifice made by England alone can hardly be reckoned at less than 40,000 men; including some of the best blood of

the country, and a hundred millions sterling of money. The great difficulty of Turkey arising out of its inability to

obtain the funds it required in its own country, a Loan was

contracted by it in England, in 1854, for the sum of 3,000,000 sterling, and as a security to the lenders a special hypothe¬ cation was made of ,£282,000 per annum out of the tribute pay¬ able by His Highness the Pacha of Egypt. This Loan—Turkey being then unknown to us as a borrower—was actively promoted by some of the leading members of the British Government.

In the year 1855 another Loan was raised by the Turkish

Government of 5,000,000 sterling, which was guaranteed by the

English and French Governments, and similarly secured by the tribute due from the Pacha of Egypt annually ; and in the year 1858 a third Loan was raised of 5,000,000 sterling. The purpose of the requirement in this instance, as put forth by the Turkish

Government, was the withdrawal of the currency notes, known as Kaima, or paper money, the security to the Bondholders for the due repayment of the debt, both principal and interest,



being the special hypothecation of the Customs Duties at Con¬

stantinople, together with so much of its octroi duties as accrue

directly to the Exchequer. In the event of these proving insuffi¬

cient, a charge was created in favor of the Bondholders on the

whole general revenue of the Turkish Empire. It is in this Loan that your Memorialist holds the Bonds in

virtue of which he is a creditor of the Turkish State. Nothing could be more clear to all appearance than the perfect bona-fides of the Government that contracted it. The object put forth in

the prospectus was a perfectly sound and legitimate one, while

the sufficiency of the security was at the same time obvious.

No names could be more respectable than those of Messrs.

Dent, Palmer, & Co., the gentlemen who introduced the Loan

to the British public ; and there was this great fact, in addition, that the whole of the foreign indebtedness of Turkey at the

time this Loan was introduced here was under 8,000,000 sterling. Against any deliberate act of spoliation or fraud it was, of

course, impossible to guard, for it was impossible to foresee it; but unless the bond, and the hypothecation of the Customs which

it bore on the face of it, should turn out to be a deliberate

swindle—unless, in short, the Government of Turkey should be

guilty of an act which would send an individual borrower before a criminal court, any failure to be repaid, provided only that the State of Turkey should be able to maintain its existence, would be impossible, for the simple reason that the Loan was, by means of the special hypothecation, amply covered.



There was, to be sure, the fact for investors to consider that

the Loan was a foreign one, and this of course enhanced the

risk, and with the risk the rate of interest expected by in¬

vestors. This is the case with the Loans of all Foreign States, however respectable, as we see in respect of the Funds of

Portugal and Russia, the former of which give the investors

6 per cent., and the latter 5 per cent, interest for their money,

being in the one case nearly double, and in the other two-

thirds as much again as the Funds of England, although nothing can be better than the credit of both these States, nor have any ever more honourably fulfilled their pecuniary engagements. There was also, in the case of Turkey, a special risk to be

underwritten by investors, and for which of course they would

expect to be paid, arising out of the great variety and antagonism, religious and political, of the races that compose the Turkish

Empire, together with the added danger to which it might be

expected that Turkey would be always more or less exposed from the ambition of a neighbouring power.

These, however, were all risks which the Bondholders of the

Loan of 1858, as well as all the other Bondholders under special

hypothecations, knowingly incurred ; and if any loss had so

accrued to them they could have had no cause to complain of

the Turkish Government. As little reason could they have had

to complain if the revenues embraced in the several special hy¬

pothecations made by it had, through some unforeseen cause,

proved inadequate to meet the payments in respect of which they

Hi



were offered to investors as securities in the order in which the

several charges on them were so created. For in that case, the

Bondholders would be simply in the position of mortgagees who

had lent more money on their successive mortgages than the

securities on which they had made the advances were found

eventually to realize. But this cannot be said of the Customs

Duties of Constantinople, which formed the security of the Bond¬

holders of the Loan of 1858, and whose debt formed the first

charge on them ; nor is your Memorialist aware that it has

proved to be the case with any of the several other branches

of the Turkish revenue, which have 'been specifically pledged to

other successive lenders to it.

There are indeed many who now tell us that the rate of

interest received by the Bondholders was enough to prove the

worthlessness of the Bonds and foreshadow the fate that has

befallen the Bondholders, but it does not appear to your Me¬

morialist that the legitimate drawbacks were not quite sufficient

to warrant and to account for the rate of interest received by

them, in addition to the fact that the normal rate of interest on

money in the East, and consequently on money placed there,

is always greatly in excess of that paid in Western Europe.

There is, probably, not a native banker in the Turkish Empire

who ever lends money at less than from 12 to 20 per cent, on

the very best security, and even in British India the usual rate

awarded to suitors by our civil courts is 9 per cent., while in

an Indian appeal case, decided the other day (General Forrester



v. The Government of India), the Judicial Committee of the

Privy Council awarded to the plaintiff, General Forrester, interest from the time when the claim arose to the day of the

judgment, being given at no less a rate than 12 per cent, per annum. If the rate of interest agreed to be paid by the Sultan

was an excessive one, having regard merely to the risks above

referred to, and without taking into account a possible repudia¬ tion on the part of himself or his ministers, it was the strangest

thing that ever happened; for he had all the money markets of

Europe open to him to borrow in, as well as those of Constanti¬

nople, where he would have only his own subjects to deal with, and the other great monetary centres of the Turkish Empire. Nor would it be found, if the matter were fully gone into, that the terms which Turkey had to pay had very greatly, if

at all, exceeded those on which a large portion of our own National Debt in times of war and internal trouble was con¬

tracted by us.

A saying, attributed to the late Duke of Wellington, has been much dwelt on, to the effect that high interest necessarily means bad security, His Grace meaning by high interest anything over

3 per cent, per annum. But that illustrious soldier was a greater authority on military than on financial matters, and he spoke at a time when things were very different from what they are at

present; when the usury laws were in force, and when in con¬

sequence the highest rate of interest recognized by the law was

5 per cent, per annum ; when joint stock banks and joint stock



enterprise of every description, and the larger profits on money

which they have accustomed us to, had no existence ; when a

man could not advance a penny to a private trader or a com¬

mercial enterprise of any kind from which he was to derive any

profit without thereby rendering himself responsible for any

losses that might occur to the extent of his entire fortune ;

when titles to real property were so complicated that no one

could tell that in lending money on mortgage he might not be

landed in a Chancery suit that would last his entire lifetime; and,

finally, when, in consequence of all this, there was really little for an

Englishman to select from by way of investment beyond Bank

of England Stock and East India Stock, and the Three per Cent.

Consols. If His Grace had lived till now he would have seen

reason to reconsider his dicta upon many points. He would

have seen that the Queen's Government can be carried on as

well as ever it was, notwithstanding the extinction of rotten

boroughs by the first Reform Bill; and that the Bank of

England can unite the obtaining the best security with the fact

of lending money at double and sometimes more than treble

the rate of 3 per cent., which the Duke considered the only safe

limit. He would have learned that high interest does not at

all necessarily mean bad security, but simply that money is

comparatively scarce at a time when the means of profitably

employing it are comparatively ample, and that by consequence men of the soundest credit and most undoubted character are

willing and able to pay a proportionately high price for the



accommodation. In lending at 7 or 9, or sometimes 10 per cent., the Bank of England accepts the ordinary mercantile

risks, but it does not take into account the possible rascality of the borrower; for if it did, it would of course have nothing to

do with him; and so it was with your Memorialist and his fellow

Bondholders. There were certain risks which they were con¬

tent to run, as above explained, but those risks did not include

any based on a possible want of honor or good faith on the

part of the Sultan or his ministers. They never contemplated that the State—the preservation of which seemed a matter of such vital importance to our Government, and which was first introduced by our Government as a borrower to the investors

of England—could be capable of anything that would disgrace that introduction ; and no doubt Lord Palmerston and Lord

Clarendon would be the first to speak their minds to the

Sultan if they had been alive to see what their introduction

had led to. The terror in which the first of those great men was held by the servants of the Sultan your Memorialist, when resident in the Sultan's Dominions, had an opportunity of witnessing. Now, from all the accounts he hears, they

simply laugh at us.

Since the Loan of 1858, in which your Memorialist holds his

bonds, various other loans, under similar special hypothecations, have been raised by the Turkish Government, in addition to

those which it has raised on the security of the general revenue of the country, after providing for the prior charges on it arising



out of these special hypothecations. And it may be observed,

as a special feature of the case, that the estimated value of each

branch of the revenue so hypothecated was, in all instances in

which they were not matter of public notoriety, set forth when

raising the loan with great precision by the Turkish Govern¬

ment, by way of showing to possible investors the ample security

thus offered for the monies proposed to be raised by it, proving

incontestably that the Government of the Sultan knew perfectly

well that without such special hypothecations no money in the

several cases would have been advanced to it, and that to obtain

these funds it was necessary not only to make the special hy¬

pothecations thus created, but also to satisfy intending investors

that what was hypothecated was amply sufficient to cover the

amount which on the security of them was so borrowed.

The Turkish Government, having thus obtained all the

money it seems likely to obtain in Europe on the securities

it had to offer, and being unable, as it would appear, to get

what it wants in addition, as matters stand, from its own sub¬

jects and bankers at Constantinople, turns round and tells

the Bondholders in effect that the whole of their special

hypothecations so elaborately set forth to catch the money of

investors are mere waste paper, and openly proposes to make

the revenues which are the subject of them the basis of a new

plan for supplying the wants of its exchequer. '

So far as the idea itself is concerned there is nothing very new

about it, as can be shown abundantly by the records of the



various European police courts. The making the same secu

play a double part by borrowing on it to its full value from

lender, and then getting the amount over again when that

spent from another, is a thing that has been done as far bacl

the records of criminal trials extend. The only novelty at

the matter is that it should have been done by a so calling it

civilized Government. Governments, to be sure, may fai

be able to meet their engagements, just as individuals may, w

out any very grave imputation on their honesty ; but failing meet their engagements is one thing ; and dealing thus with tl

creditors' securities is another and it is this, and not

failing to meet its pecuniary engagements, that forms

gravamen of the charge against the Turkish Government.

It has indeed been said by some persons, writing appare in the interest of the Turkish Government, that these hypol cations after all are really not worth, and never were worth,

paper they are written on ; but your Memorialist cannot

how that would at all better the case of the Turkish Govt

ment; for if these hypothecations really are and were rr

nullities, it must be clear that, in palming them off on succes:

investors as genuine securities for the money advanced

them, the Government so acting must have been guilty of

of the most deliberate, most barefaced, and most gigai swindles ever perpetrated, and such as would justly put it

of the pale of all further recognition by the Government of

civilized country.



'3

That so far however as right is concerned these hypotheca¬ tions were perfectly valid is clear, for in a matter of this sort

the consideration is the principal thing to look to, and the

consideration stipulated for in all these cases (certainly in the

case of the 1S58 Loan) was duly paid by the Bondholders or

their assignors to the Turkish Government. It has been further

stated, in depreciation of these securities, since the defaulting

despatch has been published, that though these branches of the

revenue were thus hypothecated to the Bondholders on paper,

yet that the collection of them was never made over to the

Bondholders, nor were the sums when collected paid to their

separate account in the Turkish Treasury.

If, however, there were any force in this, nearly every mort¬

gage or hypothecation, whether of lands, or houses, or rents, or

rates, or revenues, or dues, or of anything else that can be the

subject of hypothecation, would be invalid ; for such hypotheca¬ tions or charges, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, only exist on parchment or paper, as, till default is made, no one ever

thinks of coming on the actual property hypothecated; neither

does he, as long as the money covenanted to be paid is duly

paid him at the time stipulated, raise any question with the

borrower as to the particular source or fund from which the

latter has derived the monies employed in making such payment. Before the British Funds were consolidated, loans were usually

raised here on the security of separate branches of the Revenue, as the Excise, the Customs, the Post Office, &c, and without



14

the lenders ever dreaming of interfering with the collection

these Revenues, just as they are now raised on the security the Sewers' Rate, the Education Rate, &c. Indeed, so far

the Tuikish Bondholders were concerned, it would have bei

simply impossible for them to undertake the collection of t

several branches of the Revenues thus hypothecated to them,

may be seen at a glance merely by referring to them. All th

the hypothecation did in their case was what it effects by very nature in all similar cases, that is, it constituted t

Turkish Government the trustees of the Bondholders for t

collection and due application of the Revenues so hypothecate to the extent required for the regular payment of the intere

and sinking funds as a security for which they were hypotl cated. Of course that Government can, if it pleases, viola that trust, and instead of paying the money so secured to t Bondholders put it into its own pocket; but it can only do

on the terms of doing an act which, in the case of an individu would be a misdemeanour, entailing on the perpetrator a lo term of penal servitude. This your Memorialist has no hesitati in asserting, so far as the law of England is concerned, and believes that it would be an act equally criminal and simila

punishable according to the legal code of every other country Supposing then these special hypothecations to have be

perfectly valid and good, as your Memorialist has clearly sho1 them to be, what is to be said of the Government which now,

escape the obligations thus incurred, sets them all aside b;



is

stroke of the pen as perfectly valueless What could be said

of any Government that did so, and above all the Government of

a country whose preservation from destruction is entirely owing to England and the other great European States whose subjects have been similarly victimised? Nor is it an unimportant matter of observation that the sufferers from this act of wrong are almost exclusively the subjects of England, and of those

other European States which have expended so much of their

blood and treasure in defence of the Turkish Empire, while its

creditors of the general debt in whose interest, as well as in the

interest of the Turkish Government itself, this repudiation of

these special hypothecations has been chiefly made, are nearly all the Sultan's own servants or subjects, or, at any rate, resident

in his dominions.

The wrong being at once so flagrant and so obvious there is

nothing left for your Memorialist but to appeal to the Govern¬

ment of his own country for protection and redress. It has

been said your Memorialist knows that State debts do not form a legitimate subject for such intervention, but those who say so

speak without authority. Your Memorialist needs hardly explain to your Lordship the principle on this point laid down in the code of International Law. Suffice it to say, that by that code any act of wrong or injustice by the Sovereign of one State towards the subjects of another is a legitimate subject of intervention by the Sovereign of the State to which the

injured person belongs ; while though the debts which the



i6

Sovereign of one State may contract with the people of another

in his strictly private capacity are not the legitimate objects of State intervention, yet the debts he may contract with them in

his public capacity as chief of the State are as much the proper subjects of such intervention as if the obligation had been

recorded in a formal treaty with the Government of the country to which his creditors belong. But if that be so in regard to an ordinary debt, what must the right be in a case like this, where, so far as the money borrowed on the special hypothe¬ cation is concerned, it is not a question of debt in the ordinary sense of the term at all It was the obtaining money here in vast sums, and under such circumstances, as taken in connection with the subsequent repudiation, would have undoubtedly sent the parties had they been but private individuals here before a criminal court.

What your Memorialist therefore asks is, not that your Lord¬

ship should put the great power entrusted to you in force to collect a debt, but to prevent, as your Lordship undoubtedly has

the power of preventing, the completion of a great crime—a crime which will send numberless unfortunate victims, many of them of the weaker sex, homeless and penniless to a premature grave, if it only be carried to completion by the Turkish Govern¬

ment, but which the latter will never have the power of carrying to completion if only met, as your Memorialist submits it

should be met, by those to whom the piotection of British

subjects and British interests from foreign wrong or outrage



17

has been entrusted by the constitution—the Government of

the Queen. Besides, however, the considerations above referred to, there

are others which render it a grave matter of public policy that

this scandalous act of the Turkish Government should not be

allowed to pass unchallenged by the Ministers of the Crown. For

the Queen, it must be remembered, is not only the sovereign of

a great European State, she is also Sovereign of the greatest

Empire in Asia, where, in addition to the many loyal natives

whom she rules over, she has several millions of subjects of

another kind. These are men who think that they owe Her

Majesty no allegiance; who sulkily submit to the yoke which

they are unable to throw off, but from which they anticipate some day being free, and who watch with careful eyes every action of our Government, in the hope of finding in it those

signs of weakness which, in all conquering states that have

reached their zenith, mark the approach to dissolution as surely as do the signs that prelude the death of man. It was because

they saw, or thought they saw, those signs during our struggles in the Crimean War that they were emboldened to take the

course they did in the great Indian Mutiny; and no sooner will

this monstrous act of repudiation by their Religious Head the

Sultan be known among them than they will scan with the watchful glance alike of hope and of hatred the course, step by step, which the Government of Great Britain may pursue. This a simple truth, which every one who really knows the



18

nature of these Asiatics will confirm to your Lordship, and fe

know them better than your Memorialist, who has lived amoi

them from his boyhood, and has seen far more of their inn

life and modes of thinking than most Europeans have.

They know nothing of the doctrines of political econom

neither do they understand anything of the theories newly s

up in England, which, admitting intervention to be a duty the case of an individual trader whose property has be<

wrongly taken from him by a foreign Sovereign or his ageni treats the plunder of a whole class, and an act of spoliation the extent of millions, as wholly beneath the business of

minister to notice. They only understand one kind of power- the power of force. They will say that after all the sacrific

which the Feringhees have made in defence of the gre

Padishah, he has finished by showing his lofty contempt them by plundering them of millions, without their even darii

to resent the wrong. They will tell how the vast sp< carried off by the great Nadir Shah from the cowering Mogi

Emperor of Delhi, after making the streets of that capital n

with the blood of the people as with water, was but a fifth the loot thus secured by the Sultan without striking a blow, ai this from a people who profess to be the most powerful natii in-the world. They will gloat over the tale of spoliation whi<

ten times exceeds in magnitude all the plunder that the Briti armies in India have ever been able to extract from conquer Sultans, Nawabs, and Rajahs from the date of our first conque:



19

there to the present time. They will amuse themselves, follow¬

ing the instincts shown in the mutiny, with the thought of the

British widows and orphans, and clergy, fleeced of their all, and

cast out homeless and starving into the streets in an inclement

winter, while the great Sultan with his lordly Pachas at Con¬

stantinople have been building and furnishing new palaces, and

purchasing fresh Georgians and Circassians for their harems out of the produce of the spoil. And then they will ask their fellows

whether these dogs of Christians have not been served rightly, and their aggressions fittingly punished by the greatest of Mahomedan powers.

This is what they will say—nor will their words fail to sink

deeply into the minds of the people. Whatever of our power in

India, or in Asia generally, is based on our prestige (and few who have not been there know how much of it is so based) will be

gone for ever. Even in Turkey, the only reward we shall reap

by our self-humiliation will be to find our remonstrances on behalf of our fellow Christians there, as well as every other

remonstrance, treated with contempt; for who will listen to the

representatives of a nation that 'has tamely stood by while its

widows and orphans were thus robbed, showing, if possible more of meekness and more of humbleness under the infliction

than the miserable Rayahs of the Sultan, who have had to sub¬

mit to successive fleecings by the Sultan's officials ever since

the day when the Empire of the Turks was first established, but who, in all that time, putting all those fleecings together;



have not being subjected to such an enormous, such awholeaa

and such a thorough plundering as this is

Your Lordship and your Lordship's colleagues may or m

not believe the truths which your Memorialist ventures thus

address to your Lordship, but they are truths which neverth

less will some day be apparent, to the Nation's bitter cost,

this monstrous act of the Sultan and his advisers be now su

mitted to. That it will not, however, be submitted to, yo Memorialist most sincerely hopes, On the contrary, he trusts th

the punishment meted out to the Turkish Sovereign and 1

ministers will be as signal as has been the offence. As long there was any redeeming point about them England mig have refused to abandon them, but this crowning act of gro

dishonesty must be felt by all to be a final wind-up of the

career.

The time, therefore, has now arrived, your Memorialist su

mits, for taking a leaf out of our Indian policy, and applyii the same treatment in the case of the Sultan that we ha

applied in so many far less flagrant cases of Oriental Sovereig who have proved themselves unfit to rule. Never was there more opportune moment for such an operation, for never we all the Powers of Europe in more perfect accord than they a at present. As far as any advantage to be gained by preservii the Turkish Empire is concerned, all hops of that has loi

since vanished. We maintained it as a bulwark against Russi but it is impossible that, in its present bankrupt and rotti



state, it could be a bulwark against anything, even if we had not now a far better bulwark against Russian aggression in the cordial feeling that so happily exists between it and England, cemented as it has been by the Emperor's giving his darling daughter in marriage to a son of the Queen.

As to the rest, what remains there of Turkey but a cruel task¬ master to its Christian subjects? all the promises made on behalf of whom in its hour of difficulty it has since belied, as it has

similarly belied its promises to those whose pecuniary aid it was then so glad to have. Nor is it the Christians who are its own

subjects only that it habitually oppresses and insults. The Christian missionaries of England and America it treats in the same manner. And when its Christian subjects, worn out by its oppressions, venture to resist, it proceeds with the atrocious cruelty of the savage, rather than with the moderation of a so- called civilized race, to put down the resistance, which, by its own wrong doing and oppression, it has itself occasioned. To its Mahomedan subjects it has scarcely behaved better. They are driven wholesale into the ranks of the army by a relentless conscription, and there they are cheated in their pay, and in their food, and in their clothing, and in everything it is possible to cheat them in, by their officers, many of whom are men utterly infamous, who have attained their positions by the basest means.

Those, again, of the Sultan's Mahomedan subjects who are left to till the fields are ground down with exactions, not only illegal in themselves, for the Mahomedan law places a strict limit on



taxation, which it also carefully defines, but also so great as tc

render the payment of them impossible, as is admitted by Safvet

Pacha himself in the despatch with which he has lately favorer.

the several Courts of Europe.

Then, too, while every other country in Europe has beer

exerting itself to put clown the slave trade, a slave trade, th<

most hideous and abominable, still flourishes in Constantinople which your Memorialist will not sully his paper by describing more at large. Nor is this all, for while the old Turks witl

much that was bad had a great deal that was good in them

the new Turks seem to add to all that was bad in their fore

fathers, everything that is worst in the Levantine populatioi

by whom they are surrounded, and who may be truly describee

as the vilest collection of cheats, and swindlers, and scoundrel

of every sort and description to be found in the whole world

To the prompting of wretches like these we may be sure tha

we owe the late measure, which must prove a death blow to th

Turkish Empire, whatever course the Government of Englam

may adopt.

Supposing then the deposition of the Sultan to be resolve

on, together with the extinction of Turkey as a Mahomedai

State, nothing could be more simple than the arrangements fo

the purpose, and nothing more easy-lhan the carrying them ou

To depose the Sultan would be quite as easy a matter as it wa

to depose the Ameers of Scinde. One or two brushes ther

might be (though even that is doubtful) with the combined nav;



and military expedition to whom the task would be entrusted ;

but in any case that would be all. Resistance would soon be

found to be hopeless, nor would the continuance of it be at¬

tempted if, as ought to be the case, it was stated in a proclama¬ tion issued at the outset, that all who made their submission

would be guaranteed the peaceable and undisturbed enjoyment of their possessions and estates. The Sultan, of course, would

have to be sent to Malta or Algeria, with such members of

his harem, or other personal following, as chose to share his

exile, and whom he wished to take; and a moderate, though

sufficient, pecuniary provision would have to be made for him; all his treasures and other property becoming the property of the

State. Any of his Pachas or others who made the least resist¬

ance should be dealt with in the severest manner ; but any one

who knows anything of Asiatics in general, and of the Turks in

particular, would know that, unless in some rarely exceptional

instance, no such resistance would be offered. The Sultan's

ministers and servants would only be too happy to leave their

master to his fate, so long as they escaped with life and property themselves. Nor to the great majority of the Sultan's subjects, Mahomedan as well as Christian, would the change be other¬

wise than a most welcome one. To the Christian, it would be

a wiping out the source of all the oppression he at present

labours under. To the Mahomedan, it would bring relief to a

great extent from military service, and it would insure his proper

pay and proper treatment when with the colours ; while to the



24

men of the same creed, when engaged in the pursuits of ci

life, it would give freedom from all the extra and illegal taxati under which they now groan, and which the personal extrav

gance of the Sultan and his surroundings have done so much

bring about.

Tire ground thus cleared, what your Memorialist wou venture most respectfully to suggest would be, the substitutl for the present Turkish Empire of a Christian Kingdom, rul

by a Christian Prince—a kingdom devoted entirely to t arts of commerce and the arts of peace—a second but great Belgium, to be ruled over by a second Leopold, the perpeti preservation and perpetual neutrality of which should

guaranteed by all the powers. It would thus require neith fleets nor armies, beyond what were wanted for the police the land and the police of the sea ; and so, being free from

anxiety as to its future, and from all expenditure for its prote tion, it would be able to devote itself to the development the vast natural resources of a land to which nature has be most bountiful, although Nature's gifts have never been allow* to profit it, owing to the gross misgovernment of man.

How much of what now constitutes European-Turkey shou be retained for the new kingdom so created it is not for yo Memorialist to Say ; but one has only to look at the map to s

what, following the natural boundaries, might be allowed withe too greatly limiting its,extent, to Austria, to Russia, and to Greei In Asiatic-Turkey, Anatolia, Karamania, and Syria would



25

course be included in the New Kingdom, leaving the question

as to the other provinces open to consideration ; while the

Island of Cyprus should be given to France. To the same

nation should be transferred all the rights possessed by the

Sultan over the Barbary States ; while all the rights he possesses over Egypt should, under the guarantee of the Powers, be trans¬

ferred to the sovereign on whom they might confer the crown

of the New State.

There would then only remain the question as to who was to

be the king of the new monarchy; and here again, owing to

circumstances which almost seem providential, the solution

of the difficulty is ready to our hands. The Royal Family of

England has for many years been very popular in France, which can have no candidate of its own to support; and France

has shown itself very desirous of late years of being on terms

of the most cordial amity with the Russian Court. Who, then, would be more likely to be acceptable to it than the Son of the

Queen of England, and the Son-in-law of the Emperor of '

Russia and France satisfied, the rest would be clear. The

friend of France, the Son of the Queen of England, the brother-

in-law of the future Emperor of German)', connected by family ties with Austria, and the son-in-law of the Czar, unites in him¬

self all the great essentials to the position which, if offered to

him, it might be hoped that His Royal Highness and Her

Imperial and Royal Highness the Duchess would not refuse to

accept.



26

A solution of this sort would be most beneficial to all, and 1

means of it the great and long-standing rivalry between Russ

and England in respect of Constantinople would be finally s

at rest. Constantinople and its surrounding territory wou

thus be for ever prevented from becoming a province of Russ

but in return it would be jointly ruled over by a daughter of ti

Czar, and there is already an heir, the first it is to be hoped a long line of successors, all the descendants of the Russi,

Emperor, in the shape of her first-born child the infant princ Thus the old prophecy would be literally fulfilled, though n

precisely in the sense in which it is to this day believed in

Russia, that Constantinople, freed from the Mahomedan yol was destined to be ruled over as sovereigns by a long line

descendants of the then reigning Czar.

Should the political problem be solved in this manner, t

solution of the financial problem would be equally simple ai

clear. A Three per Cent. Stock should be created, under t]

guarantee of the Great Powers, and a hundred pounds of tl

should be given in exchange for every hundred pounds Turkish Six per Cent. Bonds, and eighty-three pounds ten

such stock should be given in exchange for every hundn

pounds of the Turkish General Debt. These are terms which

as the new stock, being guaranteed by all the Powers, wou

be worth seventy-five pounds sterling for every hundred poun of stock—all the Bondholders would readily accept. At tl

same time the debt would weigh very lightly on the New Stat



27

the interest being reduced to half its present amount, while the

provinces severed from it would, of course, have to take their share of it; and, besides this, there would be an immense reduction in the naval, the military, and the civil expenditure, leaving what did remain a charge very easy to meet.

Such, your Memoralist most respectfully submits, would be the true solution alike of the Turkish political question, and of that

relating to the Turkish debt. The nation whom the Sultan and' his ministers have striven to plunder to the extent of millions, and whose prestige throughout all Asia they have sought by this monstrous and contemptuous act of wrong and insult to destroy, will have paid them back in their own coin. The Bondholders will recover their losses, and out of the evil they have suffered will come an amount of good, which, but for these nefarious

proceedings, the world might long have failed to realize. The fairest city in the universe will-be purged of the barbarians who so long have desecrated it, and the dome of San Sophia will

again resound with the music of Christian hymns. The Chris¬

tians, who for so many centuries have been subjected to the most cruel persecution, will be restored to their proper position in the scale of existence ; and the Mahomedan subjects of the Sultan will be released from exactions which have worn them down to almost the level of the half-starved beasts that draw their

ploughs. An end, in fine, will be made of a state of things which has become a shame and a scandal (if not,, in the sight of God, a sin) in those v.ho abet it; and the further propping up of which



2S

by British gold, and British influence, and British bayonet now impossible.

Wherefore your Memorialist most respectfully prays that,tal the premises into consideration, your Lordship will adopt s

measures as the honour and interests of the country, as we

justice to the Bondholders, may seem to demand.

And your Memorialist will ever pray.

A. B. RATHBORNE, Colonel Retired List H.M. Indian Arm

a.id of the Middle Temple, Bartiste

at-Law.

Middle Temple, 22nd November, 1S73.



The following are the official letters which have passed upon the subject :—

Middle Templf, November 22nd, 1875.

My Lord—I have the honour to submit a Memorial on the

subject of the repudiation by the Turkish Government of the several

hypothecations under which it has of late years obtained large sums of

money in England ; and in particular its repudiation of the hypotheca¬ tion of the Customs Duties of Constantinople, on the security of which it obtained £5,000,000 sterling from the Bondholders of the 185S Loan, of whom I am one.

I have the honour to be, My Lord, &c, &c,

A. B. RATHBORNTE.

The Right Hon. the Earl of Derby, &c, &c, &c.

Foreign Office, November 29///, 1875.

Sir—I am directed by the Earl of Derby to acknowledge the

receipt of your letter of the 22nd inst. inclosing a Memorial on the

subject of the recent conduct of the Ottoman Goverment with legard to the Turkish Debt.

I am, Sir, &c, &c,

TENTERDEN. Colonel Rathborne,

Middle Temple.





Documents

Turkey and the victims of its bad faith and its mis-government, financial, religious and political: a memorial addressed to the Right Hon. the Earl of Derby