SERIOUS CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN TURKEY.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1747, 25 September 1879, Page 3

SERIOUS CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN TURKEY.

The " Daily Telegraph " commenting on the prolonged ministerial crisis at Constantinople, and its resulting in the defeat of the Grand Vizier*, says :—" Once more a political change in> Constantinople brings Eastern affairs into great prominence. After a long struggle for more defined and ample powers, Kberedine jpasha has resigned the exalted post of Gfeand Vizier, and Aarifi Pasha has been appointed his successor. The enlightened administrator who was brought from Tunis to sets the Ottoman Empire in order has striven to form and conduct a Government which should be free from the vices characteristic of modern Turkish rule and endowed with energy sufficient to build up on the ruins of a disastrous war a prosperous and powerful State. For some weeks, if not months, it has been obvious that the cont st between the Grand Vizier and the Old Turkish party, towards whom the Sultan betrayed a bias, was approaching a climax. One day or another Kheredine would have to face the danger of defining what he deemed essential to the regular and useful march of affairs, and when that hour arrived tbe Sultan would have to choose between the new and the old way. The attempt to constitute a vigorous and independent Ministry, even if it were only a rough copy of the European model, was certain to provoke two kinds of adverse influences. On the one hand were those proceeding from corrupt officials roused to activity by alarm at the prospect of reforms, and on the other those wbich would spring up in the breast of the Sultan, who would not unnaturally dread, or be taught to dread, a curtailmeni of power. Had the ruler been a bold man, of marked enlightenment and character, he might still have found it hard to overcome the classes who feed on deeplyrooted abuses. When, however, their interest backed up his own, which was the retention not merely of supremacy in the last resort, but the right of conßtantiy acting as he pleased without consulting,- his advisers, the two forces hostile to solid improvement were fused, and the Grand. VJaer's project was overthrown. Kheredine Pasha desired, apparently, to found a strong ; administration which should work exempt from perpetual Palace intermeddling, and should never find its measures thwarted by Imperial acts of which the Porte had no previous cognisance. And it may be said with perfact justice, for example, that no possibility exists of placing the finances even on a respectable footing, unless order, regularity, uprightness, and continuity can be secured. Conversant with Western practices, able to command sound advice as well, as support, and knowing the conditions o£ hie problem, the late Grand Vizier was not likely to have asked too much. But evidently what he did require was dietasteful to his master, and still more to tbe men who wish to keep things as they are. Throughout the period in which he has-held office, the Sultan has occasionally acted-with an appearance of caprice very trying to an honeßt and able Minister. One Pasha who, from whatever motives, brought about repudiation, and another who did not shine as War Minister, were recalled under circumstances which showed that the Palace was bent on displacing independence of the Borte ;. and thero were alao ;financial attempts not calculated to preserve unity in the Government. At length the late Grand Vizier, grappled with growing embarrassments, and- was defeated in a contest with his adversaries.