CONDITION OF TURKEY.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2176, 15 February 1881, Page 3

CONDITION OF TURKEY.

A correspondent writing to the “Daily Nows ” from Constantinople on November 29th, says : “ From Macedonia we continue to receive most heartrending accounts of the condition of the people, ana the Turks there are carrying on a system of extermination differing only in degree from the havoc they wrought in Batak four years ago. In Armenia things have not improved a whit. On the contrary, they seem every day to be growing worse and worse. The central Government here is perfectly paralysed, and does nothing. Anarchy reigns complete everywhere, and the poor people are ground down by exorbitant demands for money. Where this will all end no one can foretell, but assuredly it cannot continue for a very long time. The end of it must come some day, but if Europe does not interfere promptly to improve things, it is too dreadful to think of what the consequences must be. The Turkish Government have never been free from corruption, but now it pervades all classes of the officials, from the highest to the lowest. The city is infested day and night by thieves and robbers, and the police are united with them in plundering the people. There is perfect stagnation in business, and the courts are little better than dens of thieves and extortioners, People here really hope more from Mr Gladstone than from any other European statesman ; but even he will be powerless to effect anything worth accomplishing if he is not prepared to set aside notes and recommendations and use force. I have always supposed that the question will never be settled by the European Powers, but that the solution will have to be found by the nationalities which inhabit this empire. If war breaks out in the spring we shall witness some terrible convulsions in the Balkan Peninsula, which will arouse Europe from its indifference, and force the Powers to take action of some kind.”