IMPROVED PROSPECTS FOR CYPRUS.

Kumara Times, Issue 620, 23 September 1878, Page 2

IMPROVED PROSPECTS FOR CYPRUS.

An American paper states England’s appropriation of the island of Cyprus will come like a Heaven-send to the miserable inhabitants—-so long. the victims of Turkish- misrule and oppression. A recent letter "written from Cyprus gives a painful pictbre of the condition of the peOple there and their industries. The writer says so vicions is the mismanagement of the Porte that the Christiana, who* conistitute four-fifths of the have of late years been emigrating, as they despaired of improving their loji if they, remained. Those who stayed lived more like brutes than human beings, deprived of evWy and material comfort. Hardly-a school with more than eight or .teBL exists in the island. The'property estimated at three times :; aiid ■ is taxed accordingly. Th£%>yerfimenV not only does not spend a cenfr oif : schools, but lays out nothin** for bridges, roads, or irrigation: The Government agents swarm all through the interior, robbing the people, watching ing of wheat, and oft&r confiscating all or nearly all of hn'entire harvest. Of course there is no 'such thing as justice; Mo Chiatian’s evidence is against a Turk in the courts. Towns are falling to ruins j for lack of Cultivation large areas of fertile' soil :■ are -running to waste and becoming' uninhabitable. Cyprus is not likely"'to prove very expensive to Great Britain,' even though 730,000 dollars per annm is payed 1 to the Porte in place of the 60,000 dollars revenue which it now yeilds. -The revenue obtainable Will nbw go : Great Britain, and th® j administration of afiaira resultihg-flbin j the change of Government, an of the revenue, even with reduced rates, may be expected. T&e Cyprians are likely to become the-chiefbenefi-ciaries of the Anglo-Turkish Convention. Profiting by ./the experience sof 1776, Great Britain has been makibg progress, until within the laat .- twenty years she has become the most ;libe>|al 1 ruler of provinces in the ,worldil.i <ir,'X