IMPROVED PROSPECTS FOR CYPRUS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 181, 30 August 1878, Page 4

IMPROVED PROSPECTS FOR CYPRUS.

An American paper states :—Englaud'. appropriation of the island of Cypruß will come like a Heaven-.eod to the miserable inhabitants—so long the victim, of Turkish misrule and oppression. A recent letter written from Cyprus gives a painful condition of the people there and their industries. The writer ssys so vicious is the mismanagement of the Porte th.t the Christians, who cousiilu'e four-Gftha of ths population, havß of late years boen emigrating as they despaired of improving their lot if they rom.in.d. Thoße who stayed lived more liko brutes than human beings, deprive 1 of every moral and material comfort. Hardly a school with more than eight or ten scholars exists in the island. The property is estimated at three times its value, aud is taxed accordingly. The Government not only does not spend a cent on the schools, but lays out uot .jog. (of bridges, rends, qr

irrigation. The Government agents swarm all through the iaterior, robbing Ibe peopl., watching tho threshing of the wheat, and often confiscating all cr nearly all an entire h .rveet. Of course there is no such thing a. justice. No Christian's evidence is taken against a Turk in the courts. Towns are faliiug to ruins: for lack of cultivation large areas of ftrtile soil ore running to waste and becoming uninhabitable. The island is generelly credited with a population of over 1.0,000, but tbe writer says it will not exceed 60,000. Cyprus is not likely to prove very expensive to Great Biitaio, even though 750,000 dollars per annum is p»id to the Porte in ph.ca of the 60,000 dollars revenue wbich it now yields. The tevenuo obtainable will now go to Great Biitaiu, and wiih the better administration of nff _irs resulting from the change of Government, an increase of the revenue, even wiih reduced tax rat. p, may be expected. Tbe Cyprians aro iikely to become the chief beneficiaries of tbo Anglo-Turkish Convention. Profiling by tie experience of 1776, Great Britain has been making progress, until within tbe last twenty years she bos become the most liberal ruler of provinces iv the world.