THE REFORMS FOR TURKEY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 153, 7 April 1876, Page 16

THE REFORMS FOR TURKEY.

The communication to the Porte of the scheme of reforms drawn up by Count Andrassy has been hanging fire, and we fear that England is not altogether blameless in the matter. France and Italy have given in their assent to the Note, but when this document reached the Foreign Office, Lord Derby was out of town, and had an engagement to distribute prizes to the Lancashire Volunteers, whose honorary colonel he is — a contretemps which has, we believe, excited some discontent in diplomatic circles. The Note itself has, no doubt, been prepared under conditions of great difficulty. As to the reforms which it proposes, there is not much difficulty about them. Theoretical equality between Christians and Musulmans ; a righteous administration of justice ; a more equitable plan of taxation; and a share for the Christians in the practical working of the new system are all improvements which are proposed by the Porte itself. The great question was about the guarantees that these reforms should be sincerely and effectually carried out. It was expected that the Northern Powers would have insisted — and we believe that they at first intended to insist — on a kind of permanent control over the execution of the scheme, but the Sultan seems to have put his foot down, and to have given it to be understood that he would not listen to any proposal which might derogate from his severeignty or affect the integrity of the Empire. A verbal declaration to this effect has been made by the Turkish Ambassador in Paris, and it has been seriously apprehended that the Porte might refuse altogether to accept the scheme presented by the Powers on the ground that it had itself already promulgated similar reforms and provided for the due execution of them. It is even telegraphed from Constantinople that when Count Zichy, the Austrian Ambassador, communicated, in an informal manner, the nature of Coiint Andrassy' s proposals to the Grand Vizier, that great official rejected any idea of foreign intervention, and said that the Porte would itself give the populations the necessary guarantees. The fact of these communications having taken place has since been denied. Eeforms are in fact already on paper in the shape of the Imperial Irade recently issued, and an executive council, to which is confided the execution of them, has just been appointed, and a copy of the instructious under which it jb to act sent to the Turkish Embassies for communication to the Powers. This Council is to be presided over by the Grand Visier, and it is to be composed of " high dignitaries and' " other functionaries of the State," the Ministers being always ex efficio members of it. It is to assemble every day, and attached to it there is to be a committee of control to secure the more effectual carrying out of the reforms, while the delegates to be nominated by the people are to have the right of bringing to the knowledge of the Government all " legitimate complaints, as well as acts which are com- " mitted contrary to justice and to the orders of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan;" and an official named Constant, or Constantius, Effendi, is to be sent to the Herzegovina to make conciliatory overtures, with the view of getting the insurgents to lay down their arms. All this sounds well, but the Powers have learnt by experience that Turks cannot be depended upon to work such changes, and there is a strong old-Musulman party at Constantinople which is already furious at the very idea of them. This, while it puts a difficulty in the way of the Porte's accepting anything like control or dictation, renders that control all the more necessary if the reforms are to be genuine, and some middle term had to be devised unless the negotiations were to be broken off and the provinces occupied. Count Andrassy's plan, therefore, confines itself by way of guarantees to proposing that the Consuls shall watch the execution of the reforms, and that the Ambassadors shall report on them to their respective Governments. It is hoped that the Porte may be got to consent to this, but it is by no means certain that, without constraint, it will. — 'Tablet.'