produce, which he conceived would protect the Baltic trade, he gave in.

The chiefs of the two departments had, however, yielded only to necessity, and under the dread of exposure during the lifetime of the King. I pass over the painful interval. In little more than two years this Treaty, nominally the same but really changed into that which Mr. Poulett Thomson had desired for the prohibiting of Turkish exports, was imposed on the Porte as the condition of that aid against Mehemet Ali, which subsequently furnished the pretext for the Syrian Intervention.

CHAPTER III.

Commercial Treaty with Turkey of 1848.

THIS Treaty as it stands merely doubles the duties of import upon British goods, and quadruples the duty on export of Turkish produce, and this concession is made on the condition of abolishing all prohibitions and monopolies. Two questions naturally arise: First, Was an equivalent required? Second, Was the concession so hampered of any value? That no equivalent was requisite must have already appeared; what illegal vexations could counterbalance this legal burden it is difficult to imagine.

Turkish exports must be classed in two categories. Many articles were nowhere subject to monopolies, and provinces containing ten millions of souls, were subject to no monopoly of any article. Silk, cotton, opium, tobacco, gums, dyes, &c. were perfectly free everywhere: grain, tallow, wool, timber, were free in Syria,* Egypt, Wallachia, Servia, Moldavia, and Samos. In regard, then, to the first class of articles and to all articles in the cited provinces, the increased duty was a mere surrender of the rights of British subjects, and a gratuitous imposition on Turkish trade. The Treaty was assumed to be a substitution of one kind of import for

Aleppo, August 3d, 1843.

«The trade of the north of Syria, nor of Syria generally, derives no benefit by the abolition of monopolies; because previous to the Convention, no commercial monopolies existed. The Convention in relation thereto cannot be considered a boon, nor in fact a compensation of any kind, to the trade of Great Britain with Syria ; certainly not for having inflicted on its produce an exportation duty of 12 per cent., after the grower has paid on the spot the usher of 10 per cent, to the government."-MR. WERRY.

another, but the relief of a taxed article could not be obtained by the burdening of an untaxed one.*

The Prohibitions were not permanent or universal, and might any day be unconditionally raised; firmans could be obtained on the payment of a certain sum; and if it would not pay they were not purchased. Firmans were yearly purchased for Mitylene, and oil was exported: grain was at times exported by firmans. Under the new system Mitylene exports no oil, and Constantinople imports grain! Thus, then, the equivalent has placed on the free goods an uncompensated burden, on the monopolised goods a tax which is a prohibition! In the restricted provinces it has replaced a partial by a general impost, and into the free provinces introduced the prohibitive system. The articles which were obstructed before are obstructed now, and the articles that were free before are burdened now.†

It required not to wait for the result to be certain that a duty of twelve per cent. was more than heavy articles, such as grain, Indian corn, oil, and the like, could bear. The absence of roads had been the subject of lamentation to all those who had taken an interest in the Ottoman Empire, and what are bad roads, save a charge on heavy goods. By them, the country, 150 miles from a point of shipment, was doomed, as far as external traffic went, to sterility. The new duty was equivalent to lengthening the journey by fifty miles, and reduced to that extent the area of productive land. This is the result of a change introduced by system at the very moment that you are endeavouring to induce Turkey to call science to her aid.

"The duty of 12 per cent. amounts, in reality, on many of the products of Turkey-especially the coarse ones-to a total prohibition. It is, therefore, a matter of trifling consideration to merchants, what estimate the tariff places on objects which the convention has now set without the sphere of speculation."-Times.

What grain has been exported since 1839, has either been from provinces where the Treaty has not come into operation, or during an increase of price sufficient to over-ride the tariff.

But this was not all:

The twelve per cent. was not left to be paid in kind, or at a local valuation, but the amount in money was fixed by a Tariff for all the Empire. At Constantinople, the price of grain is raised by a consumption duty of eight per cent., and by heavy transport charges. The price of Constantinople was taken as the basis of the Tariff, and the twelve became twenty-five per cent. At this time England was under the sliding scale, fixed every fortnight by averages taken all over England; she proposed this scale. She also suggested the specification of the Constantinople kilo,the smallest measure, the highest price.

Nor was this all.

Goods derive in Turkey their nationality from the trader, not from the place of production. Whatever the foreigner buys is "foreign." The word "exportation" was thus accepted in its first intention, and applied in its natural sense, and whatever was "carried out" paid the duty, whether it went to the next town or to Canton. But foreign goods came in for the subjects of Russia, who did not join in the Treaty, at one and a half per cent.: consequently, at Constantinople, or the other ports, Russian grain was charged but a third or a fourth of the duty imposed on Turkish grain. Constantinople now imports from Odessa to the value of 40,000,000 of piastres of wheat and flour. Such things may appear incredible to a person who reads them in Europe: they are so even in Turkey. The late Minister for Foreign Affairs would not believe the fact here stated, till he had it confirmed to him by the Customer. In fact the Turkish Government were utterly in the dark respecting this negotiation from the beginning to the end.

The

It is the same with respect to every other article. Tobacco is charged in the tariff two piastres, all but four paras. tobacco exported from Syria to Alexandria averages two piastres in value; the duty amounts to ninety-five per cent.; consequently the tobacco. of America, which at Alexandria

pays but three per cent, (the additional two per cent. is only when sent into the interior), is brought across the Atlantic to undersell in the ports of Turkey its own produce. Také again a manufactured article, silk. The people of the Lebanon pay an export duty of twelve per cent. (in reality fifteen,) on sending it to the towns where it is manufactured.. Manufactured it is considered a new produce and is again subject to an export duty, which amounts to twenty per cent. so that an inhabitant of the Lebanon before he can wear his own silk, manufactured in a neighbouring town, has to pay thirtyfive per cent. He therefore buys the silk, or the silk and cotton imitations of Switzerland and Prussia, which are charged but five per cent.

So far then the two preliminary questions are answered, and as no equivalent was required for the abrogation of monopolies, so has their abrogation on such conditions proved entirely sterile of all advantage. The commerce of the country has increased, but it has not been in those articles in which it was desired to open it, nor in those provinces on which it has been imposed.

But England had the right in Turkey by the capitulations of exporting and importing all articles, on the payment of three per cent. and "nothing more.' No vexation could therefore exist save by sufferance; and to resist these no new Treaty was required:† what use could there be in new Treaties, if the old ones were not executed? But let us grant that the stipulations were not precise and specific enough-then England possessed the right of the "most favoured nation : this Turkey did not desire to contest, the seventh article of the Treaty of Adrianople was framed to meet every supposable case. ‡

"CLAUSE 30.-That having once paid the customs at the ports, not an asper more shall be taken or demanded." See also Clauses 31, 34, 50, 51, 52, 53.

"CLAUSE 18.-All the capitulations, privileges, and articles granted to the French government, and other powers, having been in like manner granted to the English." See also Clauses 44, 48. "See this article cited at p. 376.