NOTE II.

TURKISH COMMERCE.

The Prussian statistician, Hubner, makes the total exports of Turkey, for the year 1850, 13 millions, and its imports 10 millions sterling.

The exports from England have increased from 1830 to 1850 sixfold, the declared value being in the last year £3,100,000.

Since the opening of our ports for foreign grain our trade with Russia has diminished 50 per cent., that with Turkey has increased 50 per cent.; but no grain comes from those provinces of Turkey where the English Treaty has taken effect. We imported directly and indirectly, in 1850, from the Danube, above two millions of quarters, and sent to brail and Galatz £998,000 value of goods.

CHAPTER IV.

The Red Sea-Egypt.

"Every great man who has looked at the map of the world has thought of Egypt."-THIELS.

EGYPT was of old a broken reed, piercing the hand that leant upon it: the Scriptural proverb has proved itself true in our times. The extreme of insignificance to which this country has attained in contrast to its ancient pre-eminence of splendour, is not however harmless: its wonderful geographical position gives to it an extrinsic value, which, though existing in all times, acquires a new importance from the gradually interlocking around it of the great Empires; England has a dominion in India, France a settlement in Africa, and Russia looks to subverting Turkey.

It is now twenty-three years since Europe was all but plunged in a war, not because a new Napoleon had made it the stepping-stone to India, but merely because of a quarrel between its Pasha and the Sultan. By that event the tenure of Egypt was practically altered, its dependence on the Porte shaken, and the chances increased of its becoming a bone of contention. The Powers then interposed to force the Sultan to concede to its ruler a hereditary title in violation of the maxims of that empire, and in opposition to the principles of its restoration. This change was merely nominal: so long as Mehemet Ali lived and ruled, the power of Egypt was, so to say, a personal matter; it disappeared with him. On his demise Egypt would have merged into its anterior condition, but that under this arrangement the new Pasha, neither being appointed by the Sultan, nor having strength in himself to stand against him, has to lean for support

on Foreign Governments, and will receive it only from those who are inimical to his Sovereign.*

*

All that is said of danger to that Empire from disaffection of its Christian subjects is idle breath; its danger is from a Mussulman Schism and in such a Schism Egypt disaffected must play the first part; it is a Mussulman Province; it stands between Turkey and the Holy Places, the possession of which is a vital matter; its Ruler may control Syria, and dispose of the predatory Arabs of the Desert, and although regiments of Fellahs may not again traverse Asia Minor, the impression of past events remains, and Egypt in the hands of a Foreign Power may shake the throne of the Sultans to its foundation.

Amongst us the sinew of war is money in the East, as the reader of the Arabian Nights' well knows, it is rice. It affords the largest amount of nutriment in the smallest space, is of all grains that which is least liable to dete rioration; it is the accustomed food of the people, not like wheat constituting a portion of the diet, but the whole of it. Rice comes from Egypt: cutting off Egypt is stopping the supplies, and this is its moral as well as its physical effect.

In a war with Russia, Egypt being the province furthest removed, is that from which supplies may be most readily drawn; it is therefore of the utmost importance to detach it from its allegiance. It was by experience of its value that Catherine called Egypt one of the horns of the Crescent (the other was Greece), of both of which that Luminary had to be shorn before, according to her opinion, it could lapse into her amorous embrace. In fact she pre

* I wrote the following words a year before the Treaty of 1840 was signed.

"The power of Mehemet Ali must fall with himself. The intro duction of hereditary succession, a principle at variance with the laws and administration of the empire, can only be proposed for the purpose of perpetuating differences between Egypt and Constanti nople, and allowing the Powers of Europe to interfere under colour of rights conceded to their intervention."

luded to her great war with Turkey by a traitorous intelligence with the Beys of Cairo; in consequence of its discovery that war was declared against her by the Turks. "The use which she made of her first successes was to offer Egypt to France, if she would join in dismembering the Ottoman Empire." *

Egypt could not be could be possessed by At the time that the

A footing in Egypt thus appears to have a value beyond the weakening of the power of Turkey. It may serve to raise up other enemies to that Empire, to convert its protectors into spoilers, and to place those protectors themselves at variance. The proposition of Catherine to Louis XVI recalls to mind Poland her proposition to Frederick the Great and Joseph II: we have there seen how, by tempting neighbours with territory, she can convert them into dependents. Egypt was far off and could only be reached by sea; but as Poland furnished her the occasion for occupying the military Powers of the North, so did Egypt for the maritime Powers of the West. divided, there is but one Nile: if it one only, it could be offered to two. French Government was thus tempted, England was alarmed at the designs of Catherine on Turkey, and preparing to oppose them; had the French Government yielded to the temptation, England must have immediately sent an expedition to Egypt, as she did a few years later on a similar occasion, and England and France being engaged in war, she would have disembarrassed herself of the opposition of the one, and acquired in the other a partitioning ally against the Ottoman Empire. It must not be supposed that she risked even the ultimate possession of Egypt, for that province must remain dependent on Constantinople, whether possessed by Turkey or by herself, besides neither England nor France could endure its possession by the other; when they will have exhausted themselves in a war respecting it, they will be ready enough to submit to its occupation by

* "Progress of Russia in the East."

her: they are the clients, Turkey the oyster, and she the lawyer.

In the often quoted Testament of Peter, the inspiring of rivalry is impressively laid down as the rule for his successors. Its effects are thus tersely described: "Inspire France and Austria with the ambition of universal dominion, such hatred will then arise between them, that they will destroy each other." Since that period the relative positions of these and the other States of Europe have been materially altered, and the method holds under a new distribution of the parts. It is not two predominant States to which the maxim has now to be applied, the passion of ambition has subsided, but jealousy, which has taken its place, is no less available for setting nations by the ears. Wherever there is affinity of dispositions and equality of power, such as, for instance, in Denmark and Sweden, Russia and Austria, Turkey and Persia, England and France, she finds ample field for the perfecting of this art. Since the peace England and France have been five times brought to the verge of war merely by jealousy: twice in reference to Spain, once to Tahiti, once to Morocco, and once to Egypt. It can only be by some most unexpected combination that any of the other countries can afford again the like chance; but Egypt is in every respect prepared for it.

There is no other portion of the Ottoman Empire in designs on which it would be possible to involve any two Powers. It is not only the only portion of the Ottoman Empire, but the only district in the globe, for the possession of which two Foreign Powers can be brought into competition. The United States may covet Cuba from Spain, or Canada from England; France may seek to take the Rhenish frontier from Prussia; Russia may be desirous of wresting India from England, or the Danubian Principalities from Turkey; but of Egypt alone can it be said that it is equally coveted by Russia, by France, and by England. Has not France already occupied it, has not England driven her out-was not this the occasion of the last war that desolated Europe? Now, too,