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Rh £T125,000 in 1906–1907, the value of the silk crop in those regions having thus advanced by over £T1,000,000. But the regions not under its administration benefited at least equally by the methods above described. Thus the total value of the silk tithe in Turkey increased in the period named from about £T20,000 to £T276,500, and the total annual value of the crop from about £T200,000 to £T2,765,000, or by nearly 2½ millions pounds sterling.

Table A gives the produce of the revenues in 1881–1882, the last year of the administration of the “Galata Bankers,” the average product of the first, second, third, fourth and fifth quinquennial periods since the public council was established, and of the year 1907–1908.

Table B shows the total indebtedness of the Ottoman Empire, exclusive of tribute loans.

—Showing Revenues ceded to Ottoman Public Debt Administration at Various Periods to 1907–1908.

—Position of the Ottoman Public Debt on the 1st of March 1326 (March 14, 1910).

Tobacco Régie.—From the beginning of the year 1884 the tobacco revenue has been worked as a monopoly by a company formed under Ottoman law, styled “La Régie Impériale Coïntéressée des Tabacs Ottomans.” This company has the absolute monopoly of the manufacture and of the purchase and sale of tobacco throughout the Ottoman Empire, with the exception of the Lebanon and Crete, but exportation remains free. It is bound to purchase all tobacco not exported at prices to be agreed between itself and the cultivators; if no agreement can be arrived at, the price is fixed by experts. It is obliged also to form entrepôts for the storage of the crops at reasonable distances from each other, and, on certain conditions, to grant advances to cultivators to aid them in raising the leaf. The cultivators, on the other hand, may not plant tobacco without permits from the régie, although the power of refusing a permit, except to known smugglers or persons of notoriously bad conduct, seems to be doubtful; nor may they sell to any purchaser, unless for export, except to the régie, while they are bound to deposit the whole of the tobacco crops which they raise in any one year in the entrepôts of the régie before the month of August of the year following,