Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/72

 60 TURKEY resemble feudal princes, but generally keep aloof from public affairs, and are distinguished for munificence and charity. Some of the Ar- menians also are vast landholders, and they as well as some of the Greek and other merchants have city and country palaces which vie in mag- nificence with those of the foreign ambassadors, of the great pashas, and of the imperial and Egyptian dynasties. The principal charter of civil rights, next to the hatti-therif of 1839, was the hatti-humayun of 1856, which, as well as subsequent and quite recent pledges, prom- ised great improvement and reforms, but have not produced permanent ameliorations, the or- thodox Moslems being opposed to increased privileges for the Christians, while the latter insist upon much greater ones than the sultan is willing to concede. The financial budget for the year 1875-'6, ending in March, esti- mates the revenue at $125,500,000, and the expenditures at $103,800,000. As usual, it is made to show a surplus, when in reality there is an immense deficit. The public debt of Tur- key is divided into two classes, the foreign or hypothecated debts, contracted abroad and se- cured on special sources of revenue, and the internal debts, known under a variety of names, issued at Constantinople alone, and therefore dependent only on a compact between the Porte and its subjects, and secured on the gen- eral credit and resources of the empire. The nominal amount of the foreign debts had reached in January, 1874, the sum of $772,- 000,000, and the floating debt was estimated at $64,600,000. A new loan was issued in September, 1874, to consolidate the floating debt, which since January of that year had again largely increased. A financial report from Constantinople, dated May 10, 1875, es- timated the entire Turkish debt at $969,600,000. On Oct. 8, 1875, the government declared its partial insolvency, and promised to pay half of the interest due on the foreign debt in cash, and the rest in new bonds to be issued to the extent of about $166,000,000. A reorganiza- tion of the army was begun in 1871, and is to be completed in 1878. According to the new regulations, the military forces (formerly di- vided into nizam, or active army, idatyal, first reserve, redif, second reserve, and hiyade, mili- tia) are divided into the regular army, the re- serve, and the sedentary army. In time of war the army is to contain 700,000 men, of whom 150,000 will belong to the regular army, 70,000 to the first reserve, and the remainder to the sedentary army. The annual contingent will be nearly 40,000 men. The imperial guard at Constantinople is the only thoroughly efficient military body in the empire. Non-Mussulmans are not liable to service in the army, but have to pay a military exemption tax, known as the bedel Polish, Hungarian, French, English, German, and other foreigners are employed in the Turkish army and navy, some of them reaching high positions, such as the late Aus- trian Omer Pasha as commander in the for- mer, and the English Hobart Pasha as admi- ral in the latter service. The navy consisted in 1874 of 20 iron-clad vessels and 99 trans- ports, and was manned by 34,000 sailors and. marines. The crews are raised in the same manner as the land forces. The arrivals and departures in the Turkish ports in 1873 com- prised 43,200 foreign vessels, tonnage 12,- 738,000, and 29,614 Ottoman vessels, tonnage 3,518,000, besides 178,143 small craft, mainly Turkish, engaged in the coasting trade, ton- nage 1,903,000. The arrivals in 1874 at Con- stantinople, the chief port, comprised alto- gether 4,185 steamers (2,042 English) and 16,489 sailing ships (2,500 Greek and the rest chiefly Ottoman), with an aggregate tonnage of 4,606,200, or one fourth of the whole na- tional trade. Much shipping business is car- ried on at Smyrna, Salonica, and Trebizond. Adrianople, Aleppo, Damascus, and Bagdad are the most prominent interior commercial centres of the empire. The imports consist chiefly of British and other manufactures and colonial goods, and the chief exports com- prise grain, cotton, fruit, wine, tobacco, coffee, honey and wax, silk, emery, carpets, and mad- der. The average annual estimated value of imports into European Turkey in 1868-'70 was about $90,000,000, and of exports $50,- 000,000 ; there are no trustworthy later data, and none at all in regard to Asiatic Turkey. The exports to England in 1874 amounted to 6,000,000, and the imports from that country to 7,000,000 ; the exports to Russia, about 20,000,000 rubles, and the imports 6,000,000 rubles. The imports from the United States amounted, in the year ending June 30, 1874, to $2,559,551, and the exports to $786,877. With the exception of a few great thorough- fares, there are no roads worthy of the name throughout the empire. The first railway dates from 1862. The principal railways (1876) are those from Constantinople to Adrianople, Var- na to Rustchuk, Kustendji to Tchernavoda, Sa- lonica to Mitrovitza, and Novi to Banialuka, in Europe, and from Smyrna to Ephesus, Ai- din, and Alashehr, and Scutari to Ismid, in Asia Minor. According to a convention with Austria, Sept. 80, 1875, the Belovar-Sofia line was to bo completed in 1876, and its exten- sion to Nissa and connection with Belgrade in 1879. The aggregate length of railroads fin- ished in European -Turkey is nearly 1,000 m.; in Asiatic, not much more than 100 m. The Danube with its navigable tributaries forms the great channel of commerce for the north- ern portions of Turkey in Europe. The lines of telegraph have an aggregate length of 17,- 864 m., and the wires of 28,973 m. There were 400 telegraph offices. The communica- tions with the interior were of the most inef- ficient description until March 1, 1876, when the entire postal service of the empire was for the first time undertaken by the government, which proposes to organize it after the best European models. The Ottoman empire, in-