Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/369

 XI. Le gouvernement impérial ottoman conserve le droit de substituer, en cas de necessité, aux localités désignées, d'autres localités, après une entente préalable avec la Banque impériale ottomane sur les sécurités de rentrée qui doivent être les mêmes. Avis officiel en sera immédiatement donné au gouvernement impérial de Russie.

XII. Le présent acte sera ratifié et les ratifications en seront échangées à St.-Pétersbourg, dans l'espace de deux semaines ou plus tôt, si faire se peut.

En foi de quoi les plénipotentiaires de Russie et de Turquie y ont apposé leurs signatures et le sceau de leurs armes.

Fait à Constantinople, le 2 (14) mai 1882.

NOVICOW.

THOERNER.

M. ASSIM.

SERVER.

⁂—Turkey having in July 1876 wholly suspended payment of the interest on her debt, the Plenipotentiaries of Austria, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Russia at the Congress of Berlin agreed to the following declaration, which was accordingly inserted in the i8th Protocol of the Congress:—

'The Powers represented at the Congress desire to recommend to the Sublime Porte the establishment of a Financial Commission, composed of specialists named by their respective governments, which Commission shall be charged to examine into the complaints of the bondholders of the Ottoman debt, and to propose the most efficacious means for satisfying them as far as is compatible with the financial situation of the Porte.'

In order to avoid the interference of such a Commission, the Porte in October, 1880, invited a meeting of representatives of the foreign bondholders, and announced to the Powers its intention of including in one arrangement the settlement of the foreign debt, the floating debt, and the war indemnity due to Russia. These questions were, however, ultimately kept separate, and an agreement was made with the bondholders on 18th November, confirmed by an Iradé dated 20th December, 1881.

Under this arrangement the foreign debt is reduced to £106,437,234, secured upon the excise and other revenues, subject to a first charge in favour of the Galata Bankers, whose loans are consolidated into a Privileged debt of £8,170,000, and the receipt of the assigned revenues is entrusted to an Administrative Council of Bondholders. The arrangement has, it seems, worked well; and the expenditure of the Empire has recently, though only by non-payment of salaries, been kept within its income. a