Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/423

Rh supposed to deliberate and decide freely, as if men educated under despotic rule can be really capable of exercising the functions of popular representatives with any thing akin to independence,—to come to opposite decisions on the same subject, and to confirm both by affixing their seals thereto as the genuine conviction of their united judgment. Instances of this nature,—and many such might be adduced, for they spring of necessity from the opposite genius of the governors and governed, from their separate interests, and from the despotism of ages on both sides,—go to destroy all hope that the new ordinances will effect any radical reformation in the Turkish empire. To use a scriptural simile, the promulgation of the Tanzeemât is nothing more than the putting of a new patch upon an old garment: the concessions which they accord may cover the more glaring defects of a bad system for a time, but in the end will make the rent worse; and no traveller in the east, who has looked beyond the surface of Ottoman rule, whether under the old or new regime, can fail to be convinced, that it is based upon no fixed principles of justice, or of real anxiety for the welfare of the subject, and is consequently rotten at its very core, and fast falling into decay. No better proof, perhaps, could be adduced in support of this conclusion, than the undeniable fact that the Tanzeemât, or any similar chapter of privileges, lately accorded to the Sultanas subjects, is not the offspring of the voluntary suffrage of the ruling powers, springing from any comprehensive appreciation of the rights of the people, or of the real value and tendencies of the immunities conceded; but has been granted mainly out of a disposition to ape the political institutions of Europe, in the same way that the change of costume was introduced by the late Sultan Mahmood, or to satisfy the importunate expostulations of foreign representatives at the Sublime Porte.

In fact, the Osmanlis do not possess the materials for administering any other than a despotic form of government, and therefore every attempt made on their part to effect a radical change in their political system will be futile. Their Pashas are generally ignorant and rapacious men, their Cadhis, or