ABSTRACT
REFORMS AND THEIR RESULTS: THE LEBANON AND CRETE (1856-69)
SANGUINE statesmen, who had undertaken the Crimean war to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman empire, hoped that the sacrifices of the western Powers would be at least rewarded by the reform of Turkish adnlinistration and by the amelioration of the conditions under which the Christian subjects of the Sultan lived. Believers in paper reforms were encouraged in this belief by the publication, on February 18, 1856, a week before the meeting of the Congress at Paris, of an "Illustrious writing," or Hatti-Humayun, confirming the promises made at Giil-khaneh in 1839. This second charter, granted by Abdul Mejid to his people, ratified all "the spiritual privileges and immunities" accorded "to all Christian communities or to other non-Mussulman religions." Patriarchs were to be nominated for life) and thus the scandal of frequent changes avoided; their revenues were to be fixed, and the temporal affairs of their respective communities placed under the control of a committee, chosen from among them. The fabric of churches schools, and hospitals might be repaired, provided-it was added with a fine respect for archaeology, which no one would have expected from the Turks-that "the primitive plans" were followed! All injurious appellations, tending to wound the susceptibilities of this or that creed or race, were to be severely punished; compulsory conversion was prohibited; office was thrown open to every nationality; civil and military
299 education was offered to all who complied with the regulations. Justice was to be administered in public, and witnesses were to swear in the fashion of their respective creeds; codes of law were to be prepared and translated into all the languages of the empire; any corporal punishment approaching to torture was abolished; the police was to be reorganised in a manner to inspire confidence and security. Christians were declared admissible to the army; and equality of rights was stated to involve equality of taxation. Reforn1 of the tithe-system and abolition of the tax-farmer were promised; an annual budget was to show how the taxes had been spent; roads and canals were to be made, banks founded, European capital attracted for the development of the Sultan's donlinions. In short, an Asiatic despotism, based upon the Koran and which in Europe was still rather in the nature of a garrison than a settlement, was to be transformed by a stroke of the pen into a western empire. The history of the next half-century is the best commentary on the Utopian progralnme contained in this optimistic document, which was communicated to the signatories of the treaty of Paris-a communication which they ingenuously declared in article 9 to be of "high value" and yet as not authorising their collective or separate intervention in the internal affairs of Turkey. In other words, the charter was treated as the" spontaneous emanation of the Sultan's sovereign resolve" to govern on European lines but without European control.
