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OBSERVATIONS ON THE TREATY OF

UNKIAR SKELESSI.

WE Congratulate Lord Ponsonby on the signal triumph he has gained at Constantinople, in obtaining the dismissal of Akif Effendi. We felt convinced that his Lordship would carry his point if he persevered, knowing as we did that the Sultan had attempted ten months ago to get rid of this Minister, on discovering that he was in the receipt of a stipend from Russia, but had failed because he was unable single-handed to cope with the ascendency of the Russian Envoy over the Divan.

We have heard it asserted that the reparation demanded by Lord Ponsonby was disproportioned to the offence. No other satisfaction than the dismissal of the Reis Effendi would have been considered in the eyes of the Turks as a satisfaction for such an unprecedented violation of Treaties.

It must be remarked, that the Treaties of European Powers with the Porte expressly guarantee to the European stranger an immunity from all Turkish tribunals. This is in consonance with the Turkish mode of administration. The Turks, on conquering the different provinces of their Empire, allowed the conquered subjects to be governed by the laws to which they had been accustomed, administered by officers appointed according to the form, and consonant with the habits, of the peculiar populations; and this is the admitted principle at the present day, although, in consequence of the complications which have been introduced by the intrigues of Russia with the subjects of the Porte, there have been some occasional violations of the principle in latter times.

When the European Powers sought to establish an inter

course with the Porte, the basis of their Treaties was that European Residents in Turkey should be governed by the laws of their native countries, administered by officers appointed by their own Sovereigns. This was at once in accordance with the habit and system of the Porte, and in accordance with that principle of hospitality which is the basis of all the international relations of the Turks. Consequently, when Akif Effendi refused to deliver up Mr. Churchill at the demand of the Ambassador, he not only violated the patent Treaties between England and the Sultan, but also acted in a manner perfectly un-Turkish, and which, if passed over unresented, would have afforded a precedent by which Russia might have embroiled the Sultan with every European Power.

But the success of Lord Ponsonby is only to be considered as a means to an end. * So long as Turkey remains in a state of dependence upon Russia, Russia possesses the same power over the functionaries of the Porte, in forcing them to co-operate with her; nor will it be possible for them to maintain their ground against Russia, until Constantinople is saved from that continual menace, by means of which Russia solves every difficulty, and enforces measures which must lead Turkey to destroy herself; until that Treaty is annulled which binds Turkey to Russia, as a slave is bound to his master.

It has generally been conceived that the pith of the

We are surprised that the "Morning Herald," which in general is so well informed, and takes so sane a view on questions of our foreign policy, should have mixed up party politics with a question of such purely national importance. We have no hesitation in believing that it is owing to the energy of Lord Ponsonby that Akif Effendi has been dismissed. We are equally aware that it does not suit Russia that this should, in fact, appear to be the case; and she will, consequently, endeavour, by all the indirect means which she has, of influencing Pera to make it be believed that this is any thing but a triumph of English diplomacy.

VOL. III.-NO. XXVI.

TT

Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi is to be found in the separate and secret article which is appended to it.

Of course that article ought to have its due weight; for the circumstance of two powers entering into secret engagements, one with the other, has generally been considered by the practice of nations an act of hostility towards the other Foreign States, whom it may concern. Therefore, that secret article was, in effect, a declaration of war by Russia, who forced it on the Porte, against England and France, who remonstrated.

We consider that in consequence of undue prominence having been given to this article, the public mind has been diverted from points of infinitely deeper import in the body of the Treaty itself, and thence, it has generally been admitted that the Unkiar Skelessi Treaty is a dead letter, excepting in a time of war, formally declared between Russia and any European Power-we say formally, because we consider that in any former period of history the repeated acts of Russia would have been considered barefaced hostility.

The preamble of the Treaty states that "the Emperor of Russia and the Emperor of the Ottomans have resolved to extend and to strengthen the perfect amity and confidence which reign between them, by the conclusion of a Treaty of defensive alliance."

The necessity of a defensive alliance could only have arisen from the real or pretended danger of domestic or foreign attack. Now, as real danger is not likely to threaten Turkey from any European power, except Russia, Russia must have misrepresented some power as hostile to Turkey; and it is clear that Russia meant England, who had shown her indifference to the welfare of the Sultan, by refusing to assist him against the hostile armies of a traitor and a rebel, to whom England at the same time gave moral support, by accrediting to him a diplomatic agent.

Thus was England made a tool in the hands of Russia, to obtain for the Emperor a position and an influence, which, but for England's support, not all the arms, the power, or the millions of Russia, could, by possibility, have acquired.

Well might the Emperor afford to say, Henceforth war shall never again take place between Russia and Turkey.

The first article of the Treaty is as follows: "There shall be for ever peace, amity, and alliance between the Emperor of all the Russias and His Majesty the Emperor of the Ottomans, their empires and their subjects, as well by land as by sea. This alliance having solely for its object the common defence of their dominions against all attack, (empiétement), their majesties engage to come to an unreserved understanding with each other upon all the matters which concern their respective tranquillity and safety, and to afford to each other mutually for this purpose substantial aid, and the most efficacious assistance."

We conceive the chief importance of the Treaty to be embraced in this first article.

It gives to Russia the right to an unreserved communication from the Porte on every matter whatsoever which the Russian Envoy may imagine to concern the tranquillity and safety of Turkey, or of Russia, whether connected with the internal or external relations of the Porte; and, unless the Porte communicates freely with the Russian Envoy on every point, an unreserved understanding cannot be said to subsist. Consequently, the slightest reserve towards Russia on the part of the divan on any matter which the Russian Minister may conceive or choose to construe as dangerous to the tranquillity of Turkey would, in fact, be an infraction of the Treaty of Alliance and a ground of hostility.

By this Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, Russia claims to

herself the right of interfering in every matter that she asserts affects the tranquillity of the country. She must virtually have the appointment and removal of ministers, ambassadors, admirals, and generals. The whole diplomacy of Turkey must be directed by Russian counsels. The relations between the sublime Porte and her dependencies, whether they be the Christian princes of the provinces, or the Mussulman governors of Egypt, Syria, Tunis, and Tripoli, must be managed according to the commands of Russia; and, further, the internal and financial administration, the arrangements respecting the different religions, must be controlled by Russia; otherwise a pretext is presented to the Court of St. Petersburg to seize on Constantinople, as the Sultan has failed in his engagements. Thus we may see that this Treaty is not a dead letter in its whole extent. until Russian designs are sufficiently matured, and that it is, at the same time, a living principle incessantly at work for maturing those designs.

Thus, when Russia succeeded in the object, at which she had been so long aiming, of rendering the Armenian nation religiously dependent upon a patriarch residing within her own frontiers, she only succeeded in gaining one of the objects for which the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi was planned.

When she forced the Porte to put to death those young officers that looked upon a Russian decoration as a stigma of disgrace, she only effected another object of this Treaty, which was to destroy all national feeling to which the Sultan has hitherto owed the stability of his throne.

In fact, every single transaction of the Porte, down to the outrage committed on Mr. Churchill by the Reis Effendi, are illustrations that the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi is no dead letter. For this outrage is not to be taken in an isolated point of view. The Reis Effendi had repeatedly encroached upon the privileges enjoyed by Englishmen at

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