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for the delight of sultanas. But as to foreign capital being used for development of the great resources of the country, Mr. Butler Johnstone himself says that—
"Such vexatious obstructions have been placed in the way of foreign capital that it has shunned the country; and men of integrity like Scott-Russell and T. Brassey have had all their offers rejected. Unless the pashas catch a glimpse of backshish, foreign enterprise is an abomination in their eyes."
These promises were made to be broken. "Qui est-ce qu'on trompe?" as Prince Gortschakoff said to Lord Augustus Loftus. These reforms were promised with the knowledge that they would not, could not, be put in operation. The Turkish Power is, in spite of Midhat's Constitution, a Mahommedan theocracy. No law is accepted as valid unless it has religious sanction. The statute book must run with the Koran. The neglect on the part of the Turkish Power to fulfil the pledges of 1839 and of 1856 does not vex the mind of a genuine Turk. The obligation was not to be found in the precepts of the Koran. They had not the sanction of the Church, which we have seen invoked and obtained before any would engage in the dethronement of Abd-ul-Aziz and of Murad.
England has appeared to feel more than any other Power the disgrace of having been made a party to the manufacture of these spurious pledges and promises. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was instructed in 1858 to—
"Impress on his Imperial Majesty the Sultan the deep importance which Her Majesty's Government attach to his faithfully carrying out the Hatti-Houmaïoun without any unnecessary delay,"
and Lord Stratford reported in the same year that, in audience of the Sultan, he had—
"Submitted that little had been done, and that a feeling of disappointment and almost of despair was on that account spreading throughout Europe."
Lord Stratford was right. Despair did supervene. In Turkey the
