The Sultan's opponents—His manner of dealing with them —The 'humanity' of Europe—Attempts on the Sultan's life—Lack of organisation in Young-Turkey— refuge for the reformers in England—The short-lived Parliament suppressed by the Sultan—Opposition of English Russophiles to Turkish schemes of reform—What Young-Turkey wanted—Persecution of Young-Turks—A long tale of victims—The possibility of a revival.

In spite of all the measures taken by the Sultan to preserve his personal rule, he has met at times with serious opposition from a section of his Turkish subjects, the only people in Turkey who see the state of affairs clearly and can read the signs of their country's decadence. They understand that, among the peoples of the Ottoman empire, the Turkish race, in whose name the misrule of a cosmopolitan Palace faction is maintained, suffer most from the existing tyranny. These men compose what is commonly known in Europe as 'the Young Turkish Party.' By them attempts have been made now and then to rid the throne of Abd-ul-Hamid, and for this reason there has been a constant struggle between them and the Sultan. He is aware that the Turks, unlike his non-Mohammedan subjects, would not allow themselves to be tools for the political designs of any European Power, and therefore would never be likely to receive foreign help against his tyranny. Consequently he feels at liberty to deal with them in a much more absolute fashion than with any of his other subjects. And so, with a relentless determination, he does all he can to crush any of the Turks who may attempt to check him. If they escape from his hands and fly to other countries, he will make almost any sacrifice to get hold of them again. It is said that he connived at the French designs on Tunis in order to get Midhat Pasha from the French consulate at Smyrna, when the latter took refuge there. Quite recently an Italian consul in Switzerland called on the late Mahmud Pasha, the Sultan's brother-in-law and enemy, who was staying at Lucerne, and requested him not to go to Italy, because the Government of that country wished to be on good terms with the Sultan; and this was at a time when Italy was making an intimidating naval show in the Albanian and Tripolitan waters. It is an open secret that the Sultan's representatives have often approached some European Foreign Offices with the promise of concessions to be granted on condition that the Turkish refugees in their territories were handed over to the Sultan, or at any rate expelled across the frontiers.

Yet, in spite of his uniform success in the struggle with his Turkish subjects, the Sultan has more than once been face to face with imminent danger owing to the efforts of this party. The most daring of these attempts was made by a certain Suavi Effendi, whose name I mentioned before, who was a very cultured as well as courageous member of the Ulema class, and was one of the organisers of the once powerful Young-Turkish movement Suavi Effendi was in London about thirty-five years ago, finding it safer to print here the political literature of the movement to be smuggled into Turkey, but before the fall of the late Sultan he went back to Constantinople, and was engaged in educational and journalistic work. Soon after the accession of Abd-ul-Hamid, Suavi collected a band of some hundreds of desperate refugees, who had flocked into the capital from the provinces which were lost as the consequence of the Russo-Turkish War, and with them he attacked the Sultan's palace. Before, however, they could release the ex-Sultan Murad from his captivity, to be reinstated in his place, they were overtaken by the guards in the palace garden, and, after a fearful struggle, Suavi and most of his followers perished. The mere rustic private who is credited with having cut Suavi Effendi himself down is now the all-powerful Hassan Pasha, the present head of the police guarding those quarters of the capital which border on Yildiz Kiosk. He is a man of great physical strength and ferocity. Most men who are denounced as being Young-Turkish adherents are handed over to him before being sent into exile, and terrible tales are related about his beating the prisoners. The Sultan not long ago conferred on him the rank of a Field-Marshal for his loyal service, though Hassan is so ignorant that he cannot even write his own name.

Another attempt to depose the Sultan was made some twenty years ago by a Circassian cavalry regiment which was quartered near Yildiz Kiosk. The men of the Circassian regiment, who evidently had lady friends in the harem of the palace, laid a plot against Abd-ul-Hamid. They also failed at the last moment in their attempt, and the regiment speedily and mysteriously disappeared. The last projected attempt of a serious nature was reported to have been nearly carried out during the Armenian troubles. At that time the door of the Sultan's room was guarded by two Kurds, and these men were the disciples of a religious order which prescribes to its followers a self-sacrificing devotion towards their sheikhs or chiefs. The sheikh of this order, who was won over by the adherents of the Reform Party, explained to his two Kurdish followers the true character of the man who occupied the office of the caliphate, and, according to the same report, they both bound themselves by an oath to get rid of him when their turn came to guard his room. Fate was, however, again on the side of Abd-ul-Hamid, and the plot failed in due course.

About the progressive element which has inspired and maintained so obstinate an opposition to the Sultan, much has been heard in England, but little is really known. I will therefore touch upon its history, aims, and present position.

The common name for this element, the 'Young-Turkish Party,' though widely used, is inaccurate, and I do not propose to use it myself in connection with these advocates of the progressive reform. There is no organised body such as could properly be called a 'party,' though on various occasions different societies have been formed by agitators for reform, whose chief aims and aspirations have been identical; namely, to check the Sultanic absolutism, to secure a representative mode of government, and introduce necessary reforms. The growth of the revolutionising element in Turkey cannot be traced to the influence of the French Revolution; it was due to the introduction, for the first time, of English ideas of liberty, and the spread of information about the English system of constitutional government It is perhaps known to few that the first Ottoman reformer was a member of the first Ottoman diplomatic mission to the Court of St James's. Agah Effendi, the first Turkish Ambassador who was accredited in England, some hundred years ago, was accompanied by a young man named Ra-if Mahmud Effendi, who acted as his private secretary. This young secretary remained in England many years and devoted himself to the study of scientific subjects, more especially geography, and afterwards published a translation of an English atlas into Turkish, the first ever prepared in that language. While in England, Mahmud Effendi used to send reports to the Sublime Porte on the forms of administration and system of government in this country. When Sultan Mahmud II. came to the throne, the young diplomatist was invited to Constantinople to assist in the work of reorganising the administration; but during one of the fanatical outbursts which preceded the extermination of the Janissary corps, this first modernised statesman of Turkey was accused of being a man of 'broad views,' and killed in a mÉlÉe. The seeds of reform sown by him, however, were not entirely destroyed; and it was chiefly owing to the work of the later Turkish statesmen, who followed his example in reorganising the system of their country, that the famous Hatt-i Sherif, or first reform charter of the Ottoman empire, was drawn up, and, with the assistance of the friendly Powers, proclaimed.

As I said before, it is not correct to call the Ottoman empire a part of the 'unchanging East'; Turkey has seen many essential changes during the last century, though not always for the better. Shortly after his accession to the throne, the late Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz attempted to disregard the newly established statutes of the empire, and to rule in a most unconstitutional fashion. Instead of following the constitutional methods of the country which had previously contributed to the consolidation of his empire, he adopted the absolutism of the Russian autocracy, and a Palace Party was formed to combat the then growing national liberalism. The young reformers of that period ventured to criticise vehemently the arbitrary conduct of the Sultan and his advisers. But the country was not sufficiently educated to give them support, so their remonstrances were severely punished by the Government. Some of the leaders were imprisoned in different citadels throughout the empire, but others managed to escape to Europe. Some of these fugitives settled in London. It is now more than thirty years since an active movement for reform was started by the 'Young-Turks,' as they were then first styled. The reformers published pamphlets and journals in England, and sent them out to Turkey by means unknown to the Sultan Aziz's officials. Being men of letters of recognised ability, they contributed considerably by their writings to the enlightenment of public opinion in their country, and did a good deal for the cause of education among their countrymen. The effects of their agitation began to be felt by the Palace Party and the corrupt officials of the old school in the Sublime Porte.

About the beginning of the unfortunate reign of the present Sultan, the reformers found so many adherents among the educated classes of the people, as well as in the army, that Abd-ul-Hamid thought it imperative to promise to Midhat Pasha, the chief reformer, that immediately after his coronation he would proclaim constitutional law, and sanction an assembly of the representatives of the various communities of the empire. He did as he said, but he was only waiting for an opportunity of making away with the leaders of the constitutional movement and of re-establishing the personal rule of the sovereign. The war with Russia in 1877 gave him his opportunity; as the Turkish people were suffering from the terrible results of the war, they were not in a position to forestall the evil designs of Yildiz Kiosk, and to make the friends of Turkey in Western Europe understand that the only way of preserving the integrity of the empire was through the formation of a responsible constitutional government. The short-lived Ottoman constitution, which Abd-ul-Hamid destroyed, was therefore the work of the Young-Turkish Party, who aimed at the regeneration of their country by founding a "reasonable representative Government," to quote a phrase of the late Mr Gladstone, and was not merely a ruse on the part of the Sultan whereby "he might throw dust into the eyes of the Western Powers," as the irreconcilable enemies of the Ottoman empire interpreted it Mr Gladstone and his political friends, however, never really sympathised with the attempts to establish such a government in Turkey. The late Duke of Argyll said, in one of his books on Eastern matters, "We in England laughed at their constitution." As a matter of fact, these politicians of England wanted reforms only for the Christian subjects of the empire.

Thus, after the Russo-Turkish war, the country was not able to give material support to the Reform 4 Party,' while, on the other hand, this party received no effective support from the well-wishers of the Ottoman empire in England. The Yildiz junta took full advantage of this, made the constitution a dead letter, got rid of the most powerful and most honest reformers by sending them as governors or mere exiles to distant provinces, and established a bureaucratic authority of the most intolerably oppressive kind, the misrule of which has caused the Ottoman empire irreparable harm. In the hope of preventing the formation of an opposition party, Abd-ul-Hamid began to stir up the old religious and racial hatreds, which were then almost dead, among the various nationalities of the empire, and to crush every sort of industrial energy and collective enterprise of the people. He further threatened private property, more especially of the reform adherents, with confiscation on the slightest excuse. In spite, however, of fiendish and systematic persecution of the reformers and their followers, the Sultan has never succeeded in entirely stamping out the reform movement He was too late in his attempt to suppress education, and the spread of Western learning among the Turkish people has brought about the dissemination of the ideas of Western Europe as to the legitimate liberty of the people and the responsibility of the government; hence, discontent among the more thoughtful of the community has steadily gone on increasing.

About the beginning of the Armenian revolt there was an energetic revival of the reform agitation. The would-be reformers earnestly tried to upset the misrule of the Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid. They wanted a brave Sultan to rule over a brave people; they wanted an honest sovereign, not an intriguer, clever enough when his personal safety is concerned, but otherwise a lunatic, who has shut himself up in his fortified palace for the last six-and-twenty years; they wanted a worthy Caliph, who would impress the Mohammedan world with the fact that as a Mohammedan power Turkey had a respectable position among the civilised powers of Europe; they wanted a responsible Turkish Ministry, not a cosmopolitan clique of adventurers, whose misrule brought the very name of the Turkish nation into contempt. Persecution of some twenty-five thousand Young-Turkish adherents did not prove sufficient to suppress this movement. Therefore the Sultan had to devise further ingenious means for bringing it to naught Many of his spies fled to Europe as though they were Young-Turks, and joined the different Young-Turkish committees; they reported secretly everything they discovered concerning them to the Sultan, and tried to sow discord among the members. As most of the fugitives depended for their livelihood on their resources in Turkey, the Sultan succeeded in driving them into the utmost destitution by cutting off these resources. Meanwhile his emissaries came forward with large sums of money and with promises of appointments in Government offices, to induce the refugees to return to Turkey. Some of them accepted the pecuniary assistance of his benevolent Majesty, and therefore lost the sympathy of the Turkish people. Certain office-seekers and concession-hunters, some of whom were not Turks at all, pretending to be Turkish reformers, published seditious papers in London and elsewhere in order to blackmail the Sultan, and in this way brought shame upon the honour of the Young-Turks.

Thus the Young-Turkish movement is disorganised, but it has not been wholly suppressed. It may reorganise its forces, and continue its campaign against the Yildiz monsters, though in a pacific manner; because an armed uprising against the tyranny of Abd-ul-Hamid by the Turks alone would be represented in Europe as prelude to a 'massacre of the Christians.' Moreover, such a revolution would be a bloody one, for Yildiz Kiosk is guarded by armed men of different races, hostile to one another. Besides, in case of an extreme danger to his person, the Sultan would open the gates of the capital to the forces of the traditional enemy of Turkey, as he has on more than one occasion hinted.