the Powers in order to assist the Prince of Montenegro to take forcible possession of the district of Dulcigno. On August 19 the Porte replied that it would consent "in principle" to the cession of Dulcigno, provided that the line of frontier east of Lake Scutari should be that indicated by the Berlin Treaty; but, in order that the cession should take place without shock or difficulty, it asked for a prolongation by some weeks of the limit of twenty-one days fixed by the Powers. It added that if the Powers should take any steps to assist Montenegro to occupy Dulcigno by force, Turkey would not take any part in such measures.

The resources of diplomacy being now exhausted, the Powers determined, at the invitation of England, to enter upon a policy of moral coercion. Arrangements were made for organising a naval demonstration off the Albanian coast, each Power being represented by ironclads from its fleet, on the understanding, however, that no troops were to be landed; and in order still further to guard against the danger of drifting into war, a protocole de désintéressement was signed by each of the Powers at the instance of the British Government, in which it pledged itself not to seek any territorial acquisitions or any exclusive influence or commercial advantages for its subjects as a consequence of the demonstration. The fleet assembled at Gravosa on September 14, and was placed under the command of Admiral Sir Beauchamp Seymour. Meanwhile, extreme agitation prevailed at Constantinople; alarming rumours were circulated of the arrival in Bulgaria of large numbers of Russian volunteers with the avowed object of conquering Eastern Roumelia; serious disturbances took place in Syria, among the Arab tribes, and in Kurdistan; and seditious proclamations began to be distributed in the capital. The Sultan, becoming more anxious than ever, again sought a remedy for the dangers which were threatening himself and his empire in a change of counsellors. He first dismissed (August 21) Hafiz Pasha, the Minister of Police, who had for some time enjoyed his special favour, owing to the zeal he displayed in discovering real or fancied political conspiracies. Hafiz was one of the three high officials whom Lord Derby had recommended for punishment on account of the prominent part taken by them in the "Bulgarian atrocities;" and the imprisonment of Ahmed Tevfik, which elicited so strong a protest from the Powers at the end of the year 1879, was carried out by his orders. His dismissal, however, was not due to any wish on the part of the Sultan to conciliate Europe, but to Hafiz having threatened to break open the house of a Turkish staff officer in order to take out the officer's relative, a girl twelve years old, whom he considered not sufficiently veiled at the feast of Ramazan. Shortly after (September 12), the Grand Vizier, Kadri Pasha, was succeeded by Saïd, the man described by Sir Henry Layard in one of his despatches as the uncompromising adversary of all reform, the bitter mponent of a policy of conciliation, and the most determined

my of England at the Porte, and who had been dismissed only

three months before under the influence of the terror with which the Sultan was inspired by the mission of Mr. Goschen. At the same time Server Pasha, a well-known advocate of Russia, was appointed President of the Council of State. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs during the Russo-Turkish war, and signed the armistice at its close. On January 28, 1878, he had a conversation with a correspondent of the Daily News at Constantinople, in which he sharply condemned the policy of England, and declared that Turkey's only chance of regeneration lay in an intimate alliance with Russia. He was dismissed three weeks after, and his disgrace was at the time generally attributed to English influence having been used against him in consequence of the above conversation. Finally, Abeddin Pasha was succeeded in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Assim Pasha, a rising Turkish diplomatist, who had held the office of President of the International Commission for Eastern Roumelia.

A Ministry thus composed was not likely to adopt a policy of conciliation. The first note of defiance was sounded on September 17, when a circular was issued by the Porte to its representatives abroad on the naval demonstration. After recapitulating the difficulties which had arisen in carrying out the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin relative to the Montenegrin frontier, the circular stated that the last proposal of the Powers, demanding the surrender of the district of Dulcigno to Montenegro, was strongly objected to by the Mahomedan inhabitants of that district, but that the Porte, wishing to settle the Montenegrin question as soon as possible, had despatched to that district several battalions of troops and considerable sums of money to facilitate the establishment of those of the inhabitants who desired to emigrate to other parts of the empire, and to persuade the remainder to "resign themselves to the decrees of destiny." Notwithstanding this, the six Powers had proposed to the Porte to join them in taking Dulcigno by force from the possession of its inhabitants, and handing it over to Montenegro. This was, in the words of the circular, "an illegality, from the double point of view of religion and policy." The Porte accordingly demanded, "in order to reassure the public mind, and complete and accelerate its acts in the presence of grave eventualities," that the project of a naval demonstration should be abandoned, that guarantees should be given for the security of the inhabitants of Dulcigno, and for their not being disturbed in the practice of their religion, and that the positions of Dinosch and Gruda, to the east of the Lake of Scutari, which had been strongly fortified and garrisoned by the Albanians, should be retained by them. If, the circular concluded, these conditions should not be accepted, the result would be "a crowd of grave and unfortunate events;" the cries of despair of the population would extend the agitation to the European and Asiatic provinces of the empire, and the responsibility for this state of things would fall, not upon the Porte, but upon the Powers.

was signed. A Collective Note to the Emperor of Morocco was moreover signed by all the European representatives, couched in strong language, impressing upon his Majesty the necessity of respecting the liberty of conscience of his Hebrew and Christian subjects, and of enforcing toleration on his Mussulman subjects.

Some disturbances took place in Arragon in the early part of the summer in consequence of the dilatory proceedings of the Government in sanctioning a new line of railroad through the Central Pyrenees. The project, which was to connect Lanfranc and Laragoza, was opposed on strategic and advocated on commercial grounds, and the Arragonese, sympathising rather with the latter, expressed its views by riotous meetings. The Council, however, maintained its attitude of indecision, and referred the project back to a Committee of Inquiry.

The arrival of large numbers of Jesuits from France attracted far less notice than the date of the decree (July 16) authorising them to settle in various parts of the kingdom, which coincided with the anniversary of the massacre of the Spanish Jesuits in 1839.

Complaints of distress were prevalent during the winter; and, in a speech in the Congress in April, Señor Candau made a statement to the effect that 173,000 landed properties were under fiscal embargo for nonpayment of taxes. This, in a great measure, was probably owing to the vicious and arbitrary system of valuing lands at three different rates, according to the zones in which they were situate, and not according to their real value.

In connection with this wide-spread distress the greatly increased tide of emigration to both Algiers and America attracted momentary attention, but nothing in the shape of official or Parliamentary inquiry into its causes and extent was attempted. During the autumn the press found more congenial occupation in raising questions about the conduct of the Gibraltar garrison, whose sentries were accused of extending the area of their authority, whilst the cannons of the fortress were said to be so placed as to threaten Algeciras.

II. PORTUGAL.

The Cortes, as usual, were opened on January 2; and, from the Speech from the Throne, it was obvious that fiscal questions would form the principal subjects of debate during the Session. On January 14 the Minister of Finance presented his Budget, showing a deficit of about £1,100,000, together with a batch of twenty bills to meet the emergency, abolishing or modifying sundry fiscal services, and creating new sources of revenue. The estimates were warmly criticised by the Opposition press, and the new measures proposed were generally ill received, especially the

measures it was possible for it to take with reference to the questions above specified." With regard to the Montenegrin and Greek questions, the despatch repeated the conditions already laid down in the note of September 17 as to the surrender of Dulcigno, and the objections urged in the note of July 26 to the frontier assigned to Greece by the Conference, at the same time proposing a new frontier leaving Janina, Larissa, Tchamouri, and Metzovo in the possession of Turkey. As to the proposed reforms in Armenia, a reorganisation of the gendarmerie and the tribunals was promised for the provinces of Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, and Diarbekir, with regulations for the appropriation of their revenues. A new organisation for the provinces of European Turkey, so as to guarantee the repose and security of all classes of the population, and to ensure the full and entire sovereignty of the Porte, was also promised for the provinces of European Turkey which did not already possess a special organisation of their own. For the settlement of the financial question delegates of the Turkish bondholders were to be invited to Constantinople to come to an agreement with the Turkish Government, "without any interference on the part of the Powers," as to the service of the Turkish debt and the mode of providing for the Turkish indemnity. This agreement was to be arrived at on the principle that a bank appointed by the bondholders should be charged with the administration of the indirect taxes, and the application of the revenues arising from those taxes, from Eastern Roumelia and Cyprus, and from the tribute of Bulgaria, to payments in discharge of the public debt, the floating debt, and the Russian indemnity; but it was expressly stipulated that the Porte should "reserve the right to control the revenues in question." Finally, the despatch stated that these concessions were to be made "on the condition that the Powers will entirely abandon and forego their design of a naval demonstration ;" and it added that "the Ottoman Government, taking in turn its stand upon the Treaty of Berlin, claims the rights reverting to it in relation to the demolition of the Danubian fortresses and the occupation of the Balkans by Ottoman troops."

It will be observed that the leading idea of this bold manifesto was that the sovereignty of the Porte was at all risks to be maintained. In view of the many humiliations which had been inflicted on his Empire, and the dangers which threatened it on all sides, the Sultan felt that the only way to preserve it from dissolution was to assert his sovereignty both at home and abroad. Nothing could be more calculated to shake his authority than the naval demonstration; and this, therefore, must at all risks be averted. Any coercion of his own subjects to make them accept the rule of a foreign State would be clearly incompatible with his sovereignty; and he accordingly persisted in his refusal to take any such step. All internal reforms, too, were to be so carried out as "to ensure the full and entire sovereignty of the Porte;" there

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action among the scattered mountain tribes, a League Committee was formed in each of the principal towns, each committee being the head of the League within the limits of its own district. The first step taken by the League was to form armed bands in the Gussinye and Plava districts, to prevent the Montenegrins from taking possession of them in pursuance of the Treaty of Berlin. Several battles took place, in which the Montenegrins were defeated; and they then gave up the attempt. The hope that the Christian Albanians would be more tractable than the Mahomedans also proved fallacious. When, under the "Corti compromise," the Christian territory of Podgoritza, inhabited by the tribe of the Hotti, was offered to Montenegro, the League became more formidable than ever, for the Roman Catholics fraternised with the Mahomedans, the feuds between the different clans were laid aside, and the Albanian bands ranged along the Montenegrin frontier to protect their territory, consisted of representatives from all sections of the Albanian race. The League now extended its operations over the whole country, enlisting recruits, levying taxes, and protesting to the Powers in the name of the Albanian nation against any cession of its territory either to Montenegro or to Greece.

The Albanian difficulty, however, formidable as it was (and it must be admitted that the tacit encouragement given by the Turkish authorities to the League had greatly contributed to its power), was only one out of many motives which contributed to the hesitation of the Porte to yield to the demands of the Powers. The Sultan, who was constantly haunted with the dread of assassination, felt that the voluntary cession to Christian States of provinces in which a large proportion of the people are Mahomedans would arouse a storm of indignation in the Mahomedan world which might endanger his life; but besides this personal consideration there were political ones which also powerfully impressed his Ministers and the Turkish people generally. It was a common subject of complaint at Constantinople and the other large Turkish towns, that while Turkey had been strictly held to the letter of her engagements under the Treaty of Berlin, nothing whatever had been done by the Powers to carry out the provisions in the treaty the tendency of which was to benefit Turkey or uphold the authority of the Sultan. The right of the Sultan to occupy the land and sea frontiers of Eastern Roumelia remained a dead letter; the Bulgarian fortresses, which under the treaty were to be destroyed, still remained erect; the tribute due from Bulgaria had not been paid; and the despoiled and exiled Mussulmans of Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia had not yet been reinstated in their homes. This produced an impression that Turkey no longer had any friends among the great Powers, and that every concession would only be followed by fresh demands. The unionist agitation among the Bulgarians, for instance, was believed to have the sympathies of at least one great European Power, and after Turkey had