4
Midhat’s reign at Damascus lasted for twenty months, and is remarkable only for the intrigues in which it was spent. It began with an action d’éclat, the subjugation of the independent Druses of the Hauran, a prosperous and unoffending community whom Midhat with the help of the Welled Ali reduced to ruin. The rest of his time and resources were spent in an attempt to gain for himself the rank and title of khedive, a scheme which ended in his recall. Of improvements, material or administrative, nothing at all has been heard, but it is worth recording that a series of fires during his term of office burnt down great part of the bazaars at Damascus, causing much loss of property, and that their place has been taken by a boulevard. Midhat has been now removed to Smyrna, where it is amusing to read the following account of him: —
Midhat Pasha – September 28: – ‘A private correspondent of the Journal de Genève, writing ten days ago from Smyrna, says that Midhat Pasha, being convinced that he possessed the sympathy of the inhabitants and could count on their active co-operation, conceived a short time since vast schemes of improvement and reform for the benefit of the province which he has been called upon to administer. The first works he proposed to take in hand were the drainage of the great marshes of Halka-Bournar (the Baths of Diana of the ancients), the cleansing of the sewers of Smyrna, and the removal of the filth which cumbers the streets, pollutes the air, and, as an eminent physician has told him, impairs the health of the city and threatens at no distant date to breed a pestilence. He next proposed, at the instance of a clever engineer Effendi, to repress the ravages of the river Hermus, which in winter overflows its banks and does immense damage in the plain of Menemen. Orders were given for the execution of engineering works on a great scale which, it was thought, would correct this evil and restore to agriculture a vast extent of fertile, albeit at present unproductive, land. Administrative reform was to be also seriously undertaken. The police were to be re-organized, and order and honesty enforced in the courts of justice. The scandal of gendarmes being constrained, owing to the insufficiency of their pay, to enter into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with all the thieves and cut-throats of the city – the disgrace of judges receiving bribes from rogues and other evil-doers – were to be promptly put down. It was ordered that every caïmacan, mudir, chief of police, and president of tribunal, guilty either of malfeasance or robbery, should be arrested and imprisoned. The municipalities were to cease being the mere mouthpieces of the valis, and consider solely the interests of their constituencies. The accounts of functionaries who, with nominal salaries of 800 francs a year, spend 10,000, were to be strictly investigated and their malversations severely punished; and many other measures, equally praiseworthy and desirable, were either projected or begun. But energy and goodwill in a reformer – whether he be a Midhat or a Hamid – are, unfortunately, not alone sufficient to accomplish reforms. To drain marshes, embank rivers, cleanse sewers, remove filth, pay magistrates and policemen, procure honest collectors of revenue, much money is necessary. How was it to be obtained? Not from the revenues of the port or the province; these are sent regularly, to the last centime, to Constantinople, for the needs of the Government are urgent and admit of no delay. Midhat Pasha, not knowing which way to turn, called a medjeless (council), but the members were able neither to suggest a solution of the difficulty nor to find any money. In this emergency it occurred to the Governor that there existed at Smyrna a branch of the Ottoman Bank, at the door of which are always stationed two superb nizams in gorgeous uniforms, who give it the appearance of a Government establishment. Why should not the bank provide the needful? The idea commended itself to the Pasha, and the manager was requested to call forthwith at the Konak on urgent public business. When he arrived there Midhat unfolded to him his plans of reform, and proved, with the eloquence of a new convert, that the public works he had in view could not fail to be an unspeakable benefit to the province and restore its waning prosperity. Never, he assured the wondering manager, could the bank have a finer opportunity of making a splendid investment than this of lending the Government a few million francs, to be strictly devoted to the purposes he had explained. The projected schemes, moreover, were to be so immediately profitable that the bank might reckon with the most implicit confidence on receiving back, in the course of a few years, both interest and principal. Unfortunately, however, all these arguments were lost on M. Heintze, the manager; and he had to explain to the Pasha that, although he, personally, would have been delighted to advance him the millions he required, his instructions allowed him no discretion. He was there to do ordinary banking business, and collect certain revenues which had been assigned to the bank by way of security; but he had been strictly enjoined to make no loans whatever, however promising and profitable they might appear. And this was the end of Midhat Pasha’s great schemes of public improvement and administrative reform. In these circumstances it would be the height of injustice to accuse him of not having kept the promises which he made on entering office; for nobody, not even a Turkish Governor-General, can be expected to achieve impossibilities.
