Слике страница
PDF
ePub

Oriental solution of the difficulty. "Right," I cried, "go quickly to the custom-house and tell the Director "that I wish to see his two telegrams." Shortly afterwards that official arrived, and very politely requested Besbes to read and to translate them for me. When he had fiinished I asked "Have you any orders to prohibit the Russian consul from exporting antiquities?" He thought for a moment, and declared that they were clearly for the American consul only, and admitted that he could not refuse to give me the permission, should I ask for it in the usual official manner as consul for Russia. Fifteen minutes after this I had the order in my hand, and all the facchini of Larnaca at work rapidly removing the cases to the lighters. Five hours afterwards all my cases were on board; the schooner, now laden to the water's edge, left for Alexandria, where they were to be reshipped for London.'-Cyprus, pp. 146–7.

No adequate idea can be formed of the natural resources of Cyprus from its actual condition when handed over to Sir Garnet Wolseley. The system of Turkish taxation was ingeniously oppressive and admirably calculated to crush all enterprise. Under the Ptolemies it sustained a million inhabitants, and could easily do so again. Mr. Lang enumerates grain, wine, seeds, locust beans, cotton, madder, tobacco, silk, and salt, as its most important products, and all these admit of immense development. Not one-tenth of the land is cultivated, and even that very imperfectly. The production of its wines, a growth the parent of and similar to Madeira, might be increased fiftyfold. The copper mines are, there is every reason to believe, far from being exhausted, and under scientific treatment may be expected to be very lucrative. Little is wanted beyond the protection of an enlightened government to restore again its former prosperity. It must not, however, be expected that the effects of centuries of misrule can be effaced in a day. The force of ignorance and prejudice which led General Cesnola's excavators to refuse to use a spade or a wheelbarrow will only gradually be overThe persistency of habit which to-day clothes the Greek peasantry in the headgear, and equips the watercarrier after the fashion of Phoenician times, will only gradually bend before the introduction of new customs. Happily the people are of gentle disposition, very easily governed, and singularly honest. Mr. Lang records

come.

'During the Abyssinian war, I purchased for the British Government, in the course of a month, over 2,000 mules in all parts, even the most remote, of the island. The money went in English sovereigns into the interior by native hands before the animals came forward, but not a pound went astray, nor did one of the many agents to whom the purchases were entrusted defraud me of a farthing.'

A yet more striking tribute to the character of the Cypriotes is borne by Mr. Lang's account of their patient endurance of intense suffering. Liability to prolonged seasons of drought and to ravages of locusts are the chief disadvantages to which the island is liable, and the latter plague may be, as experience has proved, very largely lessened by energetic measures. To obviate the frequent recurrence of droughts and to mitigate their consequences will be a harder task, but one not beyond the powers of an intelligent government. Much may be done in this direction by encouraging the planting of trees and the construction of reservoirs. Yet so serious have been the injuries inflicted by these two causes that Mr. Lang asserts

'The wonder is, not that the Cyprian peasant is at the lowest ebb of prosperity, but that the island is not one vast desolate waste. And if it is not, we owe it to the patience under suffering and the almost superstitious submission to a Divine will which are remarkable characteristics of the Cypriote character. During the summer of 1870, a large portion of the peasants lived chiefly upon roots of all kinds which they dug up in the fields. It was sad to see the long lines of these poor people arriving daily at the market places with their trinkets and copper household vessels for sale, in order to carry back with them a little flour for their famishing families. And yet there was no bitterness in their heart, no cursing of their sad fate. The exclamation which you heard from every man during these weary months of hardship was no other than—" O Theos mas lipithee," May God have compassion on us! Never did I feel touched by, and never do I expect to join in, such a refrain of joy as when one morning, about 2 o'clock, the first blessed drops of rain fell which had been seen during twelve months; and when they increased to a torrential shower, men, women, and children, with torches in the dark of night, repaired to the mouth of the watershed to clear away every impediment which might delay the water in reaching their parched fields. It was a strange and touching sight. There was no drunken revelling, but the childlike gratitude in every heart was at every moment heard in the passionate "Doxa se O Theos !" The Lord be praised!"

Much discussion has been raised about the climate, in consequence of the sickness prevalent amongst our troops soon after their landing; but the concurrent testimony to the healthiness of Cyprus is conclusive. Exposure to excessive heat should be carefully avoided, and temperance is essential. The natives are singularly abstemious and observe the numerous fasts of the Greek Church most scrupulously. The extreme dryness of the climate, which admits of living in the open air from June to September, cannot fail to be healthy, if

24

only ordinary sanitary rules are not disregarded, a matter in which Orientals are sadly at fault. During these months the peasantry often encamp out of doors beneath the trees, whose branches serve for clothes-press, larder, and pantry. With such habits sickness is rare, and the people attain to a hearty old age. Fruit of every kind and of the finest quality is produced, and it excites envious feelings to read of orchards strewn with magnificent oranges left to rot upon the ground, because they were not worth the cost of gathering and conveying to the coast, the trees themselves being only cultivated for their blossoms, from which exquisite orange-flower water is distilled. The flora of the island is most varied and abundant, and has been famed from classic days, when its scarlet lychnis was in great request for garlands. A modern traveller, Herr Löher, describes them as meeting the eye in every direction. On the sea-shore at Larnaca every step was carpeted with tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths; whilst palms and masses of the Indian cactus overhung the path. In Nicosia, the capital, a town of gardens and fountains, as you pass down the street the blossoms of pear and apple are mingled in the gardens on either side with rosemary and figs, whilst orange, lemon, and mulberry trees line the streets. On passing through the valley that leads to Mount Olympus, oak and olive, myrtle and laurel abounded, and thousands of white lilies lined each side of the road.

We cannot now touch upon the many other topics of interest over which we are tempted to linger. We are constrained to omit all account of the towns of modern Cyprus, or the mode of travelling so picturesquely described by Mr. Lang and General Cesnola, and which is destined doubtless soon to disappear with the introduction of British capital and the erection of hotels. We must send our readers to Cesnola's own pages to learn about the magnificent gold treasures discovered at Curium, and there to lament over the mischance which deprived this country of a collection, placed by its discoverer at our disposal, and destined to become of special interest to us. The contact of our Church again with that of the Greek communion presents another subject of farreaching interest and importance, which the limit of our space obliges us to pass by.. All thoughtful men will feel that a great opportunity and corresponding responsibilities are now laid at our doors. When regarded fairly and broadly, British empire in the East, despite its many failings and shortcomings, has been a source of immense blessing to the people brought beneath its sway. We trust that the expe

rience gained in other fields will enable us to bring renewed prosperity to the Cypriotes, and to do our duty honestly to those whose destinies have so strangely and so suddenly been placed under our rule.

ART. VIII. THE LANCASHIRE COTTON STRIKE.

1. The Practical Manufacturer and Journal of the Manchester Museum of Trade Patterns. No. 1. Vol. I. May 1878. (Published at 6, Union Street, Manchester.)

2. Cotton; its Growth, Manufacture, and Commerce: the Journal of the Cotton Trade and its Allied and Auxiliary Industries, from October 1877 to July 1878, both inclusive. (Manchester and London.)

3. The Contemporaneous Issues of the Manchester Guardian and Blackburn Standard during April, May, and June 1878.

[ocr errors]

MEASURED by its social consequences and tested by the animus which attended it, the great Lancashire 'strike' of 1878 must be chronicled alike as a crime and a blunder. The extent to which it unhinged society in the great cluster of towns which reach from the central to south-western and southeastern Lancashire, is hardly conceivable to outsiders. Ninetenths of the population straitened for food, taxing public and private local resources' to keep the wolf from the door,'-nay, reaching their hungry clutches far and wide into the basket and the store' of other industrial associations; beggars swarming in the streets; all the hungry ne'er-do-well's of each populous township finding a 'good cry' and making the utmost of their new pretence of vagrancy; mendicity and mendacity partners in a thriving trade the only trade left; the vacuum which nature abhors manifested at once in the visage, the stomach, the pocket, the till; military repression grappling with civil discord; the public character of a peaceful, law-abiding population thrown away; the wild beast of human nature at its worst, unchained and rampant in riot, wrecking, street fights, and incendiarism: all this is the burden of our story. Taking the mischief only which can be measured in money-a very small portion probably of the

whole-there must be in wages unearned and property destroyed a blank somewhere of half a million in the revenue of the county of Lancaster, and a gap of a quarter of a million at least in its capital. Altogether, its people might as well have sunk some three-fourths of a million in the Irish Sea.

Of the waste of resources attendant upon the struggle one sure index may be found in the increased burden thereby cast upon the rates. We will take the single area of the Preston Union for the week ending Saturday, June 22. The Guardians' minutes show that there were then 1816 persons receiving relief at a cost of 131l. 2s. 11d., whereas in the corresponding week of last year there were only 481 at a cost of 417. 4s., or that for that week the labour stoppage was inflicting a burden of more than threefold severity on the ratepayers. Again, in the Blackburn Union, for the week ending May 25, when the course of the strike was about midway run, we find 3,481 persons relieved at a cost of 214%. 17s. 5d., whereas in the corresponding week of last year there were only 1,864 persons relieved at a cost of 1354. 5s. 10d. It is added, moreover, that of these recipients of relief at Blackburn and the neighbourhood this year 747 were able-bodied, last year only 249. In this case the burden thrown upon the rates was not quite doubled, but the number of able-bodied paupers was increased threefold. It is natural that the pressure should increase towards the end of the period of suspended wageearning; and if we take the doubled burden as representing the average for the nine weeks of the strike throughout the whole district affected, we shall probably be not far from the truth. But the increased poor's rate is one element only of the case. The funds of the various organizations which benefit industrial life have been probably almost entirely absorbed, and show now a blank or a deficit to meet the claims arising in the case of old age, sickness, accident, or death. Then, again, we have to add to the reckoning the heavy losses which, simply by the stoppage of their usual sources of revenue, must have fallen on the capitalists. The fact of capital remaining without usufruct, the fixed charges which must run on with hardly diminished pressure, whether the mill works or stops, and the voluntary contributions made by many of the employers to relieve from starvation the very hands who were refusing to work their mills, will together mount up to a formidable total of sacrifice, the ultimate damage of which must fall upon all the branches of industry which the capital so absorbed or neutralized should feed. Nor are the expenses incident to the military occupation of several

« ПретходнаНастави »