Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844

The form of the Greek government, as a constitutional monarchy, may now be considered as settled. We shall therefore proceed to examine the difficulties, of a social and political nature, which still obstruct the advancement of the nation, and render its prosperity problematical. Some of our statements may appear almost paradoxical to travellers, whose hasty glance at distant countries enables them to come to rather more positive conclusions than those who devote years to study the same subject. We shall, however, strive to expose our facts in such a way as to show that we state the plain truth, nothing but the truth, and, as far as our subject carries us, the whole truth.

That Greece has not hitherto improved, either in her wealth, population,   or civilization, as fast as the energy of her people led her friends to expect would be the case after she was freed from the Turks, is universally admitted. The great bar to improvement exists in an evil rooted in the present frame of social life, but fortunately one which good and just government would gradually remove. In Greece there is no clear and definite idea of the sacred right of property in land. The god Terminus is held in no respect. No Greek, from the highest to the lowest, understands the meaning of that absolute right of property “which,” as Blackstone says, “consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal by every Englishman of all his acquisitions, without control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land.”

The appropriation of Mr Finlay’s land by King Otho, without measurement, valuation, or payment, to make a garden for his palace—the formation of a great road leading to the French minister’s house, by the municipality of Athens, without indemnifying the owners of the land, though a road sufficiently good already existed—and the confiscation of half the estates purchased by foreigners from the Turks by Maurocordatos, when Minister of Finance under the Bavarian Regency, in a ministerial circular deciding on rights of property, are mere trifling examples of the universal spirit. When Maurocordatos wrote his memorable declaration, “that every spot where wild herbs, fit for the pasturage of cattle, grow, is national property, and that the Greek government recognises no individual property in the soil except the exclusive right of cultivation,” he only, in deference to the Bavarian policy of the time, which wished to copy Mohammed Ali’s administration in Egypt, caricatured a misconception of the right of property equally strong in every Greek, whether he be the oppressor or the oppressed. Even the late National Assembly has not thought it necessary to correct any of the invasions of private property by the preceding despotism. Individuals, almost ruined by the plunder of their land, have not even received the offer of an indemnity, though the justice of their claims is not denied.33

The origin of this national obtuseness of mind on a question of interest, is to be found in the system of taxing the land. A Greek really views land somewhat as English labourers view game. The owner of the soil is absolute proprietor only during those months in which he is engaged in the labours of preparing the land and sowing the seed. As soon as the harvest time arrives, he ceases to be master of his estate, and sinks into the condition of a serf of the revenue officer, or of the farmer of the land revenue. It is true, that the government tax only amounts to a tenth of the gross produce of the soil; but, in virtue of this right to a tenth, government assumes the entire direction of all the agricultural operations relating to the crops, and the cultivator’s nine-tenths (for it is really a misnomer to call him proprietor) become a mere adjunct of the government tenth.

Many of our readers, who are unacquainted with Eastern life, may suppose that we colour our picture too strongly. In order, therefore, to divest our statement of all ornament, we shall describe the whole of the events of an agricultural year. Our classic readers will then comprehend practically how the vulture could feast on the perpetually growing heart of Prometheus—why Tantalus tempted the gods by murdering Pelops—and they will see that the calamities of the Theban race are an allegorical representation of the inevitable fate which awaits a people groaning under the system of taxation now in force in Greece.

The tenths in Greece are usually farmed to speculators, and, as the collection is a matter of difficulty, extraordinary powers are conferred on the farmers; hence it happens, that the social position of the cultivators and the farmers is one of constant hostility. If the cultivator has it in his power, he cheats the farmer of the   revenue, and if the farmer is able to do so he cheats the cultivator. The result is, that probably not one individual in the Greek kingdom really pays the exact tenth of the produce of his land. A few of the most active rogues contrive to cheat the farmers of the revenue; but these gentlemen, in virtue of the great powers with which the law invests them, contrive to cheat the greater part of the proprietors. As soon as the grain is ripe, the cultivator is compelled to address himself to the tax-farmer for permission to cut his crop; but as the farmer must keep a very sharp look-out after his interest, he only grants such permissions as accord with the arrangements he may have established for watching the cultivators at the smallest possible expense to himself, making the over-ripeness of the crop of the majority a very secondary consideration. It happens, consequently, that in Greece two-thirds of the grain are not gathered until it is over-ripe, and the loss is consequently very great.

When the grain is cut, it must be carried to a certain number of authorized threshing-floors collected together, in order that the tax farmer may take every possible care to secure his tenth. To these threshing-floors the whole grain of a district must be transported from the fields in the straw, though the straw may be wanted as fodder for cattle at the very spot from which it is taken, and will require to be carried back a very great distance. An immense loss of grain and labour is sustained by this regulation; but it is a glorious season for the donkeys;—long trains of these animals, lively under their heavy loads of sheaves, may be seen galloping one after the other, each endeavouring to seize a mouthful from his neighbour. The roads are strewed with grain and the broken-hearted cultivators follow, cursing man and beast.

The grain is at last collected in immense stacks round the threshing-floors—a cultivator perched on the top of each stack, defending it from the attacks of man and beast; and a tax-gatherer, seated with his pipe cross-legged in the middle of the circle, is watching the manœuvres of the cultivators. No person who has not examined the subject with attention can imagine the scenes of fraud and violence which a Greek harvest produces. The grain is usually kept piled round the threshing-floors under various pretexts, for at least two months, unless the cultivator pay the farmer an additional sum, to facilitate the housing of his crops. Even in the vicinity of Athens, the operations of the wheat and barley harvest generally occupy the exclusive attention of the agricultural population for three months. The grain is trodden out by cattle; and a Greek who bought a winnowing machine at Athens, was not allowed to make use of it, as the farmers of the revenue contended that the introduction of such instruments would facilitate frauds.

The farmers of the tenths likewise increase the evils of this ruinous system, by throwing every difficulty in the way of the cultivators, in order to compel them to consent to pay for each facility they may require. We have known regular contracts entered into with the peasantry, by which they agreed to pay from 3 to 5 per cent more than the legal tenth. We believe no honest man ever paid less than from 12 to 13 per cent on his crop, even in the neighbourhood of the capital. It may be supposed that some redress can be obtained, in cases of gross oppression, by applying to the courts of law; but this is not the case. A special tribunal, consisting of administrative officers of the Crown, and municipal authorities, and from which lawyers have been always carefully excluded, is appointed to judge summarily all cases relating to the tenths. The infamous conduct of these administrative tribunals excited general discontent, and an article has been inserted in the constitution abolishing them, and sending all the pending cases to the ordinary courts of law. Government, however, defended them to the last, and even pressed for decisions down to the very hour in which King Otho took his oath to the constitution. There is here, however, some ground for consolation; for it is clear that the Greek ministers fear the ordinary administration of justice as being above their control.

It is needless to say, that under such laws the improvement of agriculture in Greece is impossible. No   green crops can be grown with profit at any distance from a large town. The tenth of garden produce and green crops being generally valued and paid for in money, the disputes concerning the valuation, and the impossibility of obtaining any redress, in case of injustice, have induced the cultivators to give up such cultivation. We have known proprietors pay half the value of a crop of potatoes as the value of the tenth; and in one case, on our asking the farmer of the tenths, who after all was not a bad fellow at heart, though he wished to make his farming of the revenues turn out a good speculation in his hands, what he would recommend a proprietor to do in order not to lose money by cultivating potatoes; he looked grave, and after a few moments’ thought, candidly replied—“Never to plant them as long as the present law remains in force!” Vineyards which have been planted with care, and cultivated for eight years, have been lately abandoned, as the high valuation of their produce renders them unprofitable. The only agriculture which can be pursued in Greece without loss, is that in which only the simplest and rudest methods of cultivation are followed. The land only yields a rent when it is in the immediate vicinity of a large market, or when it is of the richest quality; the employment of capital in improvements only opens new channels for the extortions of the farmers of the revenue. No money can be safely invested on mortgage in such a country, and no loans by the Three Allied powers to the Government, no national bank, no manufactory of beet-root sugar, no model farms, and no schools of agriculture can introduce prosperity into a country taxed in such a manner.

We do not intend to discuss any plan for ameliorating the condition of the Greeks; but we can easily point out what it is necessary for them to do before they can, by any possibility, better their condition. The system of selling the tenths must be abolished; for a government so inefficient as to be unable to collect them by its own officers, is incompetent to perform the functions for which it was created, and ought to be destroyed. The owners of the land must be rendered the real masters of their property. They must be allowed to reap their crops when they are ripe, and to thresh their grain when and where they please. Until this is the case, we can assure the Three Protecting Powers, they count without the people if they suppose that they have established a permanent monarchy in Greece. We do not hesitate to say that the royal dignity, even with the support of England and France, is not worth ten years’ purchase until this is accomplished.

Every traveller who visits Greece declaims against the number of coffee-houses throughout the country, and the hosts of idle people with which they are filled. But nothing else can be expected in a country where the system of agriculture keeps the cultivators idle for three months annually, and deprives the proprietor of all profit from his land. Under such circumstances the demand for labour becomes extremely irregular. Many of the lower classes turn brigands and plunder their neighbours; the educated and higher classes turn government employés and plunder the country. This evil has arrived at an alarming pitch; the Greek army contains almost as many officers as privates; the navy has officers enough to man a fleet twice as large as that which Greece possesses, for she has three admirals, a hundred and fifty captains, and two hundred and seventy commanders. It has been in vain pressed on every successive administration, that a list of the army, navy, and civil employés ought to be published, in order to put an end to the shameful system of jobbing which has always existed. No minister would, however, adopt a principle which would so effectually have put an end to his own arbitrary power of quartering his friends and relations on the public. The loans of the three powers might be doubled to-morrow, and it is evident that, unless all the population of Greece were made pensioners, no surplus would be found to employ for any public improvement.

Indeed the national revenues of the Greek kingdom, as of old those of Athens and Rome, seem to be considered the property of that body of   citizens who pursue no useful occupation, and possess no taxable property; while the unlucky proprietors are viewed as a species of serfs, existing to supply a revenue to the state. This political principle has been exemplified in a decree of the late national assembly, excluding every Greek or foreigner from public employment who happens not to be a born subject of the new kingdom, or who did not take part in the war against the Turks before the end of 1827, and perhaps even more strongly in a very unconstitutional private vote of a committee of the whole house, giving 800 drachmas to each member—this vote being in direct violation of one of the articles of the constitution, which requires that all grants of money should originate from the crown. We do not deny the necessity of allowing the deputies this small grant; many of them were poor, and their conduct had been disinterested; but we are bound to complain of the slightest infraction of constitutional principles by those who frame a constitution.

The length of this article compels us to leave a few observations we desire to make on the municipal government of the Greeks, and on the state of education, and of their judicial and ecclesiastical affairs, to another opportunity. The late debates in the House of Commons, and the able statement which Sir Robert Peel gave of the principles of our policy with regard to Greece, render it unnecessary for us to say one word on that subject. We can assure our readers that the policy of our present ministers has been applauded by every party in Greece, except the Philorthodox; and they, as they could find no fault, remained silent. We believe that no two governments ever acted more disinterestedly to a third than Great Britain end France have lately done to Greece, and that no ministers ever acted more fairly, in any international question, than Lord Aberdeen and M. Guizot have done on the subject of the Greek revolution; but for this very reason we feel inclined to warn our countrymen against the leaven of old principles, which still exists in the palace at Athens. Let us judge of the new government of Greece by its acts, and let Great Britain and France remember that they are not looked on without some suspicion.

Ἔνεστι γάρ πως τοῦτο τῇ τυραννίδιΝόσημα τοῖς φίλοισι μὴ πεποιθέναι.END OF VOL. LV

1

Midsummer Night’s Dream.

2

Dolmen; literally, stone table. Remarkable structures, learnedly ascribed to the Druids; unlearnedly, to the dwarfs and fairies; and numerous throughout Western Britanny. One or more large and massive flat stones, overlaying great slabs planted edgeways in the ground, form a rude and sometimes very capacious chamber, or grotto. The superstition which cleaves to these relics of a forgotten antiquity, stamps itself in the names given to many of them by the peasantry:—Grotte aux fées, Roche aux fées, &c.

3

Weirds. The French has—Lots. “Elles jettent des sorts.” For justifying the translation, see the fine old Scottish ballad of Kempion; or Kemp Owayne, at the beginning:—

“Come here, come here, ye freely fede, (i. e. nobly born,)And lay your head low on my knee,A heavier weird I shall ye readThan ever was read to gay ladye.“I weird ye to a fiery beast:And released shall ye never be,Till Kempion the kinges sonCome to the crag and thrice kiss thee!”

4

From the preface to the exceedingly interesting collection by M. Th. de la Villemarqué, of the transmitted songs that are current amongst his Bas Breton countrymen.

5

Essay on The Fairies of Popular Superstition, in “The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.”

6

Deutsche Mythologie, von Jacob Grimm. Chap. xiii. Ed. 1. 1835, and xvii. Ed. 2. 1843.

7

“Ces génies femelles.”

8

From Walckenaer’s Dissertation on the Origin of the Fairy Belief; last printed, in an abridged form, by Jacob, in his edition of the Contes des Fées, par Perrault, (Paris, 1842.)

9

“Paradise and grovesElysian, fortunate fields—like those of oldSought in the Atlantic main, why should they beA history only of departed things,Or a mere fiction of what never was?For the discerning Intellect of man,When wedded to this goodly UniverseIn love and holy passion, shall find theseA simple produce of the common day.I long before the blissful hour arrivesWould chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verseOf this great consummation.”Wordsworth. Preface to the Excursion.

10

Sagen und Mahrchen aus der Oberlausitz. Nacherzahlt von Ernst Willkomm, Hanover, 1843.

11

Irische Elfenmarchen: Uebersetzt von den Brüdern Grimm. Leipzig, 1826. Introduction.

12

Deutsche Sagen: Herausgegeben von den Brüdern Grimm. Berlin, 1816 and 1818.

13

Grimm’s German Mythology, p. 544.

14

“–his lookDrew audience and attention, still as nightOr Summer’s noontide air.”—Paradise Lost. Book II.

15

The fairies themselves hardly can have imparted to godmother Helen the two irreconcilable derivations of their order: that they were Jews, and that they were fallen angels. But the poet dramatically joins, upon the mother’s lip, the two current traditions. With her, fallen angel and Jew are synonymous, as being both opposed to the faith of the cross.

16

Who is this unknown Olim? Our old friend perchance, the Latin adverb, “Olim,” of yore—gradually slipped from the mouths of scholars into the people’s, and risen in dignity as it descended.

17

Sic.

18

October 11, 1492.—“As the evening darkened, Columbus took his station on the top of the castle or cabin, on the high poop of his vessel. However he might carry a cheerful and confident countenance during the day, it was to him a time of the most painful anxiety; and now, when he was wrapped from observation by the shades of night, he maintained an intense and unremitting watch, ranging his eye along the dusky horizon in search of the most vague indications of land. Suddenly, about ten o’clock, he thought he beheld a light glimmering at a distance. Fearing that his eager hopes might deceive him, he called to Pedro Gutierrez, gentleman of the king’s bedchamber, and enquired whether he saw a light in that direction; the latter replied in the affirmative. Columbus, yet doubtful whether it might not be some delusion of the fancy, called Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, and made the same enquiry. By the time the latter had ascended the roundhouse, the light had disappeared. They saw it once or twice afterwards in sudden and passing gleams, as if it were a torch in the bark of a fisherman rising and sinking with the waves, or in the hand of some person on shore, borne up and down as he walked from house to house. So transient and uncertain were these gleams, that few attached any importance to them; Columbus, however, considered them as certain signs of land, and, moreover, that the land was inhabited.”—Irving’s Columbus, vol. i.

19

“It was on Friday, the 3d of August 1492, early in the morning, that Columbus set sail on his first voyage of discovery. He departed from the bar of Saltes, a small island in front of the town of Huelva, steering in a south-westerly direction,” &c.—Irving. He was about fifty-seven years old the year of the Discovery.

20

“On the 13th September, in the evening, being about two hundred leagues from the island of Ferro, he, for the first time, noticed the variation of the needle, a phenomenon which had never before been remarked. Struck with the circumstance, he observed it attentively for three days, and found that the variation increased as he advanced. It soon attracted the attention of the pilots, and filled them with consternation. It seemed as if the very laws of nature were changing as they advanced, and that they were entering another world subject to unknown influences.”—Ibid.

21

“They all quit together; and fly for a time east or west, possibly in wait for stragglers not yet arrived from the interior—they then take directly to the south, and are soon lost sight of altogether for the allotted period of their absence. Their rapidity of flight is well known, and the ‘murder-aiming eye’ of the most experienced sportsman will seldom avail against the swallow; hence they themselves seldom fall a prey to the raptorial birds.”—Cuvier, edited by Griffiths. Swallows are long-lived; they have been known to live a number of years in cages.

22

In the fanciful language of Chateaubriand, “This daughter of a king (the swallow) still seems attached to grandeur; she passes the summer amid the ruins of Versailles, and the winter among those of Thebes.”

23

“However difficult to be credited, it seems to be ascertained beyond doubt, that the same pair which quitted their nest and the limited circle of their residence here, return to the very same nest again, and this for several successive years; in all probability for their whole lives”—Griffiths’ Cuvier.

24

So in Don Quixote the friars are described “Estando en estas razones, aslomaron por el camino dos Frayles de la Orden de san Benito, Cavalleros sobre dos Dromedarios, que no eran mas pequneas dos mulas en que venian.”

25

It occurs, however, in Madame de Sevigné’s letters. But that most charming of letter-writers understood Spanish, which Anne of Austria had probably made a fashionable accomplishment at the court of France. The intrigue for which Vardes was exiled, shows, that to write in Spanish was an attainment common among the courtiers of Louis XIV.

26

We call ourselves a practical people! A man incurred, a few months ago, an expense of £70, for saying that he was “ready,” instead of saying that he was “ready and willing” to do a certain act. The man’s name was Granger. Another unfortunate creature incurred costs to the amount of £3000, by one of the most ordinary proceedings in our courts, called a motion, of course, and usually settled for a guinea. A clergyman libelled two of his parishioners in a Bishop’s Court. The matter never came to be heard, and the expense of the written proceedings was upwards of £800! Can any system be more abominable than one which leads to such results?

27

The par, which indicates the double or equal summit, is only found in Latin, though unquestionably Æolic; the other two derivations are classic Greek. Parnes, Parnettus, Parnassus. The name of the two mountains is precisely the same.

28

This bend is represented in a map constructed in Paris, and said to be from information obtained in a second voyage; but no such bend is indicated in the journal of the original voyage by Captain Selim.