8. The civil government was organized, and royal governors appointed in
all the provinces, who maintain a direct correspondence with the minister
of the interior.
9. A very respectable judicial administration was formed, and codes of
civil and criminal procedure published.
10. The Greek Church was organized on a footing which rendered it
independent of the patriarch at Constantinople without causing a schism.
This is unquestionably the ablest act of Mr Maurer's administration, and
it drew on him the whole hatred of Russia.
11. The communal and municipal system of Greece, the seat of the vitality
of the Greek nation, was adopted as the foundation of the social edifice
in the monarchy. It is true some injudicious Bavarian modifications were
made; but time will soon consign to oblivion these delusions of Teutonic
intellect.
12. The liberty of the press was admitted to be an inherent right of Greek
citizens.
The five last-mentioned measures are entirely due to the liberal spirit
and sound legal knowledge of Mr Maurer, who, if he had been restrained
from meddling with diplomacy, and quarreling with the English and Russian
ministers at Nauplia, would have been universally regarded as a most
useful minister. But all the practical good Greece has derived from the
Bavarians, is confined to a few of his acts.
The accession of Count Armansperg to power, opened a new scene. A certain
number of Greeks were then admitted to high and lucrative employments, on
condition that they would support the Bavarian system, and declare that
their country was not yet fit for the enjoyment of constitutional liberty.
The partizans of Mr Maurer were dismissed and sent back to Bavaria: a few
good bribes were given to newspaper editors and noisy democrats; but the
Bavarians were kept in the possession of the richest part of the spoil.
Accordingly, the cry of the Greeks against Bavarian influence and Bavarian
rapacity never ceased. Rudhart's government was a continuation of that of
Armansperg, only with the difference that he leaned on a different foreign
power for support. Neither Armansperg nor Rudhart conferred any benefit on
Greece. They formed a phalanx or corps of veterans; but as they laid down
no invariable rules for admission, but kept the door open as a means of
creating a party among the military, this institution has become a scene
of jobbing and abuse.
A law conferring a portion of land on every Greek family was passed; but
as it was intended to serve political purposes, it was never put into
general execution. A number of sales of national lands has been made under
it, in direct violation of every principle of law and justice; and as
detached pieces of the richest plains in Greece have been alienated in
this way, the resources of the country will be found to have been very
seriously diminished by this singular species of wholesale corruption.
Rudhart was compelled from his weakness to make one or two steps in the
national path. He assembled the council of state, and called the
provincial councils and the university into activity.
We have now arrived at the period when King Otho assumed the reins of
government. From the year 1838 to the present day, he has been his own
irresponsible prime minister; for the apparent ministers Zographos,
Païkos, Maurocordatos and Rizos, have never enjoyed his unlimited
confidence, nor have they been viewed with much favour by the people.
Indeed, with the exception of Maurocordatos, they are men of inferior
ability, and of no character or standing in the country. Any one who will
take the trouble to read those portions of their diplomatic correspondence
with the ministers of the allied powers at Athens, which have been
published, will be convinced of their utter unfitness for the offices they
have held. Let the reader contrast these precious specimens of inaccuracy
and rigmarole, with the come-to-the-truth style of our own minister, or
the sarcastic, let-us-go-quietly-over-your-reasoning style, in which the
Russian minister answers them.
In order that our readers may form some idea of the manner in which King
Otho has carried on the government for five years, we shall describe the
political machine he has framed--name it we cannot; for it resembles
nothing the world has yet seen amidst all the multifarious combinations of
cabinet-making, which kings, sultans, krals, emperors, czars, or khans,
have yet presented to the envious contemplation of aspiring statesmen. The
king of Greece, it must be observed, is a monarch whose ministers are held
by a fiction of law to be responsible; and the editor of an Athenian
newspaper has been fined and imprisoned for declaring that this fiction is
not a fact. These ministers are not permitted by King Otho to assemble
together in council, unless he himself be present. The assembly would be
too democratic for Otho's nerves. In short, the king has a ministry, but
his ministers do not form a cabinet; his cabinet is a separate concern.
Each minister waits on his majesty with his portfolio under his arm, and
receives the royal commands. To simplify business, however, and make the
ministers fully sensible of their real insignificancy, King Otho
frequently orders the clerks in the public offices to come to his royal
presence, with the papers on which they have been engaged; and by this
means he shows the ministers, that though they are necessary in
consequence of the fiction of law, they may be rendered very secondary
personages in their own departments. If it were not a useless waste of
time, we could lay before our readers instances of this singularly easy
mode of doing business--instances too, which have been officially
communicated to the allied powers. His majesty carried his love of
performing ministerial duties so far, that for more than a year he
dispensed entirely with a minister of finance, and divided the functions
of that office among three of the clerks: no bad preparation for a
national bankruptcy, we must allow--yet the protecting powers viewed this
political vagary of his majesty with perfect indifference.
The most singular feature of King Otho's government is his cabinet, or, as
the Greek newspapers call it, "the Camarilla." This cabinet has no
official constitution; yet its members put their titles on the visiting
cards which they leave, as advertisements of the existence of this
irresponsible body, at the houses of the foreign ministers. It consists,
or until the late financial difficulties deranged all the royal plans, it
consisted, of four Bavarians and two Greeks. Its duty is to prepare
projects of laws to be adopted by the different ministers, and to assist
the king in selecting individuals appointed to public offices. This is the
feature which excites the greatest indignation at Athens; the minister of
war does not dare to promote a corporal; the minister of public
instruction would tremble to send a village schoolmaster to a country
_demos_, even at the expense of the citizens; and the minister of finance
would not risk the responsibility of conferring the office of porter of
the customhouse at Parras, before receiving the royal instructions how to
act on such emergencies, and ascertaining what creature of the camarilla
it was necessary to provide for.
We have already mentioned the council of state; it consists of about
twenty individuals chosen by his majesty, a motley congregation--some
cannot read--others cannot write--some came to Greece after the revolution
was over--some, long after the king himself. This council is, by one of
the fictions of law so common in the Hellenic kingdom, supposed to form a
legislative council, and it is implied that it ought to be considered as
tantamount to a representative assembly. Some of its members are most
brave and respectable men, who have rendered Greece good service; but
since they were decked out in silver uniforms, and received large salaries
to form a portion of the court pageant, they have lost much of their
influence in the country, either for good or evil. The king looks upon
these patriotic members as an insignificant minority, or an ignorant
majority, as the case may be, and he has more than once set aside the
opposition of this council, by publishing laws rejected by a majority of
its members. To speak a plain truth in rude phrase--the council of state
is a farce.
King Otho, with his Greek ministers, his Bavarian cabinet, and his motley
council of state, is therefore, to all appearance, a more absolute
sovereign than his neighbour, Abdul Meschid. But we must now leave the
royal authority, and turn our attention to an important chapter in the
Greek question; one which nevertheless has not hitherto met with proper
study either from the king, his allies, or the public in Western
Europe--we mean the institutions of the Greek people.
The inhabitants of Greece consist of two classes, who, from having been
placed for many ages in totally different circumstances, are extremely
different in manners and in civilization. These are the population of the
towns or the commercial class, and the inhabitants of the country or the
agricultural class. The traders have usually been considered by strangers
as affording the true type of the Greek character; but a very little
reflection ought to have convinced any one, that the insecurity of the
Turkish government, and the constant change in the channels of trade in
the East, had given this class of the population a most Hebraical
indifference to "the dear name of country." To the Fanariote and the
Sciote, Wallachia or Trieste were delightful homes, if dollars were
plentiful. But the agricultural population of Greece was composed of very
different materials. We are inclined to consider them as the most
obstinately patriotic race on which the sun shines; their patriotism is a
passion and an instinct, and, from being restricted to their village or
their district, often looks quite as like a vice as a virtue. This class
is altogether so unlike any portion of the population of Western Europe,
that we should be more likely to mislead than to enlighten our readers by
attempting to describe it. The peasants are themselves inclined to
distrust the population of the towns, and look on Bavarians, Fanariotes,
and government officers, as a tribe of enemies embodying different degrees
of rapacity under various names. They have as yet derived little benefit
from the government of King Otho, for their taxes are greater now than
they were under the Turks, and they very sagaciously attribute the
existence of order in Greece to the alliance of the kings of the Franks,
not to the military prowess of the Bavarians.
There is a third class of men in Greece who hold in some degree the
position of an aristocracy. This class is composed of all those
individuals who from education are entitled to hold government
appointments; and at the head of this class figure the Fanariotes or Greek
families who were in the habit of serving under the Turkish government.
Many of the Fanariotes move about seeking their fortunes, from Greece to
Turkey, Wallachia, and Moldavia, and _vice versa_. One brother will be
found holding an office in the suite of the Prince of Moldavia, and
another in the court of King Otho. This class is more attached to foreign
influence than to Greek independence, and is almost as generally unpopular
in the country as the Bavarians; and perhaps not without reason, as it
supplies the court with abler and more active instruments than could be
found among the dull Germans.
We must now notice the great peculiarity of the national constitution of
the Greeks as a distinct people. There is indeed a singular difference in
the organization of the European nations, which does not always meet with
due attention from historians. The various governments of Europe are
divided into absolute and constitutional; but it is seldom considered
necessary to explain whether the people are ruled by officers appointed by
the central authority of the state, or by magistrates elected by local
assemblies of the people. Yet, as the character of a nation is more
important in history than the form of its government, it is as much the
duty of the historian to examine the institutions of the people, as it is
the business of the politician to be acquainted with the action of the
government. To illustrate this, we shall describe in general terms the
political constitution of the Greeks, and leave our readers to compare it
with the share enjoyed by the French, and some other of the constitutional
nations, in their own local government. After all the boasted liberty and
equality of the subjects of the Citizen King, we own that we consider that
the Greeks possess national institutions resting on a surer and more solid
basis.
All Greece is, and always has been, divided into communities enjoying the
right of choosing their own magistrates, and these magistrates decide a
number of police and administrative questions not affecting crimes and
rights of property. The most populous town, and the smallest hamlet,
equally exercise this privilege, and it is to its existence that the
Greeks owe the power of resistance they were enabled to exert against
their Roman and Turkish masters. We shall not enter into the history of
this institution, under the Turks, at present; as it is sufficient for our
purpose to give our readers a correct idea of the existing state of
things. A local elective magistracy is formed, which prevents the central
government from goading the people to insurrection by the insolence of
office which the inferior agents of an ill-organized administration
constantly display. Fortunately for the tranquillity of the country, the
local administration works its way onward through the daily difficulties
which present themselves, independent of king, ministers, councillors of
state, or royal governors.
In order to make our description as exact as possible, without presenting
a vague statistical view of the whole kingdom, for the accuracy of which
we would not pretend to answer, we confine our observations to the
province of Attica, concerning which we have been able to obtain official
information from all the communes.
There is, of course, a royal governor in Attica, who resides at Athens; he
is named on the responsibility of the minister of the interior, with whom
he is in daily correspondence, and is the organ of communication between
the royal government and the popular magistracy. Of course, in the present
state of things, the officer is appointed by King Otho himself, who has
made it a point of statesmanship to keep a person in the place quite as
much disposed to serve as a spy on all the ministers, as inclined to
execute with zeal the orders of his immediate superior.