Constantinople has burst out into an unusual display of hospitable gaiety. The Prince and Princess of Wales have paid a visit to the Sultan, and have had a remarkable, as well as a brilliant, reception. The Commander of the Faithful has more than returned the welcome he received on his visit to our Queen. No sacrifice compatible with his religious faith has been spared, no observance of European customs likely to be complimentary to his Royal guests has been shrunk from, which could mark the Sultan's grateful appreciation of the attention paid him whilst in England. He has evidently gone out of his way to gratify the feelings of his Royal guests. He has infringed upon the manners of his own people in order that he might approach more closely those with which the Prince of Wales and his consort were most familiar. All that the most magnificent ceremonial and the most delicate and complimentary regard to their wishes could do to testify to the pleasure with which he welcomed them to his capital has been done, without limit or reserve. The Sovereign of the Turkish empire has played to perfection the part of host, gentleman, and monarch, and has set an example which, in some respects, might be well imitated in this part of Europe.
It has been observed throughout these festivities that Eastern civilisation has, in its external aspect at least, been largely modified by recent contact with that which prevails in the West. There is something to cause regret as well as gratification in this result. Even in the outward forms in which human nature reveals itself variety is pleasing. None of us can desire a monotony of aspect and manners to prevail over the whole family of man. A dead level of uniformity is depressing to the imagination; and to lose all the distinctive marks which distinguish one type of the race from the other, whatever else it may indicate, is in itself a matter for lamentation. On the other hand, however, it seems quite allowable that we should become reconciled to the loss of much that is merely ornamental, and that makes its appeal to fancy and to sentiment, when that loss is identified with the substitution of utility and substantial progress for characteristics of lighter value. If, as appears probable, the spirit of the West is gradually making itself felt and recognised in the East; if the long immobility of custom is thawing perceptibly beneath the influence of new ideas and new activities, and if the changes that are taking place in Constantinople itself in regard to social, commercial, and national observance are the result of improved modes of thinking, new habits of feeling, and freer methods of judging in respect of the great matters of life and action, then there is reason to hope from the evidence laid before us that Turkey has already derived some benefit from being admitted into the European family of nations. What is external, however, in the process of alteration is worthless, save so far as it faithfully expresses what is internal. The fashion of the day may prevail, and perish; the expansion and elevation of the nature indicated by that fashion may fairly be counted upon to endure for generations yet to come. But, however great the external change to which we have adverted, we are unable to agree with those who regard it as, an earnest of the perpetuity of the Ottoman Empire. In our judgment, very much of what has been done in Constantinople to mark the Sultan's appreciation of the visit paid to him by the Prince and Princess of Wales suggests rather the decrepitude of an ancient system of rule, and the presence in it of new-born sentiments and forces which, in course of time, will shatter it to pieces. We have to bear in mind that the population of Turkey does not consist exclusively, or even mainly, of those who acknowledge themselves the followers of the great prophet Mohammed. The Christian races even now are predominant in numbers, and for the most part are only prevented from becoming predominant in political influence and power by the stern and unbending character of the traditional faith and practice which their rulers have been wont to exhibit. It is impossible to graft upon any known form of Oriental despotism the vital principles of Western civilisation. One might with as much reason plant a sapling-oak in a flowerpot. In both cases the narrowness and the rigidity of that which is intended to contain what has in it an irrepressible law of growth is rather imperiled than strengthened as the evidence of growth becomes more striking. In other words, the social system of the East is too inelastic to comprehend within itself for any lengthened period the freedom of thought and action which is essentially characteristic of the West; and political despotism cannot possibly survive the destruction of the social basis upon which it rests. Changes of manners, with a view to any accommodation of them to changes of circumstances,, weaken either the sentiment or the religious faith of which manners are an indirect expression. The time appears to be approaching when the Christian races of Turkey will informally give law to the Turkish portion of the population, and as they do so they will infallibly absorb in themselves the political element which governs the mass. It is impossible, of course, to foresee the practical forms in which this result will be brought about. It will be childish to prefix the period at which the transformation will be completed. But, unless the ordinary forces which govern human nature are entirely subverted, we are justified, we think, in inferring from the mode of their action in the Turkish empire that, as such, it is approaching, and at a rapid pace, its final dissolution.
Of course, we cannot affect to deplore the eventual substitution in Turkey of an expanding for a stereotyped form of civilisation. Yet, we confess that the association of the Royal visit to the Sultan with the prospective disappearence of his empire from Europe casts over the festivities which graced the occasion a tinge of melancholy. Whether the adoption of the prevailing fashions of the West in the entertainments given to the Prince and Princess of Wales is to be looked upon only as a sign of the extent to which a revolution of feeling and habit has already gone, or whether it may be interpreted as the result of a desire on the part of the ruling Turkish authorities to carry that revolution to its obvious issue, it is impossible to divest oneself wholly of sense of sadness that the Heir Apparent of the English throne and his amiable Princess have been destined to receive hospitable attentions which the inhabitants of Turkey, both Mohammedan and Christian, will be sure to regard as symbolising the ultimate decay of the system with which the former have been brought into casual contact. not, indeed, that we are disposed to attribute any important political influence to this visit, nor that the immediate effect of it are likely to be of a disagreeable nature; but we cannot help feeling some regret that the unusual deviation from Oriental customs which has marked the reception of these royal personages will, of occasion, and quite apart from their intention, awaken leas on the one hand, and hopes on the other, which may well possibly contribute towards a result, desirable enough, it may be, in itself, but in the accomplishment of which one might have preferred that this interchange of friendly sentiments between the two Crowns should, consciously or incestuously, have borne no part whatever. Our consolation is this, that the thing done was a thing proper to be done; that no consequence, immediate or remote, which may come out of it could either have been contemplated or even foreseen by those who have received the Sultan's hospitality; and that, in the end, whatever may happen will happen quite outside the sphere of British responsibility.
Source: The Illustrated London News, Vol. LIV, April 24, 1869, p.405