Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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Although the Chester concession had been approved and signed by every authority of the executive branch of the government whose signature was necessary, and had been formally approved by a unanimous vote of the council of state, the grand vizier refused to submit it to the Chamber of Deputies whose ratification was necessary to make it complete. When pressed to do so by the American ambassador, he explained that it would first be necessary to make some modifications in the treaty of amity and commerce which has been standing for nearly a hundred years, in order that the officials and employés of the proposed railroad, and the adventurers it would attract to the country, might be placed under the jurisdiction of the Turkish courts. At present, as in all semi-civilized countries, citizens of the United States residing in Turkey are tried before the American consul on the theory that they cannot secure justice in the local courts. This is called the doctrine of extra-territoriality, and is also adhered to by European Powers. While there has been considerable improvement in the judiciary of Turkey, the government is not yet sufficiently secure and the laws have not yet been sufficiently modernized to justify the United States or the European governments in submitting the personal and property rights of their subjects in Turkey to such jurisdiction, and neither the merchants nor the missionaries now in the Ottoman Empire would consider themselves safe under such an arrangement.