Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 67, No. 415, May, 1850Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 67, No. 415, May, 1850
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
With regard to the Greek Senate, we have little to say. In a country
where not one single element of an aristocracy exists, and where it was
impossible to secure superior education in the members of a chamber
appointed for life, it was evident that one chamber would afford a
better guarantee against bribery and corruption than two. No nobles, no
independent gentlemen, no dignified clergy, no learned lawyers, can
enter the Greek Senate. The qualification of a senator is a certain
period of service in official appointments, which have been generally
held by men who can neither read nor write. The consequence is, that the
Senate is utterly useless as a legislative body, from the ignorance of
its members; while the nature of the materials from which it is
composed, render it a more servile instrument, in the hands of every
minister, than the elective chamber. It was yesterday a tool in the
hands of Coletti—to-morrow it may become one in those of Mavrocordatos.
It would be an object of contempt, were it not an expensive instrument
of oppression.
We have now shown what the constitution has effected; let us turn to
consider what measures Great Britain ought to have recommended to the
attention of the national assembly, when it was occupied in framing this
constitution. The first great national question was municipal reform.
Unless the people could be intrusted with the direction of the affairs
of their own districts, it was unwise to entrust them with a direct
control over the national legislation and expenditure. Men take a more
lively interest in the trifling details of their own households, and in
affairs that pass under their own eyes, and with which they are
perfectly cognisant, than they do about more distant though more
important matters. Had the people in Greece been allowed to administer
their local affairs, they would have drawn much of their attention from
party struggles about which they knew very little, to devote it to
business they perfectly understood. No guarantee for the permanent
existence of Greece, as an independent and free state, can exist, until
the present oligarchical constitution of the municipalities throughout
the country is destroyed. The mayors must be annually elected by the
people, and not removable by the minister of the interior. The accounts
of the municipal expenditure must be published quarterly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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