secretaries were decorated with military titles in order to enrich them
with high pay. These men may be seen at the balls in King Otho’s palace,
flaunting in vulgar embroidery, and imitating with Greek pertness the
sumptuous Albanian dress and Mussulman gravity of the chiefs who filled
the halls of Ali Pasha of Joannina. The Greeks alone have enjoyed the
profits of the corruption which has reigned in the administration since
the year 1838; they are consequently not entitled to throw the blame on
foreigners.
In consequence of the misconduct of the Greek ministers and the
servility of a council of state filled with official sycophants, the
Greek government became such a scene of corruption that the patience of
all ranks was exhausted, and an attempt was made to reform the vicious
system by a revolution in the year 1843. A representative chamber and an
imitation of Louis Philippe’s senate of officials, called in France a
House of Peers, were constituted. The deputies were chosen by universal
suffrage, but the election of the municipal authorities was left subject
to the oligarchical restrictions imposed by the Regency. Ten years have
now elapsed since the constitutional system was established, so that for
ten years the Greeks have made their own laws and voted their own
budgets. At the same time, the enjoyment of the fullest liberty of the
press, and the existence of sixteen newspapers at Athens, have enabled
every party and class to criticise the acts of the government with
unrestrained license. If corruption and venality have been the leading
features of political society in Greece during this period, it is
evident that the nation has been a party to the abuses, from its refusal
to punish the offenders. The mass of those whose superior knowledge and
rank have obtained for them the direction of public opinion in political
matters, have sacrificed the interests of the nation to advance their
own personal schemes of profit. The Greeks ought not to feel surprised
at the low estimation in which they are now held. It is entirely their
own fault. They have hawked about their nationality at Munich, Paris,
and St Petersburg, for illicit gains in a falling market at a very
unpatriotic price.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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