The country was, no doubt, very badly in need of material improvements: roads and canals are generally the initial work of a renewed civilization. But the real basis of improvement is confidence in the Government, and the guarantee of undisturbed ownership of property. Such confidence cannot exist without impartial courts and sensible laws. The most capable judge could not do justice according to the _Koran_, while the codes of Justinian and Napoleon were unavailing so long as the longest purse was the best argument. It was therefore the duty of the Western Powers to consider how justice might be administered so as to encourage both the native and the settler to join in the work of amelioration. Few thinking men had visited the East without formulating some plan for supplying this first and greatest want. The general conclusion was based on the supposition of the necessity for continuing the “Capitulations.” It was supposed to be impossible for strangers to submit themselves to the authority of the monarch who ruled the land; and indeed the experience of the native courts, and the fact that no man ventured to undertake any commercial business without security, naturally suggested foreign protection. More than one traveller, therefore, recommended that a code of laws should be agreed to by the Great Powers, and that in every seaport French, English, _etc._, judges should decide such cases as involved the liberty or property of Europeans. Such a system was regarded as being superior to the earlier ineffective regulations. But, on the other hand, it was held that such an expedient should only be resorted to temporarily.