Corps de droit ottoman/Preface

by George Young

The 'Corps de Droit Ottoman' requires of its Editor a few prefatory words of acknowledgement and of explanation.

To the Marquis of Lansdowne, Secretary of State, and to Sir T. Sanderson, the Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, thanks are due for a support and indulgence, without which the publication of the complete work would have been impossible; much is also owing in this respect to the goodwill and enterprise of the Oxford University Press, of which the personnel has proved itself as painstaking as proficient in its treatment of a mass of unfamiliar matter.

During the preparation of the work the Editor was much indebted to Mr. H. Babington Smith, the former President of the Council of the Ottoman Public Debt, and to the present occupant of that office, Mr. Adam Block, formerly Oriental Secretary of Embassy at Constantinople, for exceptional facilities of access to the resources of their admirably organized Administration, and to their able Archivist for valuable assistance in availing himself of those facilities. Other sources of information were opened to him in the Ottoman Bank, by favour of the Assistant Director, Mr. Nias, where important help was also afforded by the Statistician, M. Pech, whose co-operation amounted almost to collaboration. In the Tobacco Régie the Sub-director, Mr. Ramsay, proved one of the most practical and influential of his allies, and thanks are also due to the wise and kindly Principal of Robert College, Dr. Washbourne, for important help. Among those who contributed material aid were Mr. Blech, the Archivist of the Embassy, whose encyclopædic knowledge rendered invaluable his revision of the whole work in manuscript, and again in proof; Mr. Waugh, the Legal Adviser, ever ready with expert criticism and cordial encouragement; Mr. Schmavonian, Legal Adviser to the United States Legation, who assisted in nursing the enterprise through an imperilled infancy; the late Mr. Whitaker, with his thirty years' experience of Constantinople as Times Correspondent, and his energetic successor, Mr. Braham; in the provinces, Mr. Drummond Hay, Consul-General at Beirut, Mr. Graves, Consul-General, and Mr. Blunt, Postmaster, at Salonica. There are many others whose assistance the Editor would wish to acknowledge if it were allowed, but as it is he can only add the name of the late M. Collas, the proprietor of a library containing the only important collection of European literature accessible to him at Constantinople.

Such assistance and encouragement, liberally accorded by those so well qualified to judge, suggests itself as the best excuse the Editor can offer for venturing on such a work without being able to claim any special qualifications as a jurist or Orientalist. It was only after satisfying himself first that an attempt to execute the work by a committee of local lawyers was unworkable and that no one among those better qualified than himself could be induced to enter the field, that the Editor undertook the whole labour of compilation and translation. He was encouraged to this decision, in the first place, by the general recognition of the urgent need of such a work by those engaged in administrative or diplomatic affairs, in legal or commercial business, and in literary or scientific research in the Ottoman Empire, and by the fact that the Ottoman Government itself had repeatedly initiated action in the matter (v. p. xiv note 6 and pp. xii and xv). In the second place, it seemed that for such a work a little local influence and colloquial proficiency would be worth more than much legal training and philological erudition; for, in the absence of public records and political conditions prevailing in Constantinople, the collection and correction of material became rather a matter of diplomatic negotiation than of scientific research: moreover, as a member of the staff of an embassy, the Editor had access to sources of information otherwise closed—could devote more leisure than other foreign residents to a laborious and somewhat tedious task, and could enjoy greater liberty of action than others not under foreign protection. On the other hand the privileges of his position entailed corresponding responsibilities; much had to be done indirectly which could have been better and quicker done personally, and much left undone and unwritten which would have added to the value of these volumes in deference to the susceptibilities or out of consideration for the interests of various parties concerned. If in spite of all precautions anything has been published distasteful to the interests involved, the Editor hopes that his disclaimer of any intentional injury will be accepted, to which he would add that he is solely responsible and that no official assistance toward the preparation or publication of these volumes is to be considered as involving an acceptance of responsibility for their contents.

The object of the 'Corps de Droit Ottoman' is, within the restrictions indicated above, to bring within reach of the most inexperienced, and to render of easy reference to the expert, the domestic legislation of the Ottoman Government, which plays so large a part in the everyday life of the Levant and which has hitherto only been ascertainable, if at all, in inconvenient and incomprehensible forms at an extravagant expenditure of time, money, and influence. This domestic legislation is shown in the introduction (p. vii) to consist of the statutory law of the Ottoman Empire and of the customary law of the various races composing it, which together form a body of civil law (political and private, commercial and criminal), distinct on the one hand from the religious law of Islam, which forms the basis of the greater part of it, and on the other from the international law of capitulations and conventions, which has a contractual sanction of its own.

While it is evident that a large part of these volumes can only interest those directly connected with the Ottoman Empire, they will nevertheless be found to contain much that bears on international affairs in the near East, and it is hoped that the chapters treating, for instance, on such matters as the rights of the autonomous provinces, the privileges of the religious communities, domestic slavery, the passage of the Straits, &c., will contribute new material to the study of some questions of general importance. The scheme of the work comprises the publication of the customary law in the form of short commentaries and of the statute law in translations of the latest texts in full, amended up to date as far as ascertainable and with references to the original text; the addition of such introductory notices and explanatory footnotes as seemed advisable and admissible; the indication of all open questions by quotations from the case of each contesting party; the arrangement of the whole in logical sequence, each volume being complete in itself, and the provision of a general index.

As the time which the Editor could devote to preparation of a work on these comprehensive lines was limited to two years, and still further lessened by his official duties, it was necessary to carry it out in a manner permissible only to a pioneer. Happily those to whom the incompleteness and the many imperfections of his work will be most apparent are also those who can best realize what difficulties were involved in the conditions under which it was produced. If the result should tend in any way to lighten the labours of workers in that foreign community of which he was for three years a member, and still more, if it should prove of any real service to the Government and to the subjects of His Majesty the Sultan, he will feel that his pains have been more than simply repaid.
MADRID,
Dec. 1904.