It is, in fact, in its relation to Bosnia, that it is entitled to most
attention; and if we deplore that such natural resources as it
possesses have not been more fully developed, we have still greater
reason to lament that the world is thus debarred communication with the
most romantic and beautiful province of European Turkey. It is also the
natural route for the commerce of a portion of Servia, whose exports and
imports would thus quickly pass to and from the sea. Its value, however,
appears never to have been properly appreciated by the Turkish
government, and Omer Pacha, in 1852, was the first employé of that power
who ever appreciated its importance in a commercial point of view. He
appears to have indicated the measures necessary for developing its
resources, and for attracting the trade of the neighbouring provinces
from their expensive and indirect channel into their legitimate route.
The prospects of the province were rapidly brightening under his
sagacious administration, when Austria took alarm, and effectually
impeded all farther progress by closing the only port adapted for the
transmission of its mercantile resources. She thus secures for herself a
monopoly of trade, forcing the inhabitants of all the Turkish provinces,
in that quarter, to purchase their imports at high prices from her, and
to sell their produce to Austrian merchants, who, fearing no
competition, themselves determine its price. The object of Austria in
thus retarding the development of Bosnia is sufficiently obvious, since
that which would be a gain to Turkey would be a loss to herself. And
were events so to dispose themselves as to render this probable, she
would doubtless find a pretext to justify a military occupation of the
country. This she has done on several occasions, and the large force now
massed upon the northern bank of the Save only awaits some national
demonstration to effect an armed intervention. This is, however,
trenching upon another subject, to which I may have hereafter to allude.