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SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
CYPRUS AS I SAW IT IN 1879
page 422 View PDF version of this page ithey have an aversion to increased taxation. Thus, although the British commissioners of districts vied with each other in a healthy ambition to exhibit a picture of paradise in their special localities, the people
crumbled at the cost of cleanliness and health within their towns, and would have preferred the old time of manure-heaps and bad smells gratis to the new regime of civilisation for which they had to pay.
I The Greek element is generally combustible, and before the first year of our occupation had expired Various causes of discontent awakened Philhellenic aspirations ; a society was organised under the name of the " Cypriote Fraternity, " as a political centre from which emissaries would be employed for the formation fef clubs in various districts with the object of inspiring the population with the noble desire of adding Cyprus Mo the future Greek kingdom. Corfu had been restored to Greece ; why should not Cyprus be added |o her crown ? There would be sympathisers in the British Parliament, some of whom had already taken
|up the cause of the Greek clergy in their disputes Iwith the local authorities, and the Greeks of the (island had discovered that no matter what the merits jof their case might be, they could always depend lupon some members of the House of Commons as [their advocates, against the existing government and ttheir own countrymen. Under these favourable conditions for political agitation the " Cypriote Fraternity " has commenced its existence.
I do not attach much importance to this early conceived movement, as Greeks, although patriotic, have too much shrewdness to sacrifice an immediate profit for a prospective shadow. The island belongs at this moment to the Sultan, and the English are simply
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