Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

foundered. But certain principles were to remain. A single property tax, known as
vergi resmi, replaced the earlier variety of particular administrative (örfi) taxes. 21
The impetus to link the registration of taxable property to that of persons was
also to mark the long nineteenth century. 22 Although crop and livestock taxes
were to remain separate from the vergi tax, from the 1860s onwards villages
(and villagers within) were encouraged to take over their own tax assessment and
payment. 23 And, as we shall see in Part three, individuation of tax responsibility
was in good measure to be achieved by the last decades of the empire. 24
1830s–40s: law as programme
Regional government
Under the Tanzimat the participation of regional leaders was to be integral
to administrative reform. From the 1840s the central administration sought to
establish regional councils on which would serve quasi-elected figures of the
regional elite together with government officials. 25 An ordinance of the early 1840s
forming the councils to oversee tax evaluation at the level of the kazas provided
for six members chosen from among the people of the region to serve alongside
the official members (the Islamic judge, the mufti, an official of the police, the
tax collector and a second tax employee, and two scribes). All members chose
the head of the council. 26
The central administration sought to expand the number of its full-time
bureaucratic staff but required fiscal resources to do so. A nizamname dated
March 1845 backed by a sultanic firman of 21 July 1845 sought to increase the
number of government servants and to regularize their pay; this was central to
widening ‘the circle of prosperity’ (tevsi daire-i intiaşı). All zeamet and timar
holders were not to be stripped of their rights, but in escheat or abandoned
estates, the land was to be assigned to the central treasury and its revenue to
the scribal administration. 27 By the middle of the 1840s a moderate approach
had prevailed: not the abolition of tax farming as proclaimed by the Gülhane
Rescript nor the annulment of estates still registered as zeamet or timar so long
as their holders lived. 28
In the late 1840s instructions for officials and a law concerning eyalet councils
were issued. 29 These express two policies of Tanzimat government: first, the
constant need to discipline officials – not infrequently by prosecution – and
second, the governmental power of the councils whereon were appointed – later
elected – leaders of the regions concerned. Enjoined to oversee the subdivision
of the province into livas on the basis of mapping, the eyalet councils were
composed of a head official, a member of the ulema, four Muslim members of
the regional elite, one of each of the other religious communities, and two scribes.
The resulting council had the final say in the government of virtually all aspects
of the province: application of the principles of the Tanzimat, supervision of
employees, security and police, market and quarantine regulations, application
of the kontrato law, financial practices and records of the province, public works
and development, investigation of major crimes committed in the province,
43
Legal reform from the 1830s