The sultan ceded the administration
of Cyprus to Britain in exchange
for guarantees that Britain would
use the island as a base to protect
the Ottoman Empire against possible
Russian aggression. The British had
been offered Cyprus three times (in
1833, 1841, and 1845) before accepting
it in 1878.
In the mid-1870s, Britain and other
European powers were faced with preventing
Russian expansion into areas controlled
by a weakening Ottoman Empire. Russia
was trying to fill the power vacuum
by expanding the tsar's empire west
and south toward the warm water port
of Constantinople and the Dardanelles.
British administration of Cyprus
was intended to forestall such an
expansion. In June 1878, clandestine
negotiations between Britain and
the Porte culminated in the Cyprus
Convention, by which "His Imperial
Majesty the Sultan further consents
to assign the island of Cyprus to
be occupied and administered by England."
There was some opposition to the
agreement in Britain, but not enough
to prevent it, and colonial administration
was established on the island. Greek
Cypriot nationalism made its presence
known to the new rulers, when, in
a welcoming speech at Larnaca for
the first British high commissioner,
the bishop of Kition expressed the
hope that the British would expedite
the unification of Cyprus and Greece
as they had previously done with
the Ionian Islands. Thus, the British
were confronted at the very beginning
of their administration with the
reality that enosis was vital to
many Greek Cypriots.
The terms of the convention provided
that the excess of the island's revenue
over the expenditures for government
should be paid as an "annual fixed
payment" by Britain to the sultan.
This proviso enabled the Porte to
assert that it had not ceded or surrendered
Cyprus to the British, but had merely
temporarily turned over administration.
Because of these terms, the action
was sometimes described as a British
leasing of the island. The "Cyprus
Tribute" became a major source of
discontent underlying later Cypriot
unrest.
Negotiations eventually determined
the sum of the annual fixed payment
at exactly 92,799 pounds sterling,
eleven shillings, and three pence.
Governor of the island Ronald Storrs
later wrote that the calculation
of this sum was made with "all that
scrupulous exactitude characteristic
of faked accounts." The Cypriots
found themselves not only paying
the tribute, but also covering the
expenses incurred by the British
colonial administration, creating
a steady drain on an already poor
economy.
From the start, the matter of the
Cyprus Tribute was severely exacerbated
by the fact that the money was never
paid to Turkey. Instead it was deposited
in the Bank of England to pay off
Turkish Crimean War loans (guaranteed
by both Britain and France) on which
Turkey had defaulted. This arrangement
greatly disturbed the Turks as well
as the Cypriots. The small sum left
over went into a contingency fund,
which further irritated the Porte.
Public opinion on Cyprus held that
the Cypriots were being forced to
pay a debt with which they were in
no way connected. Agitation against
the tribute was incessant, and the
annual payment became a symbol of
British oppression.
There was also British opposition
to the tribute. Undersecretary of
State for the Colonies Winston Churchill
visited Cyprus in 1907 and, in a
report on his visit, declared, "We
have no right, except by force majeure,
to take a penny of the Cyprus Tribute
to relieve us from our own obligations,
however unfortunately contracted." Parliament
soon voted a permanent annual grant-in-aid
of 50,000 pounds sterling to Cyprus
and reduced the tribute accordingly.
