TURKEY.
THE BRITISH OCCUPATION OF EGYPT. MUKHTAR PASHA. CHIEE OP SECRET POLICE ON THE YOUNG TURKS. (BY TELEGRAPH—rRESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIG UT.) (Rcc. August 26, 10.40 p.m.) Constantinople, August 26. The resignation of ,Mukhtar Pasha, Turkish High Commissioner in Egypt, has not yet been accepted, but it is understood that he will not return to Cairo. The Ottoman High Commissionership at Cairo will bo suppressed. WHAT THE COMMISSIONERSHIP MEANS. The reported intention of the Turkish Government to abolish the Ottoman Commissionership in Egypt is apparently another mark of the ascendancy of Britjsh influence in Constantinople, and a confirmation of the British occupation of Egypt. The Commissionership dntss from the middle eighties, when the British position in Egypt was very anomalous, and mi?ht easily have given rise to international complications. The Sultan of Turkey might well have protested against the military occuoation of a portion of his Empire by foreign troops. It was no secret that France was ready to give him diplomatic support, and other Powers might adopt a similar attitude. Besides this, the British Government was, anxious to terminate .the occupation as soon as possible." With a view to regularising the situation and accelerating the evacuation, Sir Henry Druminond Wolff was sent to Constantinople in August, ISBS, on a special mission. On October 2-1 of that year he concluded a preliminary Convention, by which an Ottoman and an English High Commissioner, acting in concert with tlio Khedive, should leorganise the Egyptian annj-, 'tranquilise the Sudan by pacific means, and consider what changes might bo necessary in the civil administration. On the reports' of these two Commissioners (Mukhtar Pasha and Sir Henry D. Wolff were the men appointed) the two Governments were to conclude a Convention regulating the withdrawal of the British troops But this latter Convention (which provided that the British ocoupation should end in three years, but that England could renew it in tlio evont of internal peace or external security being seriously threatened), was never finally completed, the Sultan, under pressure from Franco and Russia, refusing to ratify it. The position then arose that the preliminary Convention remained in force, and under it tli'o Ottoman Commissioner has continued to reside in Cairo. Technically ho is part of the machinery of withdrawal; the termination of tlio office would therefore mark a new stage in Britain's position in Egypt.
SULTAN'S FORESICHT. MONEY INVESTED ABROAD. (Rec. August 26, 11.45 p.m.) London,. August 26. Zis Bey, late Chief of the Secret Police of the Sultan of Turkey, interviewed in London, paid a tribute to tho honesty and patriotism of tho Young Turkey party. He added that Izzet Pasha (the Sultan's fallen favourite, who fled iu a British steamer) is reputed to have saved in perquisites a sum of a million and a half, which he had invested abroad. , The Sultan himself had three millions similarly invested, which ho had derived from heavy percentages on bribes from foreign contractors.
GERMAN INFLUENCE. . ;SAID TO HAVE BEEN DESTROYED. ILL-GOTTEN GAINS.' (81 TELEGRAPH —I'KESS ASSOCIATION—COI'TRIGM.) London, August 25. , .Profossor Arminius Vambery, tho wellknown traveller and Oriental scholar, considers the destruction of German influence in Turkey is complete. It is, lie says, • one of. the most important results of the revolution. • . Tho Turkish ex-Minister for Marine (Hassan Rami Paslia) will refund £94,000 which he fraudulently acquired. THE POWERS AND TURKEY.
.. . RAILWAY DESIGNS. The opinion of Professor Vanibory, Oriental traveller and author, who iias taken an active part in throwing publicity on British interests in Asia, is always received in England with tho groatest doferenco, and the statement that the' destruction of German influence at Constantinople complete, coming from .so authoritative a source, commands attention. As long ago as 1901! Professor Yambery, writing on tho potentialities and dangers of Pan-ISlamism, while admitting that the German Kaiser's friendship, for- the Sultan and behaviour had flattered the hopes of a certain Moslem section, doubted whether the Kaiser would go so far as to oncourage tho barbarous aspects of Pan-Islamism. Whore tho, Corsican juggler did not succeed, the Kaiser hardly would. Professor Yambery went on to express the opinion that the unrest in Islam was duo to increased facilities for public instruction, closer acquaintance with sciences and literature, and to "a remarkable approach in some quarters .to Western views and mode of thought." If, then, the Kaiser's policy in Turkey has failed, and if the peaceful revolution now in evidence is tho result of the lotting in of light from the West, the result .will bo not inconsistent with what Professor Yambery appears to have discerned in 190 G.
It remains to be seen how far the new movement will encourage or check the aggressive phases of Pan-Islamism, and how it will affect Germany's' schemes in connection with tho'Baghdad Railway, and German,' Austrian, and Russian railway projects in tho Balkans. It was cabled in Slay that, owing to Germany's pressure, the Porte had sanctioned a 500-mile extension of the Baghdad Railway, to bring it tp Mardin, about 330 miles (as the crow flies) from Baghdad. Prior to that the question of the Novibazar Railway, to connect the Turkish system with Vienna and Berlin, was raised, Germany being (accordiug to common .report) behind it. The chance at Constantinople, and its relations to these vital and delicate questions, is now the problem. In the opinion of Mr. Alfred Stead, tho Baghdad railway question is closely bound up with that of Pan-Islamism, if only because Germany seeks to connect it with her European possessions. ;As a means of checking the movement he indicated an understanding between Britain and tho three Danubian States, Roumania,' Scrvia, and Bulgaria; which, lie held, would throw a powerful barrier between Gorman'influences and Turkey in Europe and Asia. At tho root of the problem of PanIslamism, Mr. Alfred Stead believed, was the question whether England or Germany should influence tho councils of these Balkan States. Professor Vambery's statement, therefore, touches on a wide area of diplomacy. The railways policy of the now Turkish Government has not yet been unfolded except to a certain extent as regards tho Hejaz Railway, which the Government, according to yesterday's cablegrams, is determined to -push' on. Tho Hojaz Railway, according to Mr. Chirol, was part of tho Sultan's Pan-Islamic policy and claim to the IChalifate. "Among the concrete facts of Abdul-Hamid's Pan-Islamic policy none was mora remarkable and signicant than the construction of the Hejaz Knilway, which would ultimately link up tho seat of. his temporal power as Sultan at Constantinople with the seat of his spiritual power as Khalif at Mecca." To the world in general the Baghdad Railway has a still greater significance. According to Dr. Dillon, it would do more than any lino which has yet been built to change the face of tho political world, and to holp Germany to that influential position among the nations of tho earth towards whicli-she has been striving so eagerly.
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Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 286, 27 August 1908, Page 7
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1,145TURKEY. Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 286, 27 August 1908, Page 7
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