" SULTAN'S VOLUNTARY GIFT."

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 43, 19 August 1908, Page 3

" SULTAN'S VOLUNTARY GIFT."

CHAT WITH CONSUL IN SYDNEY. "It is his Majesty the Sultan's voluntary gift." So said the Consul for Turkey, Esper Nassoor-Bey, with respectful emphasis on "his Majesty," when approached by a Sydney Herald reporter on 6th August, upon th& subject of Turkey's new Constitution. "It will, I think, be a great thing for Turkey. By this gracious gift' of his Majesty to the nation, a new and important factor in European politics ■is created. The face of things is changed, and doubtless the calculations of Europe are upset. The future will present many difficult problems. In Turkey the position will, I should judge, be very much on the same lines as Russia. There are in Russia the two extremes — the very highly educated, and the grossly ignorant. That is one of the difficulties! that Turkey will have to contend with. How to reconcile the interests of the two is a real and important question. ' ±he Turkish Constitution, I take it, will havo some resemblance to the Russian. His Majesty the Sultan, in his wisdom, doubtless has been watching the progress of events in constitutional Russia. He may have based his ideas on what Russia has done. But I cannot say that. I do not know, having not yet received any official advices. In many respects Russia has similar problems to Turkey ; and that is my reason for supposing that the Turkish Constitution will be on lines similar to the Russian. In Turkey we have a large admixture of races with clashing interests, and so has Russia. / "I think, to the majority of the Turkish" people, the new Constitution will be most acceptable. Patience will be an admirable virtue in the development of events. The ignorant masses will expect much quickly. They will mid it difficult to understand that important reforms cannot ha accomplished in a day As in Russia, they will have to be educated up to the new order of things. But at the outset they cannot fail to see that his Majesty has made >rery great concessions, and that should have a steadying effect on the progress of evonts. I take it as a very good omen that Bulgar and Albanian chiefs have fraternised, as published in your columns this morning. "The most important fact in the present situation is that tho right man is in the right place at the right moment. In Said Pasha, the Grand Vizier, his Majesty the Sultan will have at the head of the first Government a courteous gentleman of brilliant intellect, probity, and undoubted capacity." Esper Nassoor-Bey will probably make a trip to Turkey, where he has not been for four years, during the course of the next few months. He has greatly appreciated his stay in Sydney, and hopes that he will not be allotted consular duties elsewhere at the end of his term.