THE TURK UNFIT TO RULE

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 91, 17 April 1917, Page 2

THE TURK UNFIT TO RULE

Writing on the future of Constantinople, Sir William Ramsay says: "In regard to the Turkish people and their fate, I write as one who has known thousands of them in the course of the last thirty-five years, and is on very friendly terms with many. I am indebted to them for much kindness. I have eaten the bread and salt of very many individuals and villages, and there are few, if any, even among the Turks themselves, whose face used to be so familiar or so welcome in hundreds of Turkish villages as mine. I claim to speak on behalf of the people of Turkey, both when I, have denounced the Armenian massacres and now -when I maintain that Turkish domination on the .great international waterway which )3 commanded by Constantinople is, an outrage that ought ito be ended. Every plan for improving Turkish administration has failed; and the conclusion must bo drawn. The streets of Stamboul must be sWept clear of blood. The Young •Turks swept.'them clear of filth and of dogs, but the stain of innocent blood shod throughout the Empire is deeper than ever at the centre of government. No true friend of the Turks would keep them where they have to perform a grave international duty. It is a work for which they are noi suited; no one who knows and loves their gooa qualities from intimate knowledge can be ignorant of the faults which unfit ithem to rule at, Constantinople. They cannot use, but only misuse, the resources of civilisation. Anything may happen in Turkey except what is reasonaole and natural and possible, and ifche results are often comic, but sometimes tragic. Moreover, the people who suffer most from tho governing class have- been the ■Turks themselves. This sounds a.paradox, but it is the plain truth. "-