TURKEY A REPUBLIC.

Evening Star, Issue 18393, 29 September 1923, Page 4

TURKEY A REPUBLIC.

With xx a few days, according to a report from Angora, Turkey will be proclaimed a republic, with Mustapha Kemal Pasha as its first President. Truly, tho East is waking up. Fifty years ago the idea of a republic might have stood, in most European minds, for tho fullest consummation of liberty, democracy, progress, and stable government. Tho United States and Switzerland were the great exemplars of tho system. Foolish young poets dreamed that it might bo an improvement for England.

Her watchmen shall descry from far The young republic, like a sun, Else from the crimson seas of war. Delightful idea, which has since lost, however, not a little 'of its charm. There are more republics in these clays than there were half a century ago. Russia, China., and Portugal cannot bo said to afford any recommendation of the system. They have shown, rather, how the worst vices and the worst weaknesses of mankind can thrive under any form of government. The Turks, however, have their own ideas of progress. They may believe that a republic would have advantages for them, and for some time past' they have been moving in that direction. They have pushed their Sultan very much into the background. About all that is loft of the old Turkey, it has been said, is the Khalif’s holy beard by which Moslems swear. But tho form of government which, during a transition period, has to do duty in Angora must bo about the most awkward that was ever tolerated by a State which makes pretensions to stand on an equal footing with tho most important in Europe. The Assembly of nearly 300 members is at onco an executive and a legislative body. “You cannot make wars by a Sanhedrin,” Mr Lloyd Goorgo has said, and it is impossiblo that tho affairs of seven million people should bo efficiently administered when no sots, not even the smallest, which are performed by Ministers can have validity till they are approved by such a concourse. Komal Pasha has had a fairly obedient following in tho Angora Parliament up till now, but his domestic trials aro likely to begin with tho removal of external dangers, always tho greatest incentive to unity within a nation, and with tho influence for dissensions which must bo caused by tho multitude of problems with which tho new Turkey finds itself confronted. Tho country has been impoverished by nine years of war, and the peoples who are still suffering from the effects of less than five years’ absorption ’in conflict will know what that means. It would bo strange if its peaceful resources could be restored without sharp differences of policy. Already conflicting views havo been revea led as to what should be the future of the Sultanate, and whether Angora or Constantinople should bo tho ultimata capital. Pvcform even now "has gone too far, in certain domestic matters, for some Turkish Conservatives. An agitation Is reported for the restoration of the harem, to the extent that that has been tending to disappear. Mustapha Kemal is resisting that reaction, but the reformers who would hurry Turkey along a new path of Western progress and enlightenment are not likely to be more than a minority of its.population. The declaration of a republic, of which he would bo president, would solve many difficulties for Komal. As, such movements, among backward peoples, aro accustomed to develop tho presidency would become soon a dictatorship. President would but take the place of Sultan, except that a stronger Sultan than any who has held rule recently would be installed. Tho more tho Eastern country has changed till now the more it has been tho same.