TURKEY’S DICTATOR

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 December 1934, Page 4

TURKEY’S DICTATOR

GOVERNMENT ON WHEELS. • A special train of five Pullman bogie coaches will in future be the home of Mustapha Kemal Pasha, Turkey’s hustling dictator. He will live in it, travel in it along railway lines specially cleared, for him with scant warning by the Government, to visit outlying portions of his vast domain —half as large again as France —and inspect, revise, and supervise his Five-Year Plan which dawns this year. His famous villa at Tchankaya, near Ankara, where he danced each night till dawn, will miss him. The foreign ambassadors will miss poker parties that have never had their equals in the diplomatic world. The train, which will be ready in four months, will be more remarkable than the famous train built for King George and Queen Mary for the Delhi Durbar. It will have a post office on board, from which wireless messages can be flashed to and received from every corner of Europe. One entire coach will be occupied by twelve Turkish women secretarytypists. Another will house the presidential secretariat and its archives. There will also be a fully-equipped first-aid station. 'tlie Dictator will occupy another ’into which a Russian bath fed by pipes with vapour from the engine has been fitted. His own sleeping compartment is designed on lifi&j of sioldicfly auster-

ity. His dining saloon will be overpainted with maps, and there will be a wireless telephone installation. The remainder of his own coach is comprised of a small dining room with adjoining kitchen and a drawingroom for receiving distinguished guests. There will be accommodation on the train for 120 people, including police and officers and men of the presidential guard for ceremonial occasions. The Turkish Government recently voted £18,000,000 for intensive railway extension in the country in connection with, its industrialisation programme. The Ghazi, who lias promised to restore democratic government within five years, believes that it is only by supervising everything himself that he can be sure of getting things done in time for him to keep his promise.