CONSTANTINOPLE’S DECLINE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 12 September 1924, Page 3

CONSTANTINOPLE’S DECLINE.

SINAE CAPITAL TRANSFERRED

PORT HARDLY ALIVE

‘The rapid decline of Constantinople since the capital was transferred to Angora is being deplored on all sides, not only, by foreign trading residents, but by the Turks themselves,” says the Constantinople correspondent of the Alorning Post. “It is a fact too obvious to be glossed over. “A year ago it was hoped that there might be some change, and traders were told by their chambers of commerce to be patient. It was thought that the Turkish mentality would yield before facts, and would once more open doors to enterprise. These hopes are dead now ; Every day of the past year has emptied Constantinople of population, business and transit trade. The port is hardly alive any longer. “The Turks are showing themselves unable to meet the situation. They try to remedy it, but they fail. The Turkish Chamber of Commerce has drawn up within a year 11 reports, each a volume. Even the energetic and trusted Governor, Haidar Bey, who has just been transferred to Angora to apply his talents to modernising that capital, only made matters worse. What aggravates the situation is that changes of Governor, prefect, police and other heads occur with absurd frequency, and every new head undoes by his first act the principal performances of his predecessor. It is official maladministration and muddling at its worst. ‘‘That this is not a prejudiced foreign view is shown by an article in the Tanim, now; the leading Turkish organ here. The article, entitled ‘The Agony of Constantinople/ says: “ ‘lt is impossible to dissimulate the fact that our former capital, which is the most populous, the richest, and the most advanced city of Turkey, has entered upon a period of decline. Without being yet able to say that it ig dead, it cannot be denied that it is in its agony. This agony is easy to note on all sides—in the high cost of living, the housing crisis, the business stagnation, the innumerable taxes, the idle port, the absence of credit. From the highest State leaders to the poorest of the population there is no one who fails to observe the .vertiginous rapidity with which the destructive malady is progressing. The issue is not in doubt, yet no one docs anything. What is the use of empty lamentations at the deserted appearance of the port, at the transit trade going under our very eyes to Greek ports, at our Turkish coal being sold cheaper at the Piraeus than at Constantinople, at our port workers being drawn off to Salonika? Naturallly, people who turn their backs on the rest of the world and hide in their shells like tortoises cannot he expected to be sensitive to such laments. A day will come when laments will cease, and on that day Constantinople will have breathed its last.”