INSIDE TURKEY

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4452, 30 January 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

INSIDE TURKEY

F Rumania and Greece are the front line of any Peace Front, Turkey is its Hindenburg line the last ditch defending the whole Near East from the Nazis. Also the Dardanelles are the one line of communication, open all the year round, between the Western Powers and the Black Sea States, in winning' Turkey over to our side we have then won a key position; but can we hold it ? How strong, stable and determined is the new Turkey?

The political structure of revolutionary Turkey follows familiar lines. The will of the nation has one mouthpiece only, the Republican People’s Party. There are no electoral struggles in the constituencies, no Opposition in Parliament. The centre of authority is the President, who until November last, in the person of Kemal Ataturk, was the most extraordinary genius thrown up by the upheavals of the war and the peace. Government is entirely centralised and a growing bureaucracy has the task of directing, or at least supervising, every aspect of the nation’s life. All this, of course, is true to type, but the Turks give their system a flavour of its own. Turkey has been much influenced by French culture and there is something of the old “ Liberty, Equality and Fraternity ” about her political outlook. There is no contempt for democracy as an effete and decadent philosophy, only an admission that until now the political training of the Turkish masses is not sufficiently advanced to introduce it.

General Ismet Inoni, Ataturk’s successor, is expected to carry on the latter’s policy. He was Ataturk’s closest collaborator and there can be no question of a reversal of any previous policies. But temperamentally differences exist. It is said that Inoni is more conservative than his great predecessor, which probably means that he is more tolerant of opinions other than his own. One change at last ha« been brought about. These last six months have seen an attempt to raise the standard of political probity. Many old parliamentary leaders have been deprived of office and something approaching a bloodless purge is going on in certain departments of state. A number of important changes have taken place (of which the most sweeping was the abolition of the state Deniz (Sea) Bank, established in 1937 to control practically all Turkey’s maritime interests, the redivision of its work among existing ministries and the trial of its leading officials for corruption. Turkey’s economics are as typical as her politics. As in Russia or Japan or Iran or Poland, her modernising revolution is based upon giving the country an industrial system. Like Germany or Russia, the Government are directing the economic process by a series of Four and Five-Year Plans. But the Turks have given their system a character of its own, for which they coined the term, “ etatism.” Etatism, however, is neither a philosophy of production like Communism nor a philosophy of aggressive militarism like “Wehrwirtschaft.” It is not a philosophy at all. It is merely the most convenient way of getting the work done, a piece of common sense entirely in keeping with the Turk’s shrewd realism.

The Sumer (Sumerian) Bank took charge of the first plan which was concerned with the production of consumers’ goods —with textile and paper plants, mills, breweries and refineries. The Eti (Hittite) Bank controls the Second Plan which is designed to give Turkey the backbone of her economic system — heavy industry. Practically all the mining and metallurgical ventures in Turkey are controlled ln r the Bank which works in collaboration with two other state institutions, one for research into Turkey’s mineral reserves, the other for working out schemes of electrification. Apart from her four most important minerals —coal, chrome, copper and iron ore —Turkey already produces lead, zinc, molybdenum, manganese, magnesite, lignite, sulphur and cement, a list which gives an idea of the riches of this undeveloped country whose surface until now has barely been scratched. The Eti Bank’s record with the principal minerals is encouraging. In one year it increased the country’s production of chrome from 150,500 to 213,630 tons. The cop-

By Jonathan Griffin

per mines at Ergani (among the richest in the world) are being provided with new plant which will double their output and, combined with the copper from Kuvarshan and Murgul, raise Turkey’s annual output to about 20.000 tons. The most important coal seams lie near the Black Sea coast at Zonguldak. The Bank completed the task of buying out foreign concessionaires last year and already controls 40 per cent, of the basin's productive capacity. Its present plan programme includes a plan for the electrification of the whole area.

The capital of the banks is largely found by the State and their directors and staffs are civil servants. In present day Turkey the building of a factory or the opening of a bank is not a prosaic affair or a mere matter of profits for somebody; it is a part of patriotism, because without a great effort of economic liberation Turkey’s political independence is nominal and insecure.

Turkey began her Five Year Plan with the help of Russian credits. By the end of 1938 — that is after four years—the mining. cellulose and textile plants were complete, Turkey having drawn three million gold dollars of the Russian credits. This Five Year Plan was not the whole. Lately and at great speed Turkey has carried out a big enterprise vital to the balancing of her economy and to national defence—railways—notably, a line joining the coal mines and ports of the Zonguldak district to Ankara by way of Karabuk, and one joining Sivas to Erzerum (and so Ankara to Russia). Both of them were begun only in 1933; one is all but finished, the other is finished. Altogether, since 1924, Turkey has roughly doubled her length of railways.

There is no local armament industry. The army is supplied indiscriminately by Britain, Germany, Russia and, up to recently, Poland. And far from showing an interest in lighting, the Turkish Government show a profound interest in peace. Parliament has always discussed the measures placed before it by the Dictator, in this resembling the Italian Senate rather than the German Reichstag. Another characteristic of the Turkish system is that most of the officials are middle-aged. It follows that their revolutionay principles have more than a trace of \\ estern liberalism, and there is less hysteria and more common sense in Turkey than in many totalitarian countries.

Turkey is fortunate in having no problem of land shortage, and in spite of a rapidly increasing population will not have one for forty years to come. But the standard of living of the peasants is so low and their farming methods are so primitive that they neither produce for the market nor buy industrial goods from it. What Turkey needs is a big, stable, internal market, but considerably more will have to be done to improve the peasants’ condition before it can be achieved.

Turkey’s greatest external difficulty lies in the sphere of foreign trade. The economic crisis played havoc with her exports and she, therefore, welcomed Germany’s buying drive in 1934 and 1935, and by 1936 was sending over 50 per cent, of her exports to Germany and taking from her 45 per cent, of her imports. A cry of alarm was raised and in 1937 an attempt was made to reduce the proportion. Then Turkey discovered the insecurity of her position. Germany had offered prices well above the world market price. The effect had been in inflate Turkey’s price level until her own goods were unsaleable in any free market. Moreover, Germany had bought much more than she sold and Turkey could not afford to forego her accumulated frozen balances in Germany. She had to continue to trade with her powerful partner or risk an economic loss she could not hope to sustain. By 1939 (following the absorption of Austria an d Czechoslovakia) the percentage of Turkey’s foreign trade with Germany was almost back to its old figure (46 per cent, of her exports and 50 per cent, of her imports). Since Turkey’s share in Germany’s total trade, counts for only 1.8 per cent., Turkey’s extreme dependence is all too clear. Germany could close her market to Turkey without feeling it, but if she did Turkey would be virtually ruined.

Next, Turkey's economy is jeopardised in a more subtle way. Germany’s aim in her Lebensraum is to create a ring of primary producing states feeding the vast industrial machine of the Reich with raw materials and receiving manufactured goods in return. But Turkey’s desire is to achieve full national independence. Her real need is for trade with highly industrialised countries which are prepared to foster, not retard, her own industrialisation, which have capital to spare to help her with the installation of new plant and whose markets and currencies are uncontrolled so that she is allowed complete freedom in her choice of imports. In other words, Turkey wants to increase her commerce with the West. When Turkey decided on the alliance with Great Britain and France, she foresaw and accepted all its consequences. They have, for instance, for the last two months or sp been getting rid of their German technicians; and no German is allowed at Karabuk. Von Papen clearly realises his position ; he is simply treating all Turks with extreme politeness and waiting for Great Britain or France to make a mistake. Of this there is some danger. For instance, Turkey expects Englishmen and Frenchmen to share the consequences of the alliance. One of these is that they must help Turkey to find a substitute for her trade with Germany. If we do not buy from Turkey, she cannot sell to us, and therefore cannot break her economic dependence on Germany. The Turks expect a little positive goodwill on the part of Britain and France now that they have taken the courageous, almost foolhardy, step of joining a Front designed to check the ambitions of their largest customer. Britain and France could give great assistance in the building up of a strong modernised Turkey. They have the experience, the technical skill, the capital. They have no territorial ambitions, or predatory tendencies. Turkey is not part of their Lebensraum. And in return for their help a young, vigorous and expanding power would make its weight felt on the side of peace in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. If Hitler is gratuitously given a second chance in Turkey, he will jump at it. If not, we have a dependable ally in a key position.