TURKS AND THE TREATY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18332, 23 February 1923, Page 7

TURKS AND THE TREATY

CONSIDERATION AT ANGORA. i WEEK'S DEBATE EXPECTED. A. and N.Z. LONDON, Feb. 21. It is stated in official circles that the Angora • Government is considering the Lausanne Treaty. The . session for the discussion is expected to last a week. THE ANGORA ASSEMBLY. CULT OF NATIONALISM.' An interesting account of the Grand National Assembly at Angora, which is debating the acceptance or rejection of the peace terras submitted by the Allies, was given by a correspondent of the Morning Post, who was recently in Angora. Looking at tho Assembly from the gallery, he wrote, the most picturesque per- * son to be seen is the Deputy for Dersim. Diab is his name. He is a Kurd who ■ j , speaks Turkish with very great difficulty, ] 1 and is 90 years old. Considering that • ( many of his constituents are 120, his four : " , . score and ten years class him in compari- j ' j son as a young man. Ho is a tall, per-' ] fectly erect man, with a long white beard, : and large piercing blue eyes. He wears no glasses, possesses all his faculties, wears , his Kurdish headdress and robss, and carries an amber chaplet. He tells me that 1 he, like the other men of the mountains, ■ lives almost exclusively on goat's milk and bread. Only twice has he spoken' in the Assembly, so we can conclude that should this mountain population have any grievance it possibly is settled outside j Angora. | It is surprising to note that one of the ' most progressive spirits of the Assembly ! is the "Grand Tchelebi," the head of , the Dancing Dervishes. He, too, is a! picturesque figure in his long brown j cylinder felt hat and ecclesiastical robes. I ■ He descends from a family older than the family of Osman, and yet he, like the Hodjas, voted for the dethronement of the ex-Caliph. Another feature which strikes a Western observer in this curious Assembly is the number of military uniformsbut then one forgets the country is still at war. Some of the Deputies, very few, wear fezes—most of them wear kalpaks, which i are much more picturesque and vary in colour from grey and brown to Mack. They are also very comfortable and warm i in the winterbut what about the summer? Another striking feature, one is told, is that many of the Deputies are Quite illiterate. As they speak no foreign language, one has to take their colleagues' word for it. One is told also they are rather trying persons to get on with, for they understand nothing of Europe, and naturally distrust it altogether. I have also met simple farm labourers, shopkeepers, doctors, who have studied in Paris, lawyers, editors of newspapers, university professors, and Valis. Some of these men are among the most enlightened ..men of the day; they speak perfect French, often English and German, too. They are also well acquainted with Continental Parliamentary life. Their speeches are well worth reading, and are delivered ! with fluency. They stand for freedom for women, and did their best to make Halide Edib Hanoum, the distinguished writer and wife of Adnan Bey, a member of the Assembly. They could be at home in our, most exclusive drawing rooms, and yet they allow men in their Cabinet who are absolutely ignorant of Western ways. The Grand National Assembly lives up to its name, and is above all National. It is against anything which might inter- i fere with the realisation of their dream— i a free and independent Turkey. During these three and a-half years, when the ! ' whole nation has' schooled itself to the ' greatest of hardships and perpetual sac-! rifice to save the fatherlandand is ready i '. to go on doing so if necessary— whole | 1 nation has been living on the gospel of , Nationalism, so that to-day, from the [ humble shepherd to the Pasha himself, '' Nationalism is almost the religion of the j ' people. i All day long from dawn to sunset one | 1 speaks Nationalism. There is no other ;_] distraction. You begin the day by having j t the papers translated, and indignantly, or I joyfully, as the case may be, you com- j ' ment on the foreign telegrams. Then you : visit friends and talk Nationalism. After : lunch you visit the Assembly. Again you talk politics during supper, and finally dream of the " National Pact!" No relaxation for three and a-half years. Think what that means. Every evening these statesmen are working out their plans under the greatest difficulty, and the Pnpba himself has filled the dual role of military chief and civil organiser with unquestionable genius. And so when one revisits the National: Assembly to study its well-organised beginning, one feels confident that great , things must come out of this Assembly.