TURKEY TO-DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19991, 6 July 1928, Page 11

TURKEY TO-DAY.

ASCENDANCY OF MUSTAPHA.

CHRISTIAN TEACHING STOPPED.

A VISITOR'S IMPRESSIONS. Interesting impressions of Turkey to-day aro given in a letter received in Auckland from the Rev. D. C. Herron, of St. David's Presbyterian Church. After attending tho -world missionary conference at Jerusalem at Easter Mr. Herron visited Egypt, Creece and Constantinople.

Of the 200 mosque minarets that form perhaps the most striking feature of Constantinople he says that Mustaplia Kemal is gradually starving most of them to death. "Turkey is tied to the feet of a despot," he writes. "Some things ought to be appreciated. Women have been liberated from seclusion and monogamy is the law of the land. A woman can even divorce her husband.

"But, on the other hand, it is an order that every shop must have in it a picture of Mustapha. Woe to the shop that fails to have it! Every house must have a Turkish flag and fly it every Friday. The day after wo arrived was tho anniversary of the founding of the Republic and I think I must have seec more than 10,000 Turkish flags that day.

"The military museum was once the Christian Church of St. Irene. In tho centre, about where the altar would once stand, now stands a life-sized painting of the Gaza (i.e., Mustapha Kemal). In the gallery at the back, among the nation's great, there is a more than lifesized bronze bust of the same gentleman. His name is execrated by many, but they do not speak above a whisper.

"Executions are still carried on in public and are fairly plentiful. Religion has been abolished by the State. It is permitted to Christians to worship but not to make converts. Recently, in an American college three Moslems became Christian. There was a terrible upheaval. The college has been closed and three teachers are in the process of being tried. The Scottish Mission School, in existence for more than 80 years, now feels that its days are numbered. To teach Christianity is forbidden, and all sorts of restrictions hedge them round. For instance, Shakespeare's "Richard II." and Conan Doyle's "White Company" are on the index of forbidden literature, because they contain about one sentence each in disparagement of the Turk. There are 22 different nationalities among the pupils of this school and eight among the teachers."

While in Greece Mr. Herron noted an important indirect result of the recent ejection of the Greek population from Turkish territory. As it was to a very large extent these people who wove the Turkish carpets the carpet industry has now been transferred from Turkey to Greece.