OLD & YOUNG TURKS' IRRECONCILABLE CONFLICT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 10240, 1 September 1909, Page 1

OLD & YOUNG TURKS' IRRECONCILABLE CONFLICT.

The rumor that a plot is brewing to kidnap Abdul Hamid and make liini the loader of a counter-revolution is quite in accordance with present condition of things iii Turkey. While the Young Turks are disputing among themselves and have split up into the party of Union raul Progress and the Liberal Union, there has formed very quickly, and almost in an underground way. a combination of reactionaries under the title of the Mohammedan Union. These are out-and-out lighters for Islam, and they arc in favor of the Spartan policy of expelling ail foreigners. They regret the passing away of the Hamidian regime with the rich spoil of rewards, fees, bribes, and high office which it brought to unscrupulous performers of Abdul Hamid's will. This is a point dwelt upon at some length by Professor Theodore Steeg, in the Revue Bleue (Paris). The revolution in Turkey, thinks this statesman and publicist, deputy of Paris and editor of the L.-.nterne, is by no means an accomplished fact, and we must await the future before acknowledging the complete triumph of the Young Turks. To quote this writer: '"While the two factions of Young Turks are tearing each other to pieces, a third party is quietly collecting under the shadow of secrecy. The Mohammedan Union proposes to put at the head of its platform the secretarian prejudices of Isi am and the fanatic hatred of foreigners which characterised the ancient Moslem. The Union carries on its intrigues with equal zeal, mystery, and success."

The enormous success of this movement is tHus explained by Professor Steeg: "Abominable as was the regime of Hamidian despotism, it had numerous partisans. It had supported a horde of parasites and myrmidons >vhom it naid well for their devoted adherence, 'i'he luxurious and spendthrift court of Yildi/; Kiosk was a source of profit to the city and great cause of the Sultan's popularity. The numberless cooks and scullions made their appearance at the hours of worship to distribute food, and were hailed as emissaries of the Padishah's inexhaustible bounty. Several thousands of informers and spies would daily come to receive their pay for their reports ingeniously fabricated and finished off with criminal precision. Now, of course, these men -find their occupation gone and are mourning over the loss of their disgraceful hire. The mercantile class are also lamenting that Constantinople has not regained tliat tranquility which favors business." While the Young Turks and the Old Turks have the same end in view, the happiness and prosperity of Turkey, thev are striving for this end by methods diametrically opposed, and incapable of reconciliation. Under the circ-.smstancps Professor Steeg doubts whether the Young Turks will ever succeed "in discovering a means of that lasting reconciliation which is an absolutely necessary condition .of the Ottoman Empire's existence and development." He thus states his case :

"Turks. Young and Old, are animated by the same patriotism. But their ideals are different and practically contradictory. The Old Turks, traditionalists, wish to make the Mussulman faith, as in its most flourishing time, the dominating force in the Governinent. They wish to maintain inflexibly and without modification its rites and its precepts to the letter. For the Young Turks "Islam is not an end out a means. They merely see in it a useful element of cohesion in an empire which is constantly threatened by dismemberment. But as experience has orovod the insufficiency of this tie, the Noting Turks would strengthen the edifice of Islam by buttresses of a new tvpc such as would really transform the whole aspect of the structure. But the sturdy depositaries of the ancient belief feel their faith assailed in its dogmatic clearness, and their pride hurt by the introduction of principles which smack of political and religious modernism. They accuse the innovators of abandoniiif' something of the uncompromising zeal which belongs to Mussulman supremacy and of sacrificing it by introducing in its home, almost in its sanctuarv, the vassal nations whose impuie contact thev had hitherto loathed. In vain "<lo the' Young Turks reply to these representations that the best thing for • Islam will be a, vigorous revulsion, which will restore it, by freshly concentrating its forces, tlie vitality of youth. They point to its present de"•eneracy. which day after day exposes it to watchful suspicions and demands of humiliating surrender. The rabid fanaticism of the Old Turks, their adversaries. is blind and deaf to this situation and only grows more intense as they witness the increasing ascendoncv of Christians in the Ottoman EmP 'The Young Turks have an almost insuperable task to perform, observes the v.-riter, standing "between the obstinate sectarianism of conservative Mussulmans. and the impatient ambition of the various races who are calling for the instant rnd complete accomplishment of the promised emancipation which the new order of things has brought in." How the struggle will end is "the secret of the future."