FEHIM PASHA'S MISDEEDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13832, 20 February 1907, Page 5

FEHIM PASHA'S MISDEEDS

THREAT TO MURDER A MERCHANT.

"AN INFAMOUS CLIQUE." Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. CONSTANTINOPLE, February 18. The Sill tan paid Fchim Pasha £750 a month as secret service money to enrol 140 spies, Peliim being entrusted with the mission of watching the Ileir-Apjinreut, Reshad Etfendi. On Friday (lie liritisli Ambasador showed tlio Sultan a document wherein Fehim, as the Sultan's aide-de-camp, lntd threatened to murder ,i. merchant who sought liritisli protection unless lie paid blackmail. This tinned the scale, Fehim and his spies being dispersed.

LONDON, February 18,

The Times, congratulates the German Ambassador, saying that his firmness and energy has rendered a signal service to Geimany, the Turkish people, and civilisation. The paper declares that Fehiin Pasha is the most powerful, most wicked, and most dreaded member of an infamous clique who had too long been allowed to govern tha Palacc anil the Empire.

• Peihups no chapter in tlir- annals of Ibe reign of the present /Sultan illustrates more forcibly his tenacity of purpose and his consummate statecraft than his manner of dealing with hjs officials. Grand Yiv.ier after Grand Vizier, Ministry after Ministry (says a writer in Blackwood's Magazine) Hit.ill rapid succession across the siaßo, and every one leaves in turn in AtdulpHamid's retentive hands some, larger fragment; of tho power which onco belonged to tho Porte, until at last, tho rambling pile or government buildings iu Slamboul is tenanted by mcro clerks, Ministers and Excellencies though I hey still be styled, whose sole business it is to resistor and carry out tin l unquestioned behesis of their Imperial master: The very names with which tho European diplomacy at Constantinople was onco familiar have ail disappeared out, of tho great offices of the State. Those who boro them lwvo gone into exile, or liavo died in the course oj nature, or otherwise, or have been deported inlo some remote province, or, moro fortunate, drag on an obscure existence in t ho enforced privacy of tho yalis on the Dosuhoms. The Sublime Porto has come to be lit do moro than a polite fiction. I''ro;'j one end to the other Turkey is ruled from Yildiz Kiosk, where, surrounded by a Frqjorian guard and a scarcely less numerous army of spies, Abdul ITamid, himself a. prisonef to his own morbid fears within its walls, holds in hia_ hands every thread of tho military and civil administration throughout tho Vhole Empire.