ABDUL HAMID'S ONE GREAT ACHIEVE MEM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2882, 16 June 1909, Page 78

ABDUL HAMID'S ONE GREAT ACHIEVE MEM.

What a fascinating personality he wus, after all, in the days of his power —the Sultan Abdnl Hamid! Mir JtJuxton, in. " Problems of the Middle East," gives a very picturesque accouint of the fcsultan. Mr Buxton had gone to see the Selamlik | —that weekly visit of the Sultan to the mosque which played so large a part inrecent events —and after the ceremony had been finished n« and his party were surprised to receive an invitation from the Sultan —surprised because they belonged to that Balkan Committee which the Sultan oould not 'but regard as in some degree responsible for the overthrow of his autocracy after its long reign o£ more than 30 years. And this is how Abdul Hamid looked to Mr Buxton: We have looked' face to face on the man of blood. If we have not looked into the eyes, that is because the eye- ■ lids droop with the lassitude of old age (though he is but 64), and the head leans forward from between the hig>h shoulders,, weighed down, as some allege, by the shirt of mail which he wears, 'ifou would' think him' a man. oppressed with weariness rather than seared with crime. But it is no common face. The big, hooked nose, thegrey beard dyed brown, the high forehead, narrowed to the point ot deformity, and emphasised by the fez set back on the crown of the head, suggest something of the character of t-has extraordinary man • without education, consumed with a paseLcm* of personal fear which has become an ingrained habit dominating his life, his whole intellectual force concentrated on that one art of intrigue wlwch, gradually developing by experience, and aided b the telegraph and the railway, enthroned him, -until" yesterday, in the centre of the most triumphantly complete despotism that the world has ever seen. Taking up the Daily Chronicle, I found a description of another visit of the Sultan to the mosque —of another Selamlik which has tunned out to be one of the partings of the ways in the history of Modern Turkey. It is curious to note how consistent the Sultan is even in the different environment which now surrounds him. For here is how the Sultan looked at the Selamlik last week: jj'raii, stooping, an* haggard, the Sultan rode to tiie Jtianumen Mosque for t'fte usual tfrKlay prayer this morning, and it was impossiDie to perceive any dirference in ins manner or appearance. Jixcept for the fact that there was not a bag orowd in tlse pavilion reserved lor diplomatic and dmunguisnect .kuappeanu—onLy two ladies were present uifc-re, oi&e English—the telamUK was in no wise extiiiordinary., Tne esuai dozen oait'iiages of wives, surrounaed by black eunucns afoot, preceaad the imperial presence. Hamid liin*seJi was slightly rouged, and his beard freshly dyea. His wmte gloved hand trembled as he saluted, and has lower lip continually mumbled. But these were only things observed at > otner Salamliks. JAus Irttie eyes, glancing measuredly right and left, indicated that bis maa-YeHo-us braan was as vigorous as ever. -" —The Marvellous Biain. — Aaid now the whoie worldi will ask, What has that "marvellous brain"' accomplished? Has it been altogether malignaim and meanly futile, ifrading ite .-only occupation and its only achievement in encompassing the wide dominions of the Ottoman Empire in the most perfect, the most villainous, and the most oppi'esbive system of - espionage the world liao ever seen? Did this man never think of anything but his own miserable skin? Was all has statecraft simply, like his coat of mail, a weapon against that assassination of which he went in such | liovurly dread? Have tjiese trembling ! hands nothing but blood upon them? 1 would have answered all those questions in the affirmative if there had not come under my eyes this week the very interesting volume which Mr Angus Hamilton has just published on the many problems of the Middle East. One \of his chapters describes a very notable enterprise, the initiation and the realisation of -wluch is largely due to the Sultan. It is perhaps the one thing that will i^emain standing amid the ruins of everything that was prosperous and free and *£ir during his inauspicious reign. This enterprise is the construction of a railway which woul3 connect Constantinople with Damascus, Medina, and Mecca —the three most sacred places in the world of Mohammedanism. These tbree cities a.r>e the burial places of Fatima, Mojhammed's famous daughter, the burial place of the Proohet himself, and, last, his place of birth. Such a railway would make a strong appeal to the most profound sentiments of the Mohammedan mind and soul, and the Caliph who accomplished such a work was sure to find grateful remembrance in the mind of his people. But the projected railway had another purpose —not a bit more important than the sentimental and spiritual purpose already mentioned, but veiy much more | mundane and much more likely to be , u-efu! to the Sultan or his successors, in the maintenance of the remnants of the Turkish Empire. As everybody knows, a German General —Van der Goltz —whose name has frequently figured in recent pronouncements on the prospects of Tuxkey, has been for some years employed in reorganising the Turkish army. He puts the military purpose of the railway well in these words: The great distance dividing the southern provinces from the rest of the empire involved not only the difficulty of holding them in control, but it j made Tuikey unable to concentrate her

strength m case of danger in the nortK. It must not be forgotten that the Osmanie Empire in all former wars on the Danube and Balkans has only been, able to utdlise half her forces. Not only did far-off Asiatic provinces not contribute men, but they; on the contrary, necessitated strong reinforcements to parevent the danger of their •being tempted' into rebellion. This will be quite chaiged when the railroads to the Persian Gulf and the centre portions of the Red Sea are made. The empire -trill then be in a way rejuvenated aril have renewed strength. — The Railway. — It will be seen that the Sultan, then, had very good reasons for wishing" to build this great railway ; the only wonder is that he should have displayed on this occasion detachment and. largeness of mmi snfficient to devote himself to a giieat work of 'reform, -instead, of poring over the reports of the army of 40,000 spies whose services and denunciations formed the chief business of his petty life. It was in the year 1900 that the project took public shape. In the April of that year the Sultan took the whole Mohammedam world into his confidence, announcing that he intended to build a railway which" would bring the sacred city of Damascus into- communication with the two more sacred .cities of Medina and Mecca. Imagine Rome still .separated from all the rest of the Catholic world by nearly a -thousamdi miles of untracked d*sext, and then imagine a Pope proclaiming his resolve to couple up Rome by a great railroad with the rest of the Catholic world; and you can have some idea' of the magic to the Mohammedan, world of the great scheme the Sultan announced. , Appeals wers made to t-H« whole world of the Prophet — to the . white, the yellow, and the black Taces who follow his gospel. The response was magnificent. Subscriptions poured in ; the" Sultan himself started with a subscription of £50,,000. Not less than a million sterling, was subscribed to the fund; these who could not send money paid in kind, and there were subscriptions in the f-orcu of jewels, i-vor^, silks, cloths, and even slaves. In addition, a tax of 10 per cent, was levied on the incomes of all the officials of the empire. Altogether the railway fund amounted to £3,000,000. Work was begun on August 31, 1900, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the .accession of the Sultan to the throne. To associate the enterprise even, more closely with tjie Sultan it was arranged to divide the enterprise into different sections, and again August 31 was fixed as the date when each of these sections should be finished. It is" a remarkable proof of the skill, regularity, aoid foresight with which this gigantic and difficult project has been carried- through that there as been "no occasion ,when the work projected did not finish on The appointed day. On September I,' 1901, the Mezarib section was opened ; on the same day next year w.as, opened, the section between Dergs and Ssrka ; on the same day in 1903 the Serka-Katrane portion was ; finished ; and so on -till September 1, 19Q8, when the section ending in the fir?^ of the two great Arab sanctuaries, Medina, was constructed, including a branch line, 769 miles. And 1 this year the whole line will probably be completed' with the rail entering the sacred .and hitherto inviolate City of Mecca. — Work of Construction. — ; The success and regularity with which the enterprise has been carried out are no mare remarkaible than, the details of the daily work. To this purely industrial , enterprise there came from the Mohammedan world a continuous inspiration of religious enthusiasm. . Just as the Mohammedans, inch and poor, subscribed according to their means, so also the Engineering College of Constantinople sent out -to the work its most promising young graduates. The army played a large and honourable part dn the enterprise. Soldiers, raised by conscription in Syria, did most of the nawying, and these were under the guidance of well-trained officers, many of whom volunteered for the work. In addition, there were importations from all parts of that curious labour world which is dtcawn upon everywhere whej> railway construction has to be dome. Of the railway labour world the greatest centre is Italy. I have met the Italian navvy in all parts of Europe ; he is to be found in 'hundreds of thousands in the United Slates ; he is overrunning all the States ' of Southern America; there were hundreds of him on the Damascus-Medina railway. There were alao hundreds of Montenegrins, and there were four hundred Greeks and Syrians. Altogether the railway army numbered 7000 persons. Better than any of these motley elements were the soldiers of the Sultan himself. The contractors srrew more exacting in their demaaids as the railway penetrated more deeply into the desert ; and possibly would have crippled the enterprise, and finally broken it down at some intermediate point if it had mot been that ths Sultan had always these faithful and willing soldiers to fall back upon. Ihei.r work was encouraged a-nd accelerated by being convorted into piece-work — work at Turkish low fiprure^, bat still a temptation to these poor fellows, always badly paid, p-nd often not paid at all. As the portion of th« raihvav which has to be constructed between Medina and Mecca lies ■»-»thm th« rejrion from which the g-.iaour is still supposed to be excluded, it is possible that tl'is section will be left, e-ntirely in the hands of the Turkish' soldi'STs : and yet this prohibition will break down soon, especially when th^ elements represented by the Young Turks nre in control of the Ottoman Empire. The day may not be far distant when the British globe-trotter will take Mb ticket for Mecca, the' sacred city of tho Prophet, as easily and as much as a matter of course as hfi does now for the oity in which died the Founder of his own religion. — Civilising Agency. — Already this railway is doing work a*

* great agency of civilisation. The village of Tebuk is a good instance of the transformation that is taking place. It is occupied by a curious detached small tribe of some 300 souls known as the Beni Hamdan. Tebuk was the only permanent settlement for the vast space of 300 miles between two sections of the railway. It is bleesed by abundamt water, a fertile soil ; it- has palm groves, gardens, and cornfields^ — an extraordinary break, as will be 9een, in the waterless, unpeopled, uncultivated desert. But when the railway construction party reached Tebuk it consisted, of ill-built mud hovels, and out of the 60 houses only seven or eight were found to be inhabited. The | rest hall been abandoned in consequence ! of the raids of the Beni Attiyya, a tribe that robbed and killed. The refugees have now returned ; and; there is an even more significant and triumphant manifestation of the victory of the railway as a, civiliser : Sheik Haib himself, who is the formidable chief of the predatc-ry and murderous Beni Attiyya, has demanded and received permission to build a house near the village, of Tebuk.; and thus outwardly, immutably, finally, makes the surrender, of the Bedouin to civilisation,'peace, the respect lor property - and . for life. And in the meantime Tebuk is rising to the position of one of the x great railway junctions of the Ottoman Empire. It has -a mile of sidings, water-towers, engine sheds, and tura-table. It has a massive one-storey hospital, which has 60 beds ; and there is a mosque, built by the chief of the Construction Department, and on a spot whore Mahome£ once knelt in prayer. El Ula is another settlement which is being advanced in prosperity by the railway. II is better than Tebuk, for its houses are built of sandstone — imposing edifices in a land of sand and mud hovels. Finally, in the sacred city of Medina there is a magni-. ficent station, which has been built af> the expense of a pious Mohammedan, who subscribed £40,000 for the purpose. j Such, then, is the story of the railway i from Damascus fo Mecca. It is interest- j ing, surprising, exhilarating. It enables ove to see how much can still be done within the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, and how, even under such a monarch as the Sultan Abdul Hamid, civilisation makes its- slow penetration. The story of this railway opens up a vast vista of reform and progress to those Young Turks whose courage, moderation, and statesmanship pa-omise so much for the future of their country and their race.— T. P.'s Weekly.