YOUNG TURKS’ PROGRESS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 5, 22 August 1911, Page 8

YOUNG TURKS’ PROGRESS.

(By Sir Win. M. Ramsay.) [“Manchester Guardian.”] Constantinople, July 1. in one very important feature of administration the government of the Young Turks .is producing a marked improvement in the central regions of Anatolia, namely, in the management and conduct of the gendarmerie. As I have given an unfavourable account of the gendarmes and the soldiers in Macedonia, speaking on tiie authority of others, I feel bound to say that better methods aro practised in the Asiatic provinces, so 'far as I have seen them during the present year or been able to gather from others. In Asia the problem of administration is, of course, far simpler and easier than in Macedonia. The process of disarmament has to bo enforced here only to a very slight degree. The Circassians are fond of carrying rifles, and the law forbids this; but the Circassians arc a very small element of the population, and the police are not instructed to adopt very stringent, measures in their case. When a gendarme goes into a Circassian village, either the inhabitants keep their rifles out of his sight or he refrains from seeing them, and it is only when rifles are obtruded on the view of several gendarmes together that the later arrest the bearers. I have not heard of any case in which a village has been searched for concealed weapons, or Circassians arrested on suspicion and confession forced from them. The safest witnesses to trust, in this matter arc the peasants themselves. It would, however, be useless to question thorn directly; the one thing that the traveller can lie quite sure of is that if he .asks questions on such matters he will not hear the truth in reply, or at least ho will not bo able to trust the reply. The old fear of coming into relation with the Government, or with anyone who seems even remotely connected with the Government, is as strong as ever. One must carefully refrain from asking questions as to any government or police business lest, one he taken for an agent cf the government. But indirectly ono gradually learns that the action of the police or gendarmio in this region is much fairer than it was under Abdul Hamid. The reason lies largely in the fact that all officials are now paid regularly. The pay is small, but certain. Formerly, in cases of crime the gendarmes did not desire to arrest the criminal; they arrested innocent parsons in order to he paid to lot thorn go again. That simple plan is no longer practised to any serious extent in these parts, and many similar abuses have ceased or been greatly diminished. I need not enumerate the abuses; almost every book about old Turkey contains many stories about the conduct of the police, whose solo income lay in such illegal extortions.

This immense improvement, together with the almost, complete abolition of restrictions on travel and communication, is gradually producing an effect on the fooling on tho industrious part of the population. Those who avo working and eager to make money recognise that trade is now much facilitated. Here wo arc in the heart of tho old Moslem Turkey. Last year my opinion was that there were not 200 Young Turks in Anatolia, though one could not easily get at the sentiments of tho people. This year it is being gradually forced on my attention that the industrious part of the Moslem population has begun to realise the benefits which accrue from those two great improvements in tho conditions of society. People criticise the present Government, but they accept the now regime. One cannot doubt that this improved state of feeling will continue to improve still further, provided that peace is preserved. The one great d'.nger in Turkey lies in war or in tho apprehension of war, and it must bo repeated and reiterated that the unpardonable sin at present lies in the stimulation from headquarters of the fooling of unrest. There are plenty of causes for unrest without artificial fostering of the feeling. One very grave cause of unrest lies in the agitation among tho Armenians. No one can fairly accuse me of exaggerating the fault of tho Armenians towards the Turkish Government. I have been too vividly aware of their

sufferings to attend to their faults. Now, however, it is necessary to say that many Armenians are deliberately provoking some terrible retaliation by nursing the desire for revenge among their people. The Armenians have nothing to gain and everything to lose by forcing tho Government to repressive measures and that is what they are at present doing. A missionary, who has very long experience of this country and strong sympathy with that suffering people, told mo that lie was at a large meeting of Armenians in which orators preached the duty of revenge, and one speaker, as tho climax of an impassioned harangue, urged his audience to “clothe themselves in tho bloody shirts of Sassoun.” It is tract that, in a sense, the terrible massacre at Sassoon can never bo 'obliterated from the memory of the race, but tho only wise policy is to regard that act as a crime of the old regime and to allow the new regime a fair chance to disown tho past and to reform tho future.

Tho Patriarch and the responsible leaders advocate that policy, but there are many who speak and act in the opposite spirit. The American mismioraries, who arc wise advisors, try

'■> discourage by all menus in their power this thirst for .revenge ; tho one whom 1 have mentioned rose and left fho meeting when tho bloody shirts of bis a nun were mentioned, as a protest against t.'io lone of tho speaker. i

cannot hut think that the English sympathise'! s with the Aiincnians ought to make it a condition of their

charity that thin spirit should he strenuously discouraged, and the policy of the responsible leaders should bo accepted by the whole people. Bui. lie who can make the Armenians unanimous will save that people from its worst fault. Faction has been its ruin throughout history—witness the story of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia during three centuries. I referred to the distrust which the Turkish people always entertain for any'person connected in the most remote way with Government. It is not safe even to present an ancient monument to the museum, as 1 have often found. A few weeks ago an official in an important position showed mo a course terra-cotta tile with a Greek sepulchral inscription of late Byzantine period. In course of conversation I mentioned that I was willing to buy it and any other similar tiles at four shillings each, and that I would present them to the Konia Museum, where they might make an interesting series. 1 added that a single tile had no monetary value, and that it was only as a series in a local museum that they could acquire any value. The official (with whom I was talking ia strict privacy) was terrified at the idea of giving them to the museum, and said that it might load to much trouble and involve him in difficulty with the peasants who werfe finding these tiles; I only succeeded in halfcomforting him by pledging myself to keep the tiles for some time and then present them without letting their provcyuncc be known to flic museum.

Konia, ‘ formerly regarded as a centre of “Old Turkey,” is changing under these new influences. The change is not hy any means all for the better. There is much more drinking among the 'Moslems. A servant of ours has contracted to supply refreshments in the public garden. Ho pays ono pound a month during the six months of the Konia season, and he supplies tea, coffee, aerated waters, spirits, boor, and so on. Ho tells me that the Moslems drink liquor freely, even more than the Christians. Tloly men and dignitaries of the faitli put the tiniest pinch of salt into their raid or cognac; this transforms it into vinegar and makes it lawful. Ordinary Turks take it straight. I have already mentioned the notv habit of staring at ladies. I thought that this was confined to European ladies who were not protected by the veil. But recently as we were driving in a native waggon along a road we passed a young Turkish peasant woman who covered herself with her veil and turned her back .to ns as we drove by. The driveer, a Turk, leaned out of the waggon and stared back at her to take advantage of' her natural action in looking round at ns after wo had passed, and thus to get a sight of her face. In thirty years we had never seen such an act of rudeness done by any Turk, and I would not-have believed it possible that it could have happened.