THE COLONIST. Published Every Morning Wednesday, March 31, 1909. TURKEY UNDER REFORM.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12502, 31 March 1909, Page 2

THE COLON IST. Published Every Morning Wednesday, March 31, 1909. TURKEY UNDER REFORM.

In an interesting article in a London paper, Mr Charles Buxton sketches the change that has come over Turkey with the advent of freedom and popular government. To the traveller who knows Constantinople, he says', the first impression on arrivtl now is one of astonishing transformation. It is seen at the first glance, and in every direction. Newspapers, cartoons and broad sneets of every description are hawked through, the streets, a thing which would have been inconceivable a year ago. Censorship is abolished, arid new book shops abound. The streets are full of processions — processions of voters on the way to the polling station, processions in honour of the newly-elect-ed deputies, 'manifestations' in honor of England, or of Franco, all picturesquo with their tall waving banners" of red or green; bearing white crescentSj and to the sound of the National Anthem, all orderly in. the.extreme, even: solemn, except for occasional outbursts of concerted clapping, and all a totally new experience to those who take part, in them. Four months ago a gathering of two or three was sedition and conspiracy. The very idea of meeting for any political purpose, even in the most secret place, was unknown. Now these sights and' sounds greet one on the way from the railway station. And more, there is happiness instead of gloom in thousands of faces, confidence instead of suspicion j tho simple delight . in freedom- of speech and action which have been lost in the orderly West, because the West has forgotten; what it is to be with-: out' these things. "But, beneath the surface," continues the writer, "what is it that has produced this change? Talk to tho men who have helped to bring about the revolution. They may be members of the Committee of Union and Progress — . who .are showing much hospitality to us, the members of the Balkan Committee—or they, may be ordinary citizens, or soldiers who have helped in secret to spread the sacred flame, who have longed in secret to breathe the free air, who have "suffered/ probably, from intolerable restraints, from imprisonment or exile, 'from the loss of friends and relations. ~ The committee, indeed, in a sense, is nineteon-twentieths of the \ Turkish people. No one, knows exactly where the line is drawn between membership^ and non-membership. Nor is there any formal organisation, any nominal leaders.. Talk to any •of these men, and you will begin to get glimpses, vivid glimpses, into recent history. The extent of the horrors ■ suffered by countless thousands of Moslems", as ,well as of Christians under the old. regime/ will begin to dawn upon you gradually, incredible at first, driven at last into your mind by fact after fact, one definite, minute, personal illustration following another. The extraordinary growth of the revolutionary movement, within the last three years will open up before you,, each conspirator known only to four others, so that no one individual could betray more than four of his comrades; the deliberate spreading of discontent among the soldiery; the smuggling of letters by the help of trusted women; the innumerable devices of a subterranean propagandism — tho strange spontaneous co-operation of a multitude of unconnected , human beings, guided by one instinct, one spirit, and urged on by one system of universal oppression, crushing high and low with impartial cruelty and cunning, which made sedition with all its dangers, preferable , to passive resistance." ' .