"INTERESTS" IN TURKEY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19848, 17 January 1920, Page 13

"INTERESTS" IN TURKEY.

NIGHTLY BATTLES IN CONSTANTINOPLE STREETS. (Correspondent " San Francisco Chronicle.”) CONSTANTINOPLE, November 29. At least two distinct and yet strangely parallel wars are being fought out hereabouts, both strenuous and almost ceaseless, and both significant as indicating how tho political winds shift in this much troubled town. One of them is tho war of the diplomats with objectives that laymen rarely if ever perceive, and which the papers sometimes whisper of as tho peculiar “interests” in Turkey of this or tho other European Powers. So you have interests that are British, when they are mentioned you instinctively turn toward Mesopotamia and tho deserts of Arabia and Jerusalem. French interests are notoriously centred in Syria and Adana; Italian on tho south coast of Asia Minor, in and about Adalia and tho Armenian in tho .six Eastern vilayets of Turkey. Smyrna and the Hinterland stand out as tho Greek interests. Then there is tho war of the streets, with the nightly battles that all who pass may see. No secret diplomacy about them. They are productive of many broken noses and blue eyes, of triumphs and defeats, hut withal they follow closely tho linos of tho big diplomatic campaigns in high placesGOBS IN IT, TOO. This is where our own gobs shine, unconqiiered yet hy "Limey” or Gaul, and with the “ wop ” and Greek far down on the list of honours. Truth to say, the Americans have no business in this subwar of the streets nud byways. for all along America’s particular interest in this country has been to give away with both hands and not to take. Yet there is an instinct in the American sailor man’s breast that prompts him to go for the “Limey,” so that one could almost conclude that even without such trifles as .tho mandate proposal to trouble Anglo-Ameri-can relations the little war would go merrily on. Many are tho street battles seen in the dark, narrow alleys of Pora and Galata. They flame up for tho most part under the sputtering green gas lamps of Rue Benedick, where stands tho mighty American stronghold—tho “American bar.” For tho purposes of war tho bar is also an arsenal with beer bottles and stein glasses always at hand. , Tnrco-Greck embroglios, noisy as they are, seem as nothing beside the grand affairs that ndver fail to happen when certain "Limeys” think they have a grudge io square with, tay, a gang off the t.S.S. Galveston, or vice versa. Fierce pandemonium breaks with every light of this kind. Window panes tumble then to the pavement in showers of broken glass, to bo pulverised under foot by the excited crojwls of onlookers. Wild cries pierce tho air ns someone in tho crush stops a fjyigg beer bottle with his skull. No human lives hare so far been lost in this unending war, although there have been cases when as many as a dozen Britishers have been carried off to their ships on stretchers. : FISTS CHIEF WEAPON. Our own boys have little use for any weapon but their fists. Guns flash out from beneath the blue shirts only rarely. But tho American gob’s list has won an ugly reputation hero, and tow Britishers will stand up to it. At first tho British wore eager for battle with their cousins from America. From the numbers of them that used to assemble at the bar in Benedick Street, you would even think they enjoyed the encounters. They fought out their quarrels man to man, taking their punishment without a murmur! Now the bar seldom entertains them ami to point out that no special craving exists for their companionship there hangs a sign inside which says; “ This Club Is Out of Bounds to British Troops.” Since the sign has been up, the rows start somewhere in the neighbourhood. When you see a batch of Britishers banging around in the little street some 200 yards away from the bar, or when a cluster of American hoys linger near a British beer hall at about closing time, you bet your last lira that something is up again. POLK!K IGNORE FRAY. No one has ever yet seen the Turkish police stop a sailors’ fight. Every tho gallant Italian carabinieri, who do service in Pera as protectors of the weak, have been seen during frays of this kind to bo in a hurry to Vea’di points lying beyond tho danger zone I have seen one of them actually run in tho wrong direction, his fore and aft hat, as tlio gob calls it, lodged under his arm and tho other hand grasping his sabre. The battles just go on Until they are visibly over except when American navy petty officers happen on thos pot to tear away their own men and send them aboard.