THE YOUNG TURK MOVEMENT.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 12758, 1 May 1909, Page 4

THE YOUNG TURK MOVEMENT.

It is difficult for those unacquainted with Turki&li or Eastern customs to follow intelligently the kaleidoscopic movements in the Ottoman Empire. A day or two ago it was announced that the Sultan was dethroned, and his uncle, the heir-apparent, appointed in his stead, and to-day comes the intelligence that, after all, the Sultan will not be deposed. It is significant that the Turkish reformers should retain their Sovreign, just as the Japanese did years ago at the beginning of a momentous revolution in Japan. The Sultan, like the Mikado, is the link with a great historic past, and he is the head of the national religion. It is not a question of what the Christian world thinks of the Sultan. With the mass of Moslems he is idealised —the Padishah, the Khaliph, the earthly representative of the Prophet — not the head of an earthly State only or chiefly, but the spiritual head of a kingdom of God. A traveller who spent some years in the East recalls a conversation he had with a distinguished Amir on Mount Lebanon a couple of years ago, which assists the ordinary lay mind to understand somewhat the feelings between the Moslems and the Sultan. The Amir was highly educated and of refined tastes, most tolerant both politically and theologically. "I admit all you &ay as to our Government," he said. "I mourn over it. But, remember, the Sultan is the head of my religion, and I am hound to stand by him in danger and difficulty." During his trip the traveller said he was pathetically impressed by the devotion shown to the Sovereign. A ragged, dishevelled Turkish soldier once said to him, "The Sultan is good; he sends us money and clothes. It is the Pasha who keeps us out of our rights." The fact that the Sultan is held in such reverence probably accounts for the altered plans of the Young Turkish Party in retaining Abdul Hamid as head of the State, as the great link with the Ottoman past, and an object of venez'afcion to all who profess the religion of Islam. The cabled information shows that the revolutionary or Constitutional movement is strongly supported by the army, and this is easily understandable, when read in the light of the treatment meted out to the Turkish soldiers. The traveller referred to above recalls a scene which he says will always be engraven upon his memory. Just outside a Southern Syrian town he met a strange procession, a great crowd of conscripts, guarded like prisoners, being led away from their homes. The poor boys were sobbing bitterly, and behind them were their mothers and friends wailing as

though thoir children were being led forth to death. And indeed their fate was not more enviable than death itself. He was assured that few would ever return. They were going away to penury, hardshipeven to hunger and nakedness, and he mourned when he thought of the gallant soldiers he saw in Damascus, slouching : ragged, ill-fed— their pay deferred, perhaps indefinitely. In the face of such experiences, it is not to be wondered at that the army is with the Young Turkish Party. But it is not the army alone which welcomes reform. It will be gladly received by all classes of the community. One has only to live a little while in Turkey in order to know what the Turkish Government is like. The chief foreign Go- 1 vernments have post offices of their 6wn in leading Turkish towns, because the Turkish post office is not to be' trusted. Foreign consuls throughout Asia Minor are invested with the powers and authority of Ambassadors, for the sake of their own fellow-subjects and for the limited protection of the Sultan's subjects. A quarantine for boats coming from Egypt is annually devised, in order to eke out the scanty salaries of Turkish officials. Custom house officers are openly and deliberately bribed, almost salaried, by various tourist agencies. Labour, land, building materials, all are cheap; yet a house sometimes costs nearly twice as much as the value of it, because so many officials have to be bribed in order to secure a title. Beautiful, full-bearing olive trees— the life of which may be 1000 years — are cut down continually by their owners, because they can't afford to bear the tax which is levied upon each tree. The instance is quoted of one gentleman who owned several small villages in a very rich 'country; but he is often in financial straits, owing to the exactions of the Government and the insecurity of property. It is said that if a person liked to commit murder a <£10 note would save him from all unpleasant consequences. It is extremely difficult for one of the Sultan's subjects to get away from his fatherland; difficult, that is to say, if he happens to be poor, for a heavy payment is demanded from every emigrant. It is recorded that once the greatest of the Sultan's allies asked why his Majesty's subjects were not allowed to travel about as they chose? "Why," replied the Sultan, "if this were allowed I shouldn't have any subjects left." A traveller says he was leaving a great Turkish port by an Italian boat. There were the Turkish police on the lookout to intercept would-be emigrants; but beyond the said police were the would-be emigrants themselves, all ready, with everything packed up. The police had been squared, and just before the ship started they looked the other way, and the emigrants cheerfully and merrily went on board. And yet these people were leaving one of the richest and most beautiful districts in the whole wide world. Small wonder, then, that the Committee of Union and Progress, as represented by the ,Toung Turkish Party, is meeting with such success. No revolutionary change has ever been started upon a more solid basis of truth, right, sound reason, and moderation. In the past a Turkish revolution, however interesting, did not count for much. It only meant the substitution of one corrupt set of administrators for another. The present revolution is of a very different order. It is pregnant with farreaching consequences for Turkey and for the world, and the new movement should bring better government for the whole Turkish Empire, a better understanding between Moslem and Christian, and make for the peace of Europe and the world.