RUNNING A PAPER IN TURKEY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XII, 21 March 1896, Page 320

RUNNING A PAPER IN TURKEY.

Without doubt the most peculiar newspapers in the world are published in Turkey. The press is a comparatively new thing in the land where the Sultan rules, and the Turks did not take kindly to the innovation at the start. It was only by means of bribes and the assistance of foreign powers that the newspaper proprietors were allowed to get any foothold at all, and even then the editor was in constant fear of his life whenever the paper went to press. Every man whose name was mentioned felt at liberty to demolish the plant, and it was an everyday occurrence for the editor to be called to account at the point of a sabre. After many editors had been kilird and manv attacked and intimidated, the papers adopted a new method, and for some years ventured to publish nothing about a person unless it was highly complimentary. But the Turks finally took offense at this, too, and fresh raids were made on the newspaper offices, with disastrous results. The Government then stepped in, and after subduing the riots, publicly encouraged the establishments of newspapers, relying upon the institution of a censorship to render them harmless. Under this censorsbib the Turkish press has existed until the present time, and, notwithstanding the terrible handicap, the newspapers have gradually increased in numbers. Most of the newspapers are published in the Turkish and Arabic languages, and the most important are naturally located at Constantinople and Boyroot. The latter place has now fifteen publications, all in Arabic. Each issue is as good as a comic opera, and how thev manage to find readers for the matter they publish is a mystery, for they contain little more than a few articles eulogistic of the Government The censors placed in each newspaper office by the Government are supreme, and are held solely responsible for every item that appears in it from one year's end to the other In the event of a prohibited line slipping in unawares the censors pay for the oversight with their lives. It is expected—in fact, it is almost looked upon as law —that writers shall take advantage of every oossible opportunity to flatter the Sultan. Thus, an editor was recently severely called to account for speaking of the Sultan as merely ' His Imperial Majesty, the Prince of the Faithful, and the Shadow of Allah upon Earth.' This was regarded as positively disrespectful, and it was only by the utmost pleadings and promises to do better that the editor was allowed to continue his paper. What he should have said, to appear at all loyal, was: ‘ His Most Holy, Noble and Imperial Majestv, the Greatest and Most Powerful of all Princes of the Faithful, the Shadow of Allah upon Earth, the Finest Pearl of the Age and the Esteemed Centre of the Universe ; at Whose Grand and Mighty Portals Stand the Camels of Justice and Mercy,’ etc.

To mention the Queen of England as the 'Empress of India ' is almost worth a man's life, for the Government cannot bring itself to recognise any Christian woman, and cannot permit the papers to allude to her as the ruler of a country that contains so many Mohammedans.