_A STRONG ARMY NEEDED_
For some time before the elections for the Turkish Parliament took
place, the Committee of Union and Progress was at great pains to
explain its programme as fully and clearly as was possible to the
people. From the articles which appeared in the newspapers of the
party and the conversations which could be had without difficulty
with members of the Committee one was able to form a fairly complete
conception of the principal aims of the reformers. The title of the
Committee, “Union and Progress,” well sums up these aims. Turkey is to
be made strong and free, respected by the nations, first by _union_—by
the union of all natives of Turkey of whatsoever creed or race. They
are to enjoy equal rights. No advantage is to be given to any religion.
The Young Turks announced that this tolerance was not to be merely
a passive one, that where Christian populations had no churches or
schools these would be provided for them at the expense of the State,
and that in these schools the teaching of such national languages as
Albanian or Servian would be permitted. In the second place, Turkey is
to be made strong by _progress_—the regeneration of a people whose
energies have been sterilised by a long oppression, the restoration of
prosperity to an impoverished land. The people are to be educated, and
the vast resources of the country are to be developed.
Instead of dreaming of impossible social reforms, the Young Turks have
very practical ends in view. In the first place, they recognise that
it is essential to the existence of Turkey that she should possess
a strong army, as otherwise her very progress may prove her ruin,
arousing the cupidity of those of her neighbours who have already
divided among them so much of her rich land. So Turkey, having no
desire to sow that others may reap, is determined to create an army
equal in strength to that of any of the great military Powers. To
possess such an army the Turks are prepared to make great sacrifices.
The exemption from conscription enjoyed by certain cities and districts
will be withdrawn gradually. The Moslems will no longer bear the whole
burden of the conscription; for the future the Christians also will
have to serve in the army, and the view of the Turkish Generals with
whom I have spoken is that there should be no formation of exclusively
Moslem or exclusively Christian regiments, but that men of different
creeds should be mingled in each unit. The Greeks, who want all the
rights of Ottoman citizenship without its obligations, entertain a
strong objection to service in the Turkish army.
But Turkey cannot maintain a great army without money, and money
she can only obtain by developing her vast mineral and agricultural
resources with foreign capital. Under the old _régime_, Court intrigue
made all industrial enterprise precarious, and foreign capitalists
were chary of ventures in a country where rights of property were so
insecure. But by means of the good government which the Young Turks are
introducing they hope to gain the confidence of foreign investors. They
realise that, to quote from a Constantinople paper, “Turkey cannot have
reform without money or money without reform; foreign capital she must
have in order to carry out the reforms, and foreign capital will not
come in until there is a satisfactory assurance that the reforms will
be carried out, that the money provided will be spent properly and not
be stolen and wasted as it was under the old _régime_.”
The programme of the more necessary reforms was set forth with
some detail by the press of the Young Turk party during its
electioneering campaign, and the abolition of the old corrupt system of
administration, whereby bribery and _bakshish_ had to supplement the
inadequate pay—often years in arrears—of the servants of the State, was
of course insisted upon. The following are among the more important of
the projects recommended by the Young Turk party: (1) The construction
of many thousands of miles of roads to open out the country; at the
present time some of the railway lines are of very little service,
as roads to bring to them the produce of the neighbouring country
at moderate cost are wanting. (2) The construction of four thousand
kilometres of railway; certain railways are urgently needed if
the enormous mineral wealth of the country is to be developed by
foreign capital; the difficulties of transport now prohibit mining
enterprise in most richly mineralised districts. (3) The bringing under
cultivation again of the formerly productive arable districts in the
Vilayets of Salonica, Smyrna, etc. (4) The construction of commercial
ports at Dedeaghatch, Samsoun, Mersina, etc. (5) The construction of
irrigation works in Mesopotamia and elsewhere; there are thousands of
square miles of uncultivated land in Turkey only awaiting irrigation to
make them exceedingly productive. (6) The engaging of French engineers
to make navigable waterways of the Vardar, Maritza, Boyana, and
Kizil-Irmak. (7) The foundation of an engineering college, coupled with
a scheme for sending students who have gained diplomas to Europe to
gain practical knowledge. (8) The formation of navigation, commercial,
and industrial companies, with the object of forwarding the prosperity
of the country.
It is outside the scope of this book to deal with the complicated
question of Turkey’s financial position, which, according to the
experts, is not so unsatisfactory as was at first supposed; but there
are, of course, immense difficulties to be overcome before Turkey can
see herself fairly started on the road of progress. The late _régime_
burdened her with obligations which stand in the way of all attempts
at reform; but these obstacles might be removed by the co-operation
of the Powers interested. Whenever some measure for Turkey’s good is
proposed there seems to jump up some capitulation or some privileged
interest of one Power or another to block it hopelessly. The Baghdad
Railway concession, for example, with its kilometric guarantee, is like
a mill-stone round the neck of Turkey.
The Young Turks recognized that if their country was to be regenerated
and to take its place among the nations the revenues would have to be
greatly increased with the least possible delay. As to ways and means,
the following may be taken as summing up some of the views which I
heard expressed by Turks and others whose opinion carries weight. In
the first place (in view of the attitude taken by the more ignorant
Parliamentary electors, who maintained that under the Constitution
no taxes could be demanded of them) it may be impolitic to make any
increase in the direct taxation of the country. The people, however,
should be compelled to pay such direct taxes as are now in force until
some better system has been devised, and the persons—and they are
numerous—who by exercise of undue influence or otherwise have succeeded
in avoiding the payment of their taxes should be forced to contribute
like the others.
It is held, however, that whereas the direct taxes should be left as
they are, reforms being made in the method of collection, several new
sources of revenue could be tapped in the way of indirect taxation. In
the first place, all the existing methods of raising indirect taxation
should be maintained in their integrity, while the revenue derived
from them should be largely increased by administrative reforms. For
example, it has been calculated that the reorganisation of the Turkish
Customs under the advice of the English expert, Mr. Crawford, will
increase the revenue derived from the Customs by twenty-five per cent.
Thinking men in Turkey recommend, not only the maintenance of the
existing Customs tariff and other methods of indirect taxation, but
also the imposition of still heavier taxation of this description until
Turkey has been extricated from her present financial difficulties;
and they also favour the creation of several new monopolies, to be
preceded, naturally, by an amelioration in the conditions of the
existing tobacco, salt, and other monopolies.
The very mention of monopolies is shocking to most economists,
but political economy is not an exact science, and there are many
exceptions even to the most widely accepted of its rules. Turkey must
have money. The foreign capital necessary to develop her resources
hesitates to come in, waiting to see its security. A monopoly affords
that security and tempts capital as nothing else will. The English
business men to whom I spoke in Turkey regarded the granting of
monopolies for comparatively short terms as expedient under the present
conditions in Turkey; for not only does this fostering of large
industries provide employment for many people, but—what is of the
utmost importance to Turkey at the present moment—it will also bring
to the Turkish Government, without any expenditure on its part, an
immediate and considerable revenue.
As the time for the Parliamentary elections drew near the Committee of
Union and Progress published its political programme, and to this all
candidates who were nominees of the Committee were bound to adhere. The
following were among the more important of the Committee’s demands:
that the Cabinet should be responsible to the Chamber of Deputies; that
Turkish should remain the official language of the Empire; that the
different races should have equal rights; that non-Moslems should be
liable to military service; that the term of military service should be
reduced; that peasants who had no land should be assisted to procure
land, but not at the expense of the present land-owners; that education
should be free and compulsory.
It was deeply interesting to be in Turkey during the elections, to
watch the Young Turks zealously conducting their campaign to serve
what they considered to be their country’s interests, and the people
themselves puzzling out the meaning of this new Western innovation,
the Constitution, and balancing the arguments of rival canvassers. The
representatives of the Committee of Union and Progress were prepared
to discuss patiently the intentions of the party with any group of
electors that came to consult them, and while promising concessions
to just demands, they did not attempt to catch votes by making wild
promises which could never be fulfilled. Thus, when the Armenians—who
have proved their loyalty to the Constitution and have not harassed the
Government with unjustifiable grievances—asked that the lands which
had been taken from the Armenians by the Kurds should be returned
to the rightful owners, the Committee, realising that in practical
politics there must be a law of prescription even for the raider,
and not wishing to have a Kurd question added to the numerous other
difficulties which were confronting Turkey, suggested that it would be
wiser to leave the turbulent Kurds in possession of what they seized
some time ago and to compensate the Armenians by giving them at least
equally good lands in the once productive tracts which have long been
lying fallow and deserted. On the other hand, the Committee could not
assent to the proposal of the Arabians that the use of the Arab tongue
should be permitted in the debates of the Chamber of Deputies. To
Christians of all sects it promised that there would be no interference
with their churches, language, education, and laws of marriage
and inheritance; but refused to consider the question of complete
administrative decentralisation, or of autonomy, for any portion of the
Empire.
On the other hand, the agents of the reactionary party—the party of
those who had fattened under the old _régime_ of plunder and were loth
to see the profitable abuses swept away—worked hard to influence the
electors, but apparently with little effect in European Turkey and
Asia Minor. Certain foolish agitators who were infected with some of
the socialistic doctrines of Western Europe unwittingly helped the
cause of the reactionaries by raising the election cry of “No more
taxes for the people” and “Down with all monopolies.” I have explained
that the more ignorant people thought that with the suppression of the
late _régime_ there would be an end of all authority. When they were
enlightened on this matter by the Young Turks, and discovered that they
would be compelled to pay their taxes as heretofore they felt some
disappointment, and this afforded an opportunity to the reactionaries
to point out to them that they would be no better off under the
Constitution than they had been before, and that, at any rate, Turkey,
under the old _régime_, had been a Mussulman State, whereas under
the new order of things the government would be in the hands of bad
Mohammedans, Christians, and Jews.
In Arabia and in other parts of Asia the efforts of the friends of the
old _régime_, as might be expected, were attended with some success.
The fanatical Arabs, who have never been reconciled to the Turkish
rule, were impressed by the preachings of those who in the mosques
denounced the Constitution, and declared that the Turks, who had ever
been indifferent Mussulmans, had now abandoned the essential doctrines
of Islam and were worse than the Christians and Jews with whom they
associated.
But with the other races of the Empire it was still—in those early
days of liberty—harmony, fraternisation, and enthusiasm; the racial and
religious differences appeared to be forgotten for a while; one read
of elections in which Christians were voting for Mussulman candidates
or Mussulmans for Christian candidates. The optimistic Minister of the
Interior, Haki Bey, made the following statement: “In our Parliament
there will be no Turkish, Armenian, Greek, or Jew Deputies; they will
all be Ottoman Deputies.” If one judged from the appearance of the
surface one would have concluded that the proclaimed ideal of the Young
Turk party—the union of people of all races and creeds within the
Empire—was in a fair way to being realised.
The Turkish election law—which is now being revised—defines so vaguely
the qualifications for a voter that a good deal of misunderstanding
arose. Thus the Greek farmers in Epirus clamoured for the franchise,
which had been denied to them on the ground that they were not
taxpayers, the tithes being paid, not by them, but by the owners of
the land. The Greeks maintained that, as this tax is calculated on
the produce of the soil and not on the rent paid, the farmers were
virtually the taxpayers and therefore entitled to vote. To decide
what constituted a taxpayer in the eyes of the election law must have
puzzled the brains of many a Turkish official at this time, especially
when he had before him some cunning and plausibly argumentative Greek,
determined to have his vote by hook or by crook. In an amusing case
which was brought before my notice an importunate person was allowed
to vote in his capacity as a taxpayer, though the only proof that
he was such lay in the fact that he had on his back a coat made of
a foreign cloth, which, if not smuggled, must have contributed to
taxation in the form of Customs duties as it entered the country. The
Turkish equivalents to English revising barristers had plenty of work
to do in all the constituencies between Macedonia and Baghdad. It
reminded one pleasingly of England to read of these things; but there
were differences to be noticed here and there between the British
and Turkish frame of mind during a General Election. For example,
the Turkish electorate appears to be somewhat more exacting than the
English, and it was announced that at Gumuldjina the _imams_, carrying
the sacred banners from the mosques, assembled with ten thousand
Mohammedans in front of the Municipality, to protest against the
nomination as parliamentary candidates of “_obscure and undistinguished
individuals_.”
The following are the more important features of the electoral
regulations under the existing law. The elections are quadrennial.
Roughly speaking fifty thousand voters are represented by one member
of Parliament. There are two classes of electors; each group of about
five hundred electors of the first class selects an elector of the
second class, and the electors of the second class nominate and elect
the Deputies. The following are among the qualifications for the
franchise: An elector must be a male Ottoman subject, over twenty-five
years of age; he must be a payer of direct taxes; he must have lived
a year in the district in which he exercises his right of voting, and
must produce a certificate from the _moukhtar_ of his former place of
domicile showing that he is entitled to vote; _employés_ of the State
and officers in the army, from the rank of lieutenant upwards, have
the right to vote in whatever electoral districts they may happen to
be during the elections; soldiers on furlough can vote in their own
districts. A man is disqualified from voting if he has been condemned
for a crime, if he is an undischarged bankrupt, if his character is
notoriously bad, if he is acting as servant to another individual, if
he has represented himself as being of other than Ottoman nationality.
A Deputy must be over thirty years of age, must know the Turkish
language, and must possess the qualifications of an elector. A good
many of these regulations were not insisted on rigidly at the recent
elections; for example, there are several Deputies who cannot speak
Turkish.
[Illustration: VIEW OF SCUTARI]
The electoral laws provide heavy punishments for those who employ
violence, intimidation, or corruption at elections. By Article 72
of the Constitution the penalty for influencing elections by false
statements and calumnies is a fine of forty pounds and a period of
imprisonment of from one year up to five years, according to the
gravity of the offence; so it would be a dangerous thing in Turkey for
partisans to post the walls with cartoons such as those which have
exerted no small influence at General Elections in England. Another
curious regulation, the object of which is to prevent rioting, compels
the elector to return to his home as soon as he has registered his
vote. It is also laid down that electors, before they drop their voting
papers into the urn, must attend the prayers of the _imam_ (or priest
in the case of a Christian voter) for the prolongation of the Sultan’s
life and the increase of his glory.
In the late autumn, throughout the Turkish Empire, the elections
took place. Turks, Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Wallachs,
Armenians, Jews, Latins, Arabs, Syrians, Kurds, Druses, elected their
Deputies to a Chamber which represents so many races, interests,
creeds, and languages that Turkey’s new Parliament in all probability
would have been a Babel of vain talk and no doing had it not been that
the cause of the Committee of Union and Progress triumphed in European
Turkey and in Anatolia, and secured many adherents in other parts of
the Empire, with the result that the nominees of the Committee formed a
large majority in the Chamber.
I was in Constantinople during the election operations, and very
interesting and picturesque they were. On the night preceding the
polling the big drums were beating loudly in the Turkish quarters of
the capital to remind the electors that it was their duty as good
citizens of a free country to go on the morrow to the appointed places
and drop their voting papers in the ballot boxes. On the following
morning the great city presented a very animated appearance. Large
processions were formed to carry with due ceremony the urns, or ballot
boxes, to the various mosques, Greek and Armenian churches, synagogues,
police stations, and other public buildings, in which the voting was to
take place. A typical Mussulman procession which passed me was composed
as follows: First came a military band and a small escort of infantry;
next a carriage draped with Turkish flags, containing the voting urn
and a few officials; lastly, a motley Mussulman crowd of voters and
others, including _imams_, accompanied by theological students, pupils
of the artillery and naval academies and numbers of happy school
children, conspicuous among which was a band of tiny Moslem girls,
wearing veils and waving miniature Turkish flags as they toddled along
by the side of some tall _gendarmes_ who brought up the rear of the
procession. This and the other processions which I met moved through
the crowded streets to the accompaniment of martial music, the singing
of patriotic songs, occasional cheers for liberty and justice, and the
waving of many flags. These were, indeed, the most good-humoured and
happiest election demonstrations one remembers to have seen in any
country; there were no party cries or manifestations of party feelings
of any sort; all seemed to be thinking of the good of their country
alone, and to be rejoicing in its liberation. The Greeks and Armenians
had similar processions, also headed by military bands (for these had
been lent to all sections of the electorate by the authorities),
and here, too, the priestly element was largely represented. At one
manifestation which I saw in Stamboul the Turk and Armenian electors
joined forces, and there were to be seen in the combined procession
Mussulman _hodjas_ and Armenian priests in their full Mohammedan and
Christian canonicals, walking hand in hand in amity. For a while
good-fellowship reigned everywhere in this city of rival creeds and
races. To judge from appearances it might have been concluded that
“Fraternity,” which has been the watchword of all revolutions, has
for the first time in history been brought about in Turkey, of all
countries in the world.
But when the voting commenced it was made manifest that the brotherhood
of creeds and races in Turkey had not yet been realised. The Turks,
Armenians, Latins, Syrians, and Jews recorded their votes without
any difficulties arising, and in many instances voted for the same
candidates. But the Greeks, who, according to the [OE]cumenical
Patriarch, number one hundred and fifty thousand in Constantinople,
created a good deal of disturbance, after the manner of their brethren
in Athens on similar occasions. In many parts of Turkey the Greeks
complained bitterly of the electoral irregularities which, so they
alleged, had been committed at their expense, and rioting occurred
in Smyrna and elsewhere. So the Greeks in the capital, protesting
that they had been very badly treated, organised noisy demonstrations
which caused the elections to occupy several more days than had been
intended.
The polling opened on a Friday, and it was made evident that the
Greeks had come into the streets on the lookout for trouble. It was
noticeable that when a man of another race was not permitted to
register his vote on account of some irregularity in his papers or
other disqualification, he went away quietly, whereas the Greeks in
like circumstances stayed to protest and bluster until they formed
crowds of disappointed voters who blocked the way to the urns, and
by so doing considerably delayed the course of the election. On the
following morning the Greek leaders hurried about Pera collecting the
people, and ordered all the Greek shop-keepers to close their shops,
which they promptly did. Others got into the belfries of the Greek
churches and rang the bells violently to summon the crowds, and soon
the main streets were packed with excited and clamouring men. Seeing
that they practically all carried revolvers and knives it is wonderful
that but few accidents occurred throughout the demonstration. The
authorities took due precautions. Certain points were occupied by
troops, and bodies of cavalry and infantry patrolled the streets, in
no way interfering with the demonstration, but awing the demonstrators
by their very presence, for the inhabitants of Constantinople knew
of what stuff are made these soldiers who trooped slowly by, silent,
stolid, apparently indifferent to all that was going on around them, in
striking contrast to the noisy rabble which gave way before them. On
the Sunday the church bells again rang out their appeal, and thirty
thousand Greeks having assembled in Pera marched through Galata,
crossed the Golden Horn by the bridge of boats and came to the Sublime
Porte, where they insisted that the Grand Vizier himself, Kiamil Pasha,
should come out to speak to them. When that aged statesman did appear
to explain that full justice would be done to them by Parliament should
they be able to show that the alleged irregularities had occurred,
these people, who but a few months before were afraid to open their
mouths if any representative of the dreaded Government was near,
insulted Kiamil Pasha by shouting out to him that his verbal assurances
would not suffice for them, and that they must have his undertaking
in writing. This attitude, of course, brought the conference to an
end, and the Grand Vizier retired. It became necessary later to
employ the cavalry to clear the streets, but, wonderful to say, only
two casualties, and these slight ones, were reported for this day.
The troops displayed a great forbearance and behaved admirably under
conditions calculated to try their temper.
Observing the indignation and distress of the Greeks, one would have
supposed that they had been very badly treated. As a matter of fact
their clamour was chiefly caused by disappointment at the failure of
their scheme to obtain a much larger representation in Parliament than
their numbers warranted. Their point of view was that the Greek element
of the Turkish population, being the most civilised and cultured, was
the best fitted to undertake the Government of the country, and, being
Greeks, they considered that any means were fair which could forward
their aim. The Greeks are the only people in Turkey who understand
election trickery, and they were assisted in their recent campaign
by clever and, of course, absolutely unscrupulous electioneering
experts from Athens. Taking advantage of the ignorance of the lower
class Moslems they obtained votes by various fraudulent devices and
misrepresentation. The Greeks flocked to the polls whether they were
entitled to a vote or not. Impersonation both of the living and the
dead was largely practised. In Turkey, each voter, on coming up to the
voting place, has to show his _hamidieh_—the official paper testifying
to Ottoman nationality and date of birth. It was discovered that Greeks
not entitled to the vote had been provided with the _hamidiehs_ of dead
men and of people who had left the country. In some cases, too, the
stamps which are impressed upon the _hamidiehs_ to show that the vote
has been registered had been erased, thus enabling an _hamidieh_ to be
used by a succession of would-be voters.
The Greeks would now be represented by a powerful party in the Turkish
Parliament had not the Committee of Union and Progress kept a close
watch on them during the elections. The Greeks have themselves to blame
for the under-representation of which they now complain. They compelled
the Committee to exercise an influence in the elections which, though
technically unfair, was fully justified by the circumstances. The
liberty so recently won had to be safeguarded by the return of a solid
majority of patriotic Turks to the Chamber of Deputies.
The Greeks, gifted as they are with administrative capacity, held
high appointments under the old _régime_, and will no doubt do so to
a greater extent under a constitutional Government; but as a people
they have yet to prove themselves loyal Ottomans. During the elections
their one thought was for the interests of their own race. Headed by
the [OE]cumenical Patriarch, they demanded the maintenance of all the
privileges that had been granted to them from the time of the Turkish
conquest. The Moslems have had to give up their special rights, but the
Greeks refused to surrender a single one of their privileges for the
sake of Ottoman unity. The Greeks chatter about liberty, equality, and
fraternity, but their aim is to secure to themselves advantages over
the other Christian peoples; and the Patriarchate, the most cruel and
intolerant ecclesiastical tyranny remaining in the world, makes use
of “liberty” to increase its persecutions of the exarchists and other
schismatics. In the ranks of the reactionaries are to be found many
Greeks who profited much by the Despotism whose parasites they were. A
large number of the Greeks in Turkey still cling to their separatist
aspirations. Even as I write this the Greeks in Macedonia are breaking
the peace which the Young Turks brought to that long harassed land;
for large Greek bands are once more in the field, with no shadow of a
grievance as their excuse for brigandage this time, but agitating for
various things, including the annexation of Crete to Greece. If the
great Powers would act together and let it be clearly understood that
under no conceivable circumstances will Greece be permitted to annex
another foot of Ottoman territory, the Greeks in Turkey might become
the useful citizens of a united country; for they, like all the other
peoples in European Turkey, would prefer even a Hamidian despotism to
the domination of Germany, Austria, or Russia.