The Turks have not delayed in carrying out their side of the bargain,
and they have been equally prompt in using the free hand assured them
by Germany in return. First they repudiated the “Capitulations”—a
system of treaties not particularly equitable in themselves, but still
treaties to which Turkey was pledged—by which the civil liberties of
foreign residents in Turkey were guaranteed against the imperfections of
Turkish judicial procedure. Then they repudiated the tariff treaties,
and substituted for them a new tariff (recently published) of their
own. Next they abrogated the Reform Scheme for the Armenian Vilayets,
which the Concert of Europe had finally induced them to ratify, and
dismissed the two Inspectors-General, a Dutchman and a Norwegian, whom
they had themselves commissioned to carry the scheme into effect. But
these breaches of contract were minor offences compared to the Armenian
Deportations, the horror of which has been indicated briefly above, and
which they did not venture to carry out until the Dardanelles Expedition
had failed. To complete the elimination of every non-Turkish element
in the Empire, they are now trying to rid themselves of the American
Missionaries.