THE TURKISH PARLTAMENT. T HE meeting of the first Turkish Parliament
is an event which is bound to create a very great amount of sympathy and interest in this country. Should the experiment be a success, and the Parliament do its work satisfactorily, the path of Turkey towards free institutions and a sound administrative system should be smooth and easy. If, on the other hand, the Parliament proves incapable of doing the work required of it, it is difficult to see how a reaction to the old and evil regime of despotism can be avoided. Our sympathies are naturally with the Parliament and the Young Turks, who have shown so much good sense and so much self-restraint in the course of the revolution which has created the Parliament. In spite, however, of our sympathies and our desire that all should go well, we cannot disguise from ourselves the fact that there are difficulties many and great before the Turkish House of Commons. But the best way to surmount those difficulties is not to pretend that they do not exist, but rather to face them in the full light of knowledge. Dangers are exaggerated, not diminished, by ignoring them.
The first danger is to be found in the want of homo- geneity which must exist in a Turkish Parliament, as it exists in the Turkish Empire itself. Nothing strikes the visitor to Constantinople more than the indications he sees on all sides that the city is rather a fortuitous concourse of racial atoms than a true community. The process of amalgamation seems never to have taken place. The various creeds, races, and even nations continue separate in spite of the fact that they have lived side by side for many centuries. The Turk, the Jew, the Greek, the Armenian, the Latin, and the Slav are all represented, but all remain in water-tight compartments, and if not actively hostile to each other, at any rate absorbed in no common whole. The condition of Constantinople is typical of the Empire. The solidarity which exists in most Western countries, and in China and Japan in the East, is wanting. The Turks, notwithstanding the rigour, nay, cruelty, of their conquests, and the fact that they are supposed to have offered the alternatives of death or conversion to their creed to those they overcame, seem to have been curiously indifferent on this question of absorption. They were in the past content with domination, and did not desire to fuse the people of the lands they conquered into a harmonious polity. The principle so well expressed by Bacon when he said that only those States which were liberal in the matter of naturalisation were fit for Empire does not appear to have dawned upon the Turk. Hence the processes of racial absorption, which in the case of most European nations were get through many centuries ago, still remain in Turkey to be accomplished. For the moment, no doubt, the magic of the revolution has produced an extraordinary amount of harmony between the separate units, but it would be rash, or at any rate premature, to assume that this harmony will last. In any case, it will be subjected to a very severe trial when it comes to a question of voting in a Parliament. The Turks have been the dominant race for so long that it will be very difficult for them in practice to submit to com- binations among the other races in the Empire, should such combinations threaten the defeat of the Turkish view on some important question. What we mean is this. Suppose, under the exigencies of the Parliamentary situa- tion, the Jews, the Greeks, and the Armenians, in agree- ment with the more advanced section of the Turkish Deputies, combine to carry some proposal which may seem exceedingly dangerous to the older-fashioned Turks. Will these endure this necessary phenomenon of Parliamentary government, and be content to think that later, and by some further and different combination, they may be able to obtain what they regard as egsential. to the welfare of Turkey? -Unless they are able to show such a spirit, there can be very little hope for the maintenance of Parliamentary institutions. We trust that .they may be, but at the same time we cannot help pointing. out that their training has hardly been of the kind to make so philosophic a temper come easy.
The next difficulty that must be faced is the fact that Parliaments only do well if and when they give their con- fidence to men who have a special gift for the management of deliberative Assemblies. That freedom and representa- tive institutions triumphed in England was largely due to the fact that when the struggle with the Royal power came, the English House of Commons was led and controlled by men with a special gift for the proper work of that House. If the reign of Charles I. had not produced men of the character of Eliot, Pym, and ,1-fampden—men in whom the spirit of wise counsel, com- promise, and the persuasive instinct were combined with tenacity of purpose, and in whom the power to fix upon fundamentals and trouble little about non-essentials rose to the point of genius—the cause of free institutions could never have been victorious over the statecraft of Charles, of Laud, and of Strafford. Are there men of the type of Pym and Hampden in the Turkish Parliament ? If there are, all may be well. If not, it is greatly to be feared that the reign of Constitutionalism in Turkey must be short and precarious. We do not, of course, mean tr. say that all is lost without an exact reproduction of Pym, for Pym was a man of quite exceptional character, and it would be too much to expect that the world should :for the second time produce such a statesman. All that is necessary is that there shall be one or two leaders imbued with something of his spirit. That this spirit can to a certain extent be made we do not doubt. If the Turkish leaders will remember not to trouble too much about logic and consistency, and will always keep in mind the truism that under Constitutional government the half- loaf must be preferred to no bread, and that peaceful ways of obtaining the desired end must be tried until seventy times seven before recourse is had to force, they may turn them- selves into very fair imitations of our Parliamentary leaders.
Another of the difficulties confronting the Turkish Parlia- ment is to be found in what we might call the attractive- ness of too rapid and too complete an imitation of Western methods. We trust that the Turkish Parliament will not assume that because a thing is done at Westminster, or at Washington, or in the Palais Bourbon, therefore it ought to be done, and done at once, at Constantinople. The Turkish Parliament must aim at becoming an institution appropriate to the Turkish spirit, and must not allow itself to be regarded as a foreign exotic. Its leaders must never forget that there is a vast amount of prejudice, especially in Asiatic Turkey, against every form of government by talking and voting,—a prejudice which, though dormant for the moment, is bound to break out as soon as the fruits of representative institutions are seen. The very thing which endears Parliamentary institutions to many of the Young Turks—namely, that they bring them into touch with, and put them on a. level with, the most enlightened of Western nations—is a source of the profoundest annoyance and disgust to a great section of Moslem and Turkish opinion. It is unfortunate that it should be so ; but undoubtedly some of those who form the soundest and best part of the Turkish community regard anything in the nature of Western institutions with the utmost suspicion. This old Turkish feeling was well expressed by the late Lord Houghton in his poem, "The Turk at Constantinople " :- "Men of the West ! Ye understand n5 not ; We you no more Ye take our good for ill; Ye scorn what we esteem man's happiest lot— Perfect submission to creative will;
Ye would rejoice to watch from us depart Our ancient temperance—our peace of heart.
What can ye give us for a Faith so lost P For love of Duty and delight in Prayer ?
How are we wiser that our minds are test By winds of knowledge on a sea of care?
How are we better that we hardly fear
To break the laws our fathers held most dear?"
If these words cannot be regarded as exactly appropriate to the existing situation, we believe that they nevertheless represent a very large section of Mohammedan feeling. Further, we hold that this section of Mohammedan feeling may very easily come to believe that the new Parliament is a Western institution inspired by Western ideas. In other words, the more the Turkish Parliament talks about Western enlightenment and appears to be copying Western ideas, the more hateful will it become to these upholders of the old faith.
Another of the capital difficulties which we mist indicate is the possibility of disputes between the Parliament and the Committee of Union and Progress, which may roughly be described as representing the best side of the Army. We are well aware that a very large portion, probably a good deal more than half, of the Parliament have been returned as supporters of that Committee. Therefore at first sight one might expect that there could be little or no friction between the two bodies. We must never forget, however, that Parliamentary Assemblies are always inclined, and in a certain sense rightly inclined, to extend and increase their powers. A Parlia- meut, too, after it has been in session for a very short time, develops idiosyncrasies and peculiarities of its own.
Thus, though in theory there ought to be no friction between the Army, as represented by the Young Turks, and Parliament, we should be by no means surprised to see such friction grow up in the course of the next few months. The Turkish Parliament, unless it is a much less human institution than seems likely, can hardly help feeling a certain jealousy towards the Army, just as our Parliament did during the Great Rebellion. It may be remembered that one of the chief factors which helped to make ill-blood between the Long Parliament and the soldiers was the fact that the King intrigued with both, and that each was in turn terrified that a combination between the King and its rivals would destroy it. It was owing to this that the King ultimately lost his head. Similar circumstances may produce similar results in Turkey, and we may find the Army at one moment and the Parliament at another combining with the Sultan and his old entourage to get the victory. It will not, indeed, be necessary for such intrigues actually to take place. The fact that they will be dreaded is sufficient. We see that an example of the friction which we apprehend is already reported. The Turkish newspaper Ilcdam has accused Rahmi Bey, Deputy for Salonika, and one of the representatives of the Salonika Committee at the capital, of having visited the Sultan some ten days ago in company with other members of the Committee, and done his utmost to induce his Majesty to dismiss Kiamil Pasha from office and to appoint Hulmi Pasha in his place. Rahmi Bey is said to have admitted the truth of this accusation, and declared that he will justify his action before Parliament. As to the merits of the dispute we can pronounce no opinion, but we agree with the correspondent of the Times in thinking that the introduction, under whatever pretext, of the practice of appealing to the Sultan over the heads of responsible Ministers may prove a source of grave danger. If unfortunately it should come to a struggle, we may feel pretty sure that it is the Army which will win. No doubt the rank-and-file, owing to it being a con- script Army, are by no means anxious to play a political part. At the same time, they would probably obey their officers, and those officers are politicians, and many of them very able politicians. Very likely they are no more self-seeking than were the officers of the Cromwellian Army, but that will not prevent the kind of difficulties arising with which we are dealing. Indeed, it makes them the more likely to take place.
Yet one more obstacle must be mentioned. The extreme delicacy of the foreign situation will, we fear, prove no small source of danger. If the leaders of the Turkish Parliament are wise, they will induce the Assembly to be as reticent as possible in regard to foreign affairs. But such reticence will obviously be maintained with very great difficulty, and many of the Deputies, no doubt tvith a. good show of reason, will argue that if they are precluded from influencing foreign affairs, they might just as well have stayed at home during a crisis like the preeent. In conclusion, we may say once more that we have enumerated this long and gloomy list of rucks ahead in no spirit of hostility to the Turkish Parliament, but rather from our very strong desire that it shall be a success. The leaders of the Young Turks are, we know, keen students of foreign criticism. If our words of warning should be noted by them, and should prove, as the words of lookers-on sometimes do prove, of use and help in the tremendous task before them, our satisfaction will be deep and sincere,
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