The sinister suspicions under which the Committee of Union and
Progress have laboured since the attempted assassination of Sherif Pasha in Paris are not likely to be dispelled by the treatment of Colonel Aziz All Bey. This officer, an Egyptian Arab much esteemed in Egypt, is alleged to have incurred Enver Pasha's jealousy by his successful organization of Arab resistance to the Italian invasion of Cyrenaica after Enver himself had returned to Turkey. Anyhow, he was arrested some three weeks ago for resigning because he objected to an order to proceed from Constan- tinople to Asia Minor, and has since been kept in prison in spite of the absence of incriminating evidence. The Cairo correspondent of the Times now states that, according to well- informed private advicee from Constantinople, there is a general opinion that the affair will terminate in the same way as that of Kavakli Mustafa. Kavakli Mustafa, it will be remembered, had been condemned to death in absentia for complicity in the murder of Mahmud Shevket, and was arrested on a Russian vessel as a common criminal, an act for which the Grand Vizier subsequently apologized to the Russian Ambassador. The Russian protest against this method of procedure did not save Kavakli Mustafa, who sub- sequently "committed suicide" in the military prison. As there is good reason to believe that this was a convenient euphemism, it is highly desirable that attention should be recalled to the evil precedent then established by the Committee.
