22 DECEMBER 1928, Page 1

The Afghan tribesmen have a kind of rancorous conservatism which

is very different from the docility of the Turks. Mustapha Kemal, the Turkish dictator, is convinced that there is no future for Turkey either in, or in contact with, Europe unless she is completely Westernized. But he goes slow and the compliance of his countrymen has so far served him usefully. We remember a curious instance of this Turkish docility when the Powers were in control in Macedonia. An officer of the Commission visiting a village where a massacre was in progress called upon a detachment of Turkish troops, who were themselves massacring, to follow him and stop the bloodshed. This they did quite obediently. Yet afterwards he found that the same men had returned to the work of massacre with equal obedience to the order of one of their own officers.

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