OUR TURKISH VISITORS. T HE gentlemen who form the delegation from

the Turkish Parliament are in themselves so dis- tinguished that they would have been received here with the highest respect had they enjoyed no representative character. Since they are the representatives of the world's youngest Parliament, a Parliament founded upon the British model and inspired by British ideals, they are owed, and are receiving, a double welcome. Their presence among us brings to mind in the most forcible way what we may term without exaggeration the Constitutional miracle which took place in Turkey last year. A year ago Turkey not only had no Parliament, but was the victim of the most ferocious and inefficient tyranny in the world, a tyranny in which espionage, torture, false imprisonment, and social and moral degradation were the prime instruments. Now Turkey possesses a Constitutional Sovereign and a Parliament. Instead of the forces of the State being used to repress all that is good and noble in the nation, we see a Government formed from, and controlled by, men of intense patriotic feeling,—men whose one end and aim is to regenerate their country, and who are willing to make any and every sacrifice to do her service. As Lord Curzon said in his striking speech at the banquet given to the Turkish delegates on Tuesday, there have been, not one revolution, but two revolutions in Turkey within the year, and both of them have been marked by extraordinary wisdom and moderation. But though the authors of the two revolutions have performed a miracle, it would be doing them an ill service to pretend that the task before them is anything but one of extreme difficulty. If, then, we set forth some of the difficulties in their way, we are sure that they will understand that we do so only because we feel the strongest sympathy with the regenerators of the country.

The essential difficulty is the want of homogeneity in the Turkish dominions. Not only are the subjects of the Sultan of Turkey divided by race, by language, and by creed to a degree which finds no parallel elsewhere, or finds it in our Indian Empire alone ; they are still further divided by the distinction between the Old Turk and the Young Turk, or between the Asiatic Turk, who stands fast in the old ways of Mohammedanism, and the European Turk, who has imbibed Liberal ideas. The Olcl Turks unquestionably form the vast majority of the populaa tion of Asiatic Turkey, and probably a majority even of the Turks in Europe. The attitude of these Old Turks has never been better described than in that remarkable poem of Lord Houghton's, which we have quoted before but shall venture to quote again :—

"Men of the West! Ye understand us 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.

Let us return! If long we linger here Ye will destroy us, not with open swords, Not with such arms as brave men must not fear, But with the poison'd shafts of subtle words ; Your blank indifference for our living creed Would make us paltry Infidels indeed.

What can ye give us for a Faith so lost ?

For love of Duty and delight in Prayer ? How are we wiser that our minds are tost

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 ?"

The Old Turk in Monckton Milnes's poem goes on :—

"Let us return ! across the fatal strait

Our Father's shadows welcome us once more ; Back to the glories of the Khaleef ate, Back to the faith we loved, the dress we wore, When in one age the world could well contain Haroon El-Rasheed and your Charlemagne !"

Since this spirit survives—since, indeed, the majority of the Moslem population still entertain such ideas—how will it be possible for the Young Turks to guide the Empire along the path of progress, to give equal rights to the Christians, to uphokl. Parliamentary government,. and, lastly, to maintain the integrity of the Turkish Empire in the face of the predatory instincts of the nations which surround it ? A few years ago almost all students of Turkish affairs would have declared the thing impossible. One of the chief grounds for that conclusion was that the Turk when he became Europeanised became demoralised. The Young Turk in those days was supposed to be, and no doubt often was, synonymous with the Boulevard Turk,—the Turk who wore a hat instead of a turban, who drank champagne, who openly sneered at the Mohammedan creed, and who called himself a philosopher, an agnostic, or a freethinker, according to the verbal fashion of the hoar. Such men were anathema to the Old Turk, and would never have been able to conquer his dislike for the new ways, because in aping the manners and ideas of Europe they had lost their own strength of character. No doubt the prospect seemed hopeless. That it is not so now is due to the fact that the Young Turk of to-day is a very different person from the Young Turk of twenty or even ten years ago. The Young Turk of to-day has managed to adopt Western and Liberal ideas without losing the faith of his fathers, or that virility of character, always the mark of the Old Turk, of which Lord Curzon spoke on Tues- day. As the Young Turks proved to Europe only three months ago when they crushed the counter-revolution, they have assimilated European habits of mind without , losing their native quality of martial vigour. From the point of view of military efficiency nothing could have been better than the way in which the Salonika army was mobilised and brought to the gates of Constantinople. Nothing, again, could have been better calculated to inspire confidence in the statesmanship of the authors of the new regime than the way in which the great, restless, hostile city of Constantinople, a city the mob of which is still the fiercest and most dangerous in the world, has been handled. The Ottoman reformer of 1909 has nothing whatever in common with the anaemic prater of pseudo- Liberalism who was wont to sip absinthe at a cafe table, and talked platitudes about liberty, equality, and fraternity. Thus, though the effort of the old-fashioned Young Turk to lead the Old Turk into the path of Constitutional development was certain to end in failure, it is by no means certain that failure lies before the Young Turk of the new dispensation.

Another great asset of the Young Turks is the fact that they are moved not only by noble aspirations, but also by true patriotism. Vague general ideas about freedom, self-government, tolerance, the brother- hood of man, and so forth, though they may be valid enough, have again and again been shown to evaporate without result when they are merely the subjects of rhetorical exercises. It is only when they are applied, and applied with genuine passion, in a particular place and to a particular people that they are really fructuous. To do well they must be grafted on some definite stock. We believe that the Young Turks have grasped this fact. They have ceased to be international ideologues, and have become patriotic citizens of their own country. They mean to apply their abstract principles, not at all costs, at any time, anyhow, and anywhere, but in a definite and practical way, and in a way too which shall not lead to the break-up of the integrity of their country. Another asset of the Young Turks is the fact that the Turkish people, in spite of many indications to the contrary, are very easy to govern. The fatalism of the Old Turk, which is so well defined in the poem we have quoted, no doubt makes it very difficult to convert him to ideas of reform, but at the same time it renders him an obedient subject. If he is not too much oppressed, too much goaded, vexed, taxed, spied upon, and worried, he will endure with calm the behests of the Administration. He expects little from his rulers, and ,,,is not therefore inclined to disappointment when the millennium does not arrive. His impulse is always to obey the de facto Government. What he asks himself is : "Is it an order ? " If the answer is "Yes," he does not concern himself to inquire whether the order is a sound one, or whether those who issued it were legally entitled to give it. His instinct is to obey. Now the Young Turks have their hands upon the lever of the State. They are the de facto Government. Therefore as long as they give coherent orders they will be obeyed as any other Government would be obeyed,—provided, of course, that they do not do some- thing which will create a blind panic among the mass of the Turkish population.

Yet another asset of the Young Turks which is of supreme importance is their possession of the confidence of the Army, or, rather, we should say, of the best part of the Army,—that part which is most efficient, and which the rest of the Army looks up to with pride. As long as the Young Turks can pay the troops and maintain their hold upon the officers, they not only have little to fear from military revolt, but they have it in their power to prevent any disruptive or anarchical movement in any section of the population. In most revolutions the Army and its officers have been divided from the Parliamentary leaders on the one hand, and from the illuminati, the men of light and leading, on the other. In Turkey, by a happy series of circumstances, the chief Parliamentarians and the men of light and leading are also the leaders of the Army. The Committee of Union and Progress is essentially an Army Committee. While, then, the Army, the Parliament, and the Committee of Union and Progress hold together there is little fear of their work being disturbed. It is only if they drift apart that there will be danger. Against this risk of drifting apart it is therefore essential that they should guard. In our opinion, the only satisfactory way to do this is for the members of the Committee of Union and Progress to abandon their present practice of keeping in the background and refusing to take direct responsibility. That probably was the right course until the revolution had been accomplished. Now that it has been accomplished, we feel certain that their wisest plan is to come into the open and to make their power visible as well as real. They must also deal with the problem of finance, for unless they obtain a sound financial basis perplexities and difficulties of a very serious kind are bound to arise.

Finally, they must at all costs avoid international complications. No doubt many influences will be at work to urge them in the opposite direction. They will be told that they will never keep command of the sympathies of their countrymen unless they show that they are determined to maintain the rights of Turkey to the uttermost inch. If such advice is b.rictly interpreted, it is, of course, sound. We have not the slightest desire that the Young Turks should do anything but maintain the status quo. Unfortu- nately, however, advice of this kind in practice often means something very different. It is an incitement to the Young Turks to try to gain back some- thing which was lost under the old regime. For example, those who urge the Young Turks to be firm in the matter of Crete are really asking them, not to maintain the status quo, but to attempt to recover what is already lost. We cannot enter upon the merits of the Cretan question in detail now, but we are convinced that it would be a fatal error for the Young Turks to make trouble over Crete, and that no true friend, of theirs will urge them to be otherwise than most cautious in the matter. It is full of pitfalls, and any false step will be taken advantage of by those who, though they may be loud in their professions, are not, either in Turkey or else- where, friends of liberty and progress. In our belief, the Young Turks will find Sir Edward Grey and the British Government their best and most loyal supporters in the question of Crete. We have, in effect, told them that we do not mean to ask them to do anything more than accept the status quo. If they are wise, they will trust us in this respect,—even though they may be somewhat fretted by the thought that the status quo was altered in a sense unfavourable to them so short a time before they reconstructed and rejuvenated the Turkish Empire.