The Dominion. FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1913. THE TURK AND THE WORLD.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1638, 3 January 1913, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1913. THE TURK AND THE WORLD.

• FaS fa ore fascinating than the wdr; Jiews, we should say, to those wlioss business or . pleasure it is to slxidy tho European and American newspapers, must bo the article!! in which many famous writers surti up 1 tho Turk, and suggest how they think the world should treat /him.. The balance may be against hibut hci ..does not lack, defendersjiindeed, it is almost, a laahionable hobby to "stand up": for him. Foremost amongst his defenders is M. Pierre Loti, as one might expect. This distinguished Fronchman ,writes, in ie' Figaro a burning protest ' against tho attitu.de of the Christian peoples towards the Moslems. What if they have often been guilty of horrible massacres ? he says., "I know niahy people who in their place and at such a terrible hour would be seined with a rage for. massacring. > They are, it is true, more primitive peoplo than.. oursehesj,, more :: violent, hut thoy .are ibo,ttier, kjndlietfj and gentler by habit." Their thatred of Christians,.he thinks, is "natural," for the Christians have robbed,-arid- always despise them; and,he adds this queer argument, so falso to fact but so { amusingly Fronch 'in ' mahner■:! "We impose upon ; these. dreamers' enamoured of immobility our' fruitless agitations, our rage fori quickness, otlr alcohol, our scum and' rub-; bish of .humanity." H. ; Loti' knows the East : well, or ought to know it, but, -he has seen it only through /dreamy eyes, and ho obviously . hafl. confused, with the modern Turkish; nation those agreeable peoplewhom he himself met in his literary journeyings. ' For he. savs/ without any ■qualification, that thcro is no race "so essentially good, brave, loyal, and gentle." He appeals for mercy: "Spare thoso who. remain! . ! There among them, is the' last refuge, of calm, respect, : sobriety, silence] and prayer !" After M. Loti, anybody on the. same side Must appear taihe. Aiid' there are inany on nis side. Mr, S. L. BensusAN, insists that the sins of the Turk are ''grossly exaggerated) ,and generally in the service of sordid'ends." He proceeds—one must .allow,' justly--to censUre the Christian ■ powers, who havo allowed the Turk to endure "becauso they, feared they could not divide his _ inheritance without dtlarrelling liko dogs over a bone." Even some people Unfriendly i to the Turk were inclined ■to react against his encmie3. It was surprising how. many people, When tho Bulgarians Spoke' of celebrating Mass in Santa Sofia (the famous Christian temple seized by the Moslems and long ago converted into a mosque), suddenly grow cold; when, preauihably, .they should havo bcCn fired with enthusiasm. Mr.' MASS* Ingham, the . well-known Itadical publicist, threw cold water on Such a "mero histrionic triumph," and a correspondent of the Obsefttr was afraid that such an event would only be a temporary 1 triumph, ahd would accentuate . the religious bitterficsS between Christian and Moslem. iThts Turk had no such 20th century scruple when he profaned the old church. Sir William Butlsr had something pertinent to say on the point in rotofding his visit t6 Cyt prtis in 1878, and the desecration of a Christian Shrine there i—

" Good old tairk?', 'Poor old Turk?' Alas, it won't do I One week in Cyprus, nay, one hour in Nicosia, will suffice to dispel for ever the pleasant theory of 'Bono Johnny' and his modern Piccadilly tiew of Turkish peccadilloes. The cAthedral Church of Nicosia U the saddest sight that Can. well be seen to-day in Asia. Beneath its lofty rodf the traveller feols still the ptessUro of tho Tartar's hoof, Amid Its Violated shrines • he sees. Overthrown and rifled, the. purest ideal Of that grand faith which covered West ern Europs ivith Temples Beautiful that till tho wettlth aid feffort Of tho modem world has failed to equal, Chi this incut chivalry lies prostrate, history is blotted out, tho soul of. Christianity is defiled. i'. < Take the Abbey of westminster, make curb-stones and guttertroughs of tho tombs of Plantagenot and Tudor, fill in tho rose windows with mud and plastOr, break off and brick up each flying buttress, deface tho sculpture, raise frorii each Gothic tower a hideous rough brown minaret, shatter everywhere, and submerge the cloisters beneath three centuries of ordurfr-alid only then will you arrive at tho bold, baro truth of what the Turk hits done for St. Nicholas «t Nicosia. Tho Goth might ravage Italy, but the Goth camo forth purified from thd flames which lie hiniself had kindled. The Saxon swept Britain, but the music of the Celtic heart wooed him to less churlish' lifibiti Visigoth <uid Frank, ilerull and Vandal blotted out their ferocity in tho light of the clfili&atiort they Camo to 6xtin«uish. Even the Hun, wildest Tartar of tho Scythian Waste, was touched itnd softened In tho wioker encampment rtmid Pannoniail plains; tho Turk only—wherever his scimitar reached defiled, and defamed j blasting into eternfil decay : Greek, Roman, and Latin civilisation, Until, ,wh6it all h&d gone, he sAt down, satiated with savagery, to doze for two hundred years into hopeUJS dccMtfituao." l tt will waulro mora than highly.

modern solicitude for the Turk[s soul and his nationhood' add hiß equalitv with other nationals to make tho Western public forget the history of the Ottoman Empire. There are many ways ill which the Westerns may justify, their wish that, whatever happens,. Turkish rule may cease in Europe. • Mr. G, K. OhEsterton's way of justifying himself is curious and suggestive. It is enough for him that the Turk is moro than don-Christian, is historically an outrage against Christianity; but he has other counts in his indictment. In one of hii Daily News articles he seeks to cOnvict the Tutk oLbeing an Imperialist, like the British Imperialist, and there- 1 *! fore a hateful Doing. He fails, of course, to establish his analogy) but ho is most suggestive juat where he. fails. In the first place, so he argues, the Turk is a male person: "there is no such thing in history as female Turk." He "has rested for of years On all the things that make a male merely proud of being a male—the sword, the riding of horses, tho multiplicity and therefore the subjection of women." MR. Chesterton naturally goes on to meditate on the Turk, as an argument for votes for women, but we may omit all that. He approaches his point again when he insists that the Ottoman Empire is bad in texture, being an Empire. He ought, perhaps; ■to have stressed the glaring and fundamental difference between thai. Empire and the -British Empire, which is not "built out of trophies," but com; pounded of lovo and freedom. But he is quite right in saying that "there is no Turkey: theTe is'only the Turk." Tho Turk has no country of his own : thfere has been no . soul in its lordship or in, its policy. He has only sought to conquer, never to own and love. Or, as Mr. Chesterton more poetically and pie--1 turesquely puts it, he "has ; never tried to . jilarit corh; but only laurel": "The Turk has jiever tried to rule a country; but only to conquer it again and again." And that is the whole point.