OPENING TURKEY'S PARLIAMENT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10062, 2 February 1909, Page 4

OPENING TURKEY'S PARLIAMENT.

(By Charles E. Hands, in the London Daily Mail.)

Constantinople, Dec. 10. In England we have grown so accustomed 'to elections as to regard them as among the every-day commonplaces of life. The governing classes seldom think of going near an election except to get elected, and some (and the wisest) of our philosophers scarcely ever vote except at the club against the old committee. And; the classes who do vote seem generally to choose either the wrong man for the right reason, or the right man for the wrong reason. But during the last few days :n Constantinople I have seen people voting for the first time in their lives, and now I know that the value and merit of the vote lies not in what it obtains for its possessor, but in what it does to him. It makes him reasonable and comprehensible. , . The difference in Constantinople since the voting began is extraordinary. Some time ago I was wandering around in Stamboul croping my way in an atmosphere of vague, misty uncertainty. The air was heavy with politics, but nobody knew what they were. There was a feeling that something was going to happen, but not knowing "exactly what was to be feared, everybody feared the worst. -Men knowing the country well shook their heads gravely and whispered to one another the bogey word "Reaction." The most insignificant circumstances invested themselves with wild and appalling significance. A pickpocket was chased by a "policeman in the bazaar, and immediate! v dozens of pallid Greeks and Armenians barricaded their shops and clutched their revolvers in terror of instant massacre. No man declared his own opinions or even knew them exactly, with the result that every man suspected every other of being a-dangerous conspirator on the other side. The Sultan, said some, was playing a crafty game. There were 10.000 modern guns at Yildiz ready. The palace troops, fanatics to a man, were onlv waiting the signal. The Young Turks, said'others, were plotting dark deeds. It would be as well not to miss the next Selamlik because it might be the very last that Abdul Hamid would ever attend. They were going to depose him the clay after if be' lived long enough. It, was not for nothing that a warship was anchored off Yildiz. She was manned bv a crew of Young Turkish Committee men. and her guns were trained on the palace. And what would happen when the sacred poison of the chief of Islam was touched'; All the forces of fanaticism would be let loose. The streets would run with blood.

WHEN THE ELECTIONS BEGAN. Then one da" the elections began, and in a moment the entire situation became as clear and simple as possible. The very morning that the first electors began to drop into the travelling trunks their lists of names of delegates all the uncertainty and mystery cleared away, and you walked about the city feeling and knowing for sure that nothing awful was happening or was going to happen except that the system of constitutional government was being inaugurated with the utmost success and to the complete satisfaction of everybody. As to reaction, you knew that that talk was all nonsense, because in the whole of Constantinople there was not such a thing as a real reactionary. Yon could walk along the streets and feel that you knew for certain that no Turk whose fanaticism did not pass the bounds of sanity wanted or would ever consent to the return of the bad old system. You met a man who only a few days before had been pulling a long face and talking of sending his family out of the country. Now he was quite cheerful, said things seemed to be going on well, and went on to explain with true British wisdom, "Youi know I always was an optimist." The entire population became optimistic, although nothing at all had happened to vary their point of view except that in small mosques and reading-rooms and schools in by-streets about the city ordinary, commonplace people were quietly dropping folded slips of paper through slits in the lids of travelling trunks. The vote, or rather the exercise of the vote, had made all the difference. A wonderful thing this vote, a marvellous, beneficent medicine! For here the vote could not have effected much except upon the people who used it, since' from our point of view it was such a very primitive one. The most innocent 'little vote conceivable. The population were .not voting for anything in particular or for anybody. Neither principles nor personalities Were involved. They were not'ehoosing" representatives with a legislative ■mandate. They were simply voting for a committee of electors who were subsequently to meet together and select the members of Parliament for the capital. The tiniest little baby.franchise. In England nobody would trouble to exercise such a vote. Even the railway men. the Swiss guard of provincial Liberalism. would disdain to engage in an election with such a trumpery issue. And yet in Constantinople ; t changed the whole aspect of life! COFFKE-HOUSE POLITICS.

At one polling-place I visited we adjourned the-proceedings for half an hour, and. leaving the box locked up in a- room under guard of a soldier, we went over to the coffee-house near by and talked politics. There were the official in charge of the register, the one who sealed the nassports as. they were presented, a greenttirhaned '"flodja" from the mosque, four or five voters, and I. The old coffeehouse keeper, a sturdy veteran of- many campaigns and expeditions, with ten or a dozen of his customers already assembled, joined in the discussion. It was good average politics thai we talked—average voters' politics, that is to say. The coffeehouse keeper said ihe elections had already done a lot of good, bringing people more together, sitting like brothers in the coffee-houses and knowing and understanding one" another. There Were many things that the-Par-liament would do. The price of sugar, for instance, was too high now. Bad men in the. Government would - take so much sugar for themselves that it was too dear for'the poor man, and at ten paras a cup coffee hardly paid to sell, 1 properly sweetened. Ah I said ' another, it was good, men that Turkey wanted in the Government. Honest men Who would do the Work, and not pocket the money. Then the streets would .'be better paved, and it would be better for horses and wheels, and people could get about more easily, and"" Turkey would be .one of the greatest, nations in the world. The author of these excellent sentiments 1 I recognised as my cabman. The Hodja said turkey had suffered great trouble, but trouble came to good men by the will of Allah, so that they might know; their friends-from their enemies. And'it was well, for Turkey had found in the time of affliction that England was her true friend and desired only her good. England'.and Turkey were'like brothers these days,'said an infantry officer, and so long as Turkey kept to justice and liberty' and to England for a friend it would be well with' her. • CHOICE OF HONEST MEN.

The point, upon which they were all most keen was the necessity of' chosing men not for their opinions, but" 1 holiest men, 60 that the abuses and corruptions' from which-they'had all been sufferingshould cease. .It was not high-class fancy politics, of course;, there .wits nothing about' Chinese labor, or the incidence of taxation or' the -worker's right to the wealth he ".created, but it was good, sound elementary politics for a beginning,'-. and I have no. doubt the fancy strokes .will develop in time. The triumphal processions with which the Turks 'have escorted the ballot box,es through the streets have disposed of any idea that they ,do not know the value of what they have'-got. And as to the-theory, that the Turks are too fanatical in religion ever to.understand the principles of civil equality, the 'spectacle of a;.- joyous procession, with music at the head,' escorting garlanded" ballot'boxes with carriages in = which" Maho'mmedan'• ulemas arid'. Ai-' menian priests were - seated ■ 6ide by side seenis to. dispose of" both parts of .that proposition.' "And when you'see an Armenian priest, as much a . fanatic. in . his way as any' Moslem, get, out,of his carriage before : the' Subliihe Porte and kiss the common soil you suspect that it is at lerist open, to' doubt Whether the' distinct tions of race and religion.in the Empire exclude the development of .a .common pride .and:' patriotism that shall- be'- the bond .of a. great and united nation.> 'The net result of the primary elections is the- demonstration of the'fact that'the Turks -want and are determined" to ■ h'a-ve goou government. . So far as I can judge, the people'they have been voting .for as their representatives are the same people whom the! old regime used to appoint as..their rulers. But that does not matter. The vote has exercised its beneficent influences upon old regimists tod.