TURKEY.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 February 1917, Page 5

TURKEY.

PLIGHT OF CONSTANTINOPLE. STARVATION AND DISEASE RAMPANT. TURKISH SOLDIERS CHASTISED. INCREASING GERMAN DEMANDS. Admiralty, per Wireless Press. Received Feb. 11, 10.30 p.m. London, Feb. fi. The Daily Chronicle's Amsterdam respondent states that :i well-known commercial and financial magnate at Constantinople has arrived and' paints n picture of the condition of the people in Constantinople, who are starving. In the city dozens perish daily. Typhus, cholera and plague are present. Tie terrifying spectre of famine threatens European Turkey. In the. city, conditions are repulsive from their dirtiness. A well-to-do ninn passing in the streets is assailed by insistent mobs of beggars, many of whom'arc maimed soldiers, who whine out (heir various miseries. There are many suicides daily. Enver Pasha has swept, into tH milltsuT net all the able-bodied men, and Ins forced many women and children to work m the factories (,'ond judges estimate that Turkey lias' already lost 1.500,000 men. 'Germans are filling all Hie higher commands, and the Turkish soldiery is only kept in ordu- hy onstant visions of corpora! punishment. Even during the actual fighting, Turkish soldiers are hauled from "die ranks and severely chastised. The Germans jmako unceasing demands upon the Turks for reinforcements, in order to fill gaps in the Balkan armies. These demands always create resentment and anger in Turkish military circles, which strongly hold that Turkey is primarily concerned in Asia. Work is unceasing in the Government munition factories under foremen from Kn.pp's. Many new factories have been erected. The financial position is anarchic, ami the better-class Turks fed that Turkey will lose whatever happens, and that Turkey should have kept friendly with Britain, but they point out that Enver Pasha, Talaat Bey, and Djemal Pnsha receive enormous sums of flernmn money. There is no possibility of rebel' lien, as the German police keep order with iron despotism. A NEW CABINET. Admiralty, per Wireless Press, . Received Feb. fi, 10 p.m. London, Feb. fi. The German Government has received news that Prince Said Halim Pnsha, Grand Vizier, has resigned, owing to health reasons. Talaat Bey is forming a Cabinet, with Enver Pasha as Minister for War, Djemal Pasha as Minister of Marino, and Nessim Bey the Foreign Minister. UNITED STATES. IMMIGRATION BILL PASSED. i AFTER 20 YEARS' FIGHT, Received Feb. 6, 10..10 p.m. Washington, Feb. jp. The Immigration Bill has passed \*thont being vetoed, and is now law,'despite the protests by Japan on the literary test, Two State and Allied Laud Bills have been killed by Administration influence, hoping to keep the friendship of Japan, which lauds the President's answer to Germany. The Immigration Bill has been fought for twenty years, and has been vetoed by three Presidents. MAROONI PLANT AT GOVERNMENT'S DISPOSAL. Received Feb. 6, 11.30 p.m. New York, Feb. 5. The American Marconi Company, in the event of any emergency, will place its entire organisalion, plant, and workshops at the Government's disposal. This includes six high-power stations in the States', two at the Hawaiian Islands, and sixty coast stations in the Pacific and Atlantic.