TURKEY SEEN FROM INSIDE.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 November 1917, Page 3

TURKEY SEEN FROM INSIDE.

Mr. A. I. Elkus, Turkey's representative in America, has supplied some interesting facts about his country to the New York World. He says: "When the war broke out there was only 4,000,000 dol. worth uf paper money in Turkey. Everything was paid for in hard cash, and gold and silver were the currency almost exclusively used in the daily transactions of the people. Every thing was on a cash basis. There is in Turkey to-day—after 33 months of war —more than 350,000,000d01, of paper money, the authorised emissions having reached a total of nearly 90,000,000 Turkish pounds. "One of the measure® taken by the Turkish Government to prevent financial demoralisation has been to forbid the purchase or sale of gold under heavy penalties: but the power of gold is stronger than the power of law, and gold coins can always be disposed of by any fortunate enough to possess them. In this way a sdol. American gold piece can be made to buy lOdol. worth of perfectly good American exchange. Of course, it is not legal to sell your sdol. gold piecfc but it is easily done on the quiet, and the result is three Turkish pounds in paper money., which the banks are forced to take, and three Turkish pounds will buy approximately lOdol. of American change.

"The poor in Turkey find it hard to keep themselves alive. The only way many of them do manage to live in the cities is because the Government allows each inhabitant '/.lb of bread a day, for which the recipient has to pay 2c. Somehow or other tliev all manage to get their 2c a day. Then there are soup kitchens run bv the American Red Cross, the Turkish Red Crescent, the Jewish Charities Commission, the Greek Patriarch, and other charities. Some soup kitchens give feed free; others sell at cost price. "If you want to get any so-called bread in addition to the y 2 lb a day the Government allows, you can buy it for GOc a lb. Sugar costs Idol. 30c. a lb; butter is Idol, a lb; a small chicken can be had for 2d01.; meat, such as there is, fetches 40c a lb and up; eggs are worth from 7 to 10e.; but these are all luxuries for the very rich. The food of the people is mostly dried beans, olives, common cheese, which they mix with rice and vegetables. Olives, which were 4c. a lb before the war. now cost 25c,; beans, which also sold for 4c. a lb sell for as high as 30, and cheese has gone up to 50c a lb, nearly eight times its former value.

"The food condition of Turkey is that it. is at bottom an agricultural country, and has always had an abundant suppiv of grains of all kinds. To-day almost all of the crops have been seized by the military authorities, and are reserved for the use of the army.' One of the reasons for the very uneven distribution of food that exists is that transportation facilities are very limited and entirely controlled by the military authorities. Only the very minimum of freight transport is left for the food supplies of the civilian population. "There are now no dogs in the streets of Constantinople. Time was when they acted as scavengers, but now there is no surplus left around to eat. The people save their last crust. ' There are no bones. The dogs were not shot or used for military service: they were sent off to a semi desert island "in the Sea of Marmora, and have undisputed sway of its barren shores.

"Brigands infest Asia Minor, especially the mountain districts. Their ranks have been swollen by a good many deserters from the army.. One notable thing about a Turkish' brigand is that: he will not molest an American tobacco man even though the latter be laden down with gold. The brigand knows that the American tobacco man's money is ,going to enable the hard-working Turkish peasant to live: brigands plunder the! rich and befriend the poor. "The Government makes free distribution of beans, cheese and olives to the families of soldiers, but this support is doled out in driblets. Destitute families among the civilian population also get supplies free from some of the charitable organisations, but before the war one never heard of men and women dropping dead in the streets from starvation. Even now it is comparatively rare, but deaths from malnutrition and lack of resistance to even mild diseases are not uncommon. .People weakened by lack of food fall easy prey to ailments which in normal times would not be serious.

"The aspect of Constantinople has changed considerably since the outbreak of the war. Curiously enough, it has immensely improved, and from a cause which is entirely unrelated to war or political conditions. It happened that during the first year of the war an unusually capable and honest man was mayor of Constantinople—Djemil Pasha, the foremost surgeon in Turkey. He went to work on the city as if it had been a diseased human being, and performed surgery on the streets. He cut out and removed unhealthy slums and widened and relaid streets; he paved streets and cleaned streets, and made parks and open breathing places. He got the telephone system completed and the street-car system electrified. In 1015 he resigned because of trouble with the Government, and went to Switzerland where he had been educated. Later , he made his peace with the powers that be, and is now back in Constantinople. "There are two distinct parties in the present Turkish Government. One party —the minority—is out and out German, and ready to follow German dictation, not only in military affairs, but in political and internal matters as well; ready to deliver the country into the hands of the Kaiser in peace as in war. The other professes domestic political independence, while still accepting German domination in all military affairs.

"The legal limit for Mahometans is four wives. As a matter of fact, most of them get along with one. There are, of course, some old-fashioned reactionaries, who insist upon their legal matrimonial complement, and a few poor me* who want a servant and cannot afford one. These inarrv a second wife, who becomes' the household drudge for her keep only. But polygamy in Turkey Is fast disappearing in the best classes, as the educated Turkish woman of to-day will not marry a man who already has one or more wives, nor will she consent to share her husband afterward. Of course Turks still refer to their harem, Dut .when they do so they rarely, if ever n . what the American understands rfto" word. Harem means womanfolk, and a Turk speaking of his harem includes his mother and sisters, and his cousins and his aunti.,- as well as his wife or wives. The part of the houat. set aside for their use is called tne harem, and far from being furnished with Oriental luxuriance, as most people Imagine, it not infrequently contains Grand Rapids furniture, Uncomfortable chairs, pianos, phonographs, and the other appurtenances of an average American flat,, "There are a number of theatres in