XX
THE REAL PROBLEM OF TURKISH NATIONALISM
ECONOMIC BEGINNINGS IN THE NEW TURKISH STATE—MUSTAPHA KEMAL PASHA OPENS THE SMYRNA CONGRESS—THE CHESTER CONCESSION A STEP FROM IMPERIALISM TO LAW.
As soon as the Erzerum program had been definitely committed to negotiation at Lausanne, Mustapha Kemal Pasha lost no time in diverting into the ways of peace the energy with which Turkish nationalism had re-mobilized and re-equipped its Armies. For the building up of a new and Western economic tradition with which to supplement the old and Eastern military tradition which had long distinguished its nation, the new Turkish Government had laid its foundations well. It had refrained from the issue of paper money, confining itself to the use of paper issued by the old Ottoman Government during the war. As fast as this paper became worn out, it was sent to the headquarters of the Public Debt administration in Constantinople to be exchanged for clean paper. Unlike a number of post-war European Governments, it had refrained from financing itself by the use of the printing press but the merit of this achievement is of course lessened by the primitive nature of the country which it governed. A country which could survive forty percent requisitions hardly needed to use the printing press. If many of its minor officials and soldiers never saw a pay-day, it was not money which had drawn them into the bitter loneliness of Angora. The deputies in the Assembly were paid out of the Evkaf (Moslem religious endowments) in their constituencies. Mustapha Kemal Pasha himself was paid £T300 a month, a salary which in its buying power in Asia Minor today, is equivalent to about £T75, or $375, pre-war. The cost of living has gone up severely in Asia Minor but not quite as severely as it has in the West. A camel which before the war could have been bought for £T25 gold, will now cost about £T100 paper.
Gold has completely disappeared from circulation, most of it drained away to Germany during the war. There is a little nickel in circulation, but practically all transactions in Asia Minor, however small, are conducted in paper. By the time the Battle of the Sakaria River was fought and won, the Government had collected a gold reserve which amounted to about £T1,000,000 (say $5,000,000) in Ottoman and other gold coins and about 200 kilos of bar gold. Its trade had been destroyed, its population had been broken, it was confronted with great devastated areas in the “Pontus,” in Cilicia, in the eastern provinces and behind Smyrna. Its financial position was about as low as can be imagined, but it must be emphasized that low as its financial position was, it was sound. The foundation was good, and the only question pertaining to it was the durability of the economic structure which the Turk would prove himself able to build upon it.
The abrogation of the Capitulations on Sept. 28, 1914, had turned the customs traiff over to the Government and when Angora inherited the burden of debt and undevelopment which had borne Constantinople down, the customs tariff was increased from five to fifteen times over the old Capitulatory tariff. This was done primarily for protective purposes. Insofar as the war permitted, the development of home industries was to be given every possible stimulus. Even down to such minor industries as the manufacture of men’s headwear, nationalist solicitude for home industries was quickly shown. Presumably one reason why the lamb-skin kalpak has been substituted in the new Turkey for the old Ottoman fez, is the fact that fezzes were manufactured in Austria. Although it deprived the Government of a revenue which was said to amount to £T4,000,000 a year at a time when it needed every piaster it could lay its hands on, country-wide prohibition was voted soon after the Grand National Assembly was convened at Angora.
Since Asia Minor is in large part an agricultural area, the Government’s first economic plans were directed toward the development of agriculture, and a scheme was evolved under which farm machinery was to be purchased abroad by a Government company and distributed through the branches of the Government’s Agricultural Bank. This scheme may or may not materialize as the Government enters more fully into foreign commercial relationships, but its spirit is highly significant. Trade has passed definitely into the hands of the Turks and in the building up of an economic tradition to which the Turks have heretofore been strangers, Turkish nationalism confronts its real problem.
On Feb. 17, 1923, Mustapha Kemal Pasha opened the country’s first economic congress at Smyrna. More than 500 delegates were present. Farmers and producers were given the center block of seats, traders and business men the right block, and skilled workmen the left block, with a special section of the hall given over to an exhibition of agricultural machinery, most of it from the United States. It was a unique event in Turkish history, and its significance may be gathered from Kemal Pasha’s opening address, which merits quotation in part:
“Gentlemen, when history applies itself to searching the causes of the grandeur and of the decadence of a people, it invokes political, military and social reasons. It is evident that ultimately all the reasons spring from social conditions but that which is in closest bearing to the existence, the prosperity and the decadence of a people is its economics. This historical truth is confirmed in our existence and our national history. In fact, if one examines the history of the Turkish people, one will see that her grandeur and her decadence are merely corollaries of her economic life. So in order to raise the new Turkey to the desired level, it is necessary, cost what it may, to accord all our solicitude to the questions which concern her economics.