Turkey; the Awakening of Turkey; the Turkish Revolution of 1908

by E. F. Knight

But Turkey cannot maintain a great army without money, and money she can only obtain by developing her vast mineral and agricultural resources with foreign capital. Under the old régime, Court intrigue made all industrial enterprise precarious, and foreign capitalists were chary of ventures in a country where rights of property were so insecure. But by means of the good government which the Young Turks are introducing they hope to gain the confidence of foreign investors. They realise that, to quote from a Constantinople paper, “Turkey cannot have reform without money or money without reform; foreign capital she must have in order to carry out the reforms, and foreign capital will not come in until there is a satisfactory assurance that the reforms will be carried out, that the money provided will be spent properly and not be stolen and wasted as it was under the old régime.”

The programme of the more necessary reforms was set forth with some detail by the press of the Young Turk party during its electioneering campaign, and the abolition of the old corrupt system of administration, whereby bribery and bakshish had to supplement the inadequate pay—often years in arrears—of the servants of the State, was of course insisted upon. The following are among the more important of the projects recommended by the Young Turk party: (1) The construction of many thousands of miles of roads to open out the country; at the present time some of the railway lines are of very little service, as roads to bring to them the produce of the neighbouring country at moderate cost are wanting. (2) The construction of four thousand kilometres of railway; certain railways are urgently needed if the enormous mineral wealth of the country is to be developed by foreign capital; the difficulties of transport now prohibit mining enterprise in most richly mineralised districts. (3) The bringing under cultivation again of the formerly productive arable districts in the Vilayets of Salonica, Smyrna, etc. (4) The construction of commercial ports at Dedeaghatch, Samsoun, Mersina, etc. (5) The construction of irrigation works in Mesopotamia and elsewhere; there are thousands of square miles of uncultivated land in Turkey only awaiting irrigation to make them exceedingly productive. (6) The engaging of French engineers to make navigable waterways of the Vardar, Maritza, Boyana, and Kizil-Irmak. (7) The foundation of an engineering college, coupled with a scheme for sending students who have gained diplomas to Europe to gain practical knowledge. (8) The formation of navigation, commercial, and industrial companies, with the object of forwarding the prosperity of the country.

It is outside the scope of this book to deal with the complicated question of Turkey’s financial position, which, according to the experts, is not so unsatisfactory as was at first supposed; but there are, of course, immense difficulties to be overcome before Turkey can see herself fairly started on the road of progress. The late régime burdened her with obligations which stand in the way of all attempts at reform; but these obstacles might be removed by the co-operation of the Powers interested. Whenever some measure for Turkey’s good is proposed there seems to jump up some capitulation or some privileged interest of one Power or another to block it hopelessly. The Baghdad Railway concession, for example, with its kilometric guarantee, is like a mill-stone round the neck of Turkey.

The Young Turks recognized that if their country was to be regenerated and to take its place among the nations the revenues would have to be greatly increased with the least possible delay. As to ways and means, the following may be taken as summing up some of the views which I heard expressed by Turks and others whose opinion carries weight. In the first place (in view of the attitude taken by the more ignorant Parliamentary electors, who maintained that under the Constitution no taxes could be demanded of them) it may be impolitic to make any increase in the direct taxation of the country. The people, however, should be compelled to pay such direct taxes as are now in force until some better system has been devised, and the persons—and they are numerous—who by exercise of undue influence or otherwise have succeeded in avoiding the payment of their taxes should be forced to contribute like the others.

It is held, however, that whereas the direct taxes should be left as they are, reforms being made in the method of collection, several new sources of revenue could be tapped in the way of indirect taxation. In the first place, all the existing methods of raising indirect taxation should be maintained in their integrity, while the revenue derived from them should be largely increased by administrative reforms. For example, it has been calculated that the reorganisation of the Turkish Customs under the advice of the English expert, Mr. Crawford, will increase the revenue derived from the Customs by twenty-five per cent. Thinking men in Turkey recommend, not only the maintenance of the existing Customs tariff and other methods of indirect taxation, but also the imposition of still heavier taxation of this description until Turkey has been extricated from her present financial difficulties; and they also favour the creation of several new monopolies, to be preceded, naturally, by an amelioration in the conditions of the existing tobacco, salt, and other monopolies.

The very mention of monopolies is shocking to most economists, but political economy is not an exact science, and there are many exceptions even to the most widely accepted of its rules. Turkey must have money. The foreign capital necessary to develop her resources hesitates to come in, waiting to see its security. A monopoly affords that security and tempts capital as nothing else will. The English business men to whom I spoke in Turkey regarded the granting of monopolies for comparatively short terms as expedient under the present conditions in Turkey; for not only does this fostering of large industries provide employment for many people, but—what is of the utmost importance to Turkey at the present moment—it will also bring to the Turkish Government, without any expenditure on its part, an immediate and considerable revenue.

As the time for the Parliamentary elections drew near the Committee of Union and Progress published its political programme, and to this all candidates who were nominees of the Committee were bound to adhere. The following were among the more important of the Committee’s demands: that the Cabinet should be responsible to the Chamber of Deputies; that Turkish should remain the official language of the Empire; that the different races should have equal rights; that non-Moslems should be liable to military service; that the term of military service should be reduced; that peasants who had no land should be assisted to procure land, but not at the expense of the present land-owners; that education should be free and compulsory.

It was deeply interesting to be in Turkey during the elections, to watch the Young Turks zealously conducting their campaign to serve what they considered to be their country’s interests, and the people themselves puzzling out the meaning of this new Western innovation, the Constitution, and balancing the arguments of rival canvassers. The representatives of the Committee of Union and Progress were prepared to discuss patiently the intentions of the party with any group of electors that came to consult them, and while promising concessions to just demands, they did not attempt to catch votes by making wild promises which could never be fulfilled. Thus, when the Armenians—who have proved their loyalty to the Constitution and have not harassed the Government with unjustifiable grievances—asked that the lands which had been taken from the Armenians by the Kurds should be returned to the rightful owners, the Committee, realising that in practical politics there must be a law of prescription even for the raider, and not wishing to have a Kurd question added to the numerous other difficulties which were confronting Turkey, suggested that it would be wiser to leave the turbulent Kurds in possession of what they seized some time ago and to compensate the Armenians by giving them at least equally good lands in the once productive tracts which have long been lying fallow and deserted. On the other hand, the Committee could not assent to the proposal of the Arabians that the use of the Arab tongue should be permitted in the debates of the Chamber of Deputies. To Christians of all sects it promised that there would be no interference with their churches, language, education, and laws of marriage and inheritance; but refused to consider the question of complete administrative decentralisation, or of autonomy, for any portion of the Empire.

On the other hand, the agents of the reactionary party—the party of those who had fattened under the old régime of plunder and were loth to see the profitable abuses swept away—worked hard to influence the electors, but apparently with little effect in European Turkey and Asia Minor. Certain foolish agitators who were infected with some of the socialistic doctrines of Western Europe unwittingly helped the cause of the reactionaries by raising the election cry of “No more taxes for the people” and “Down with all monopolies.” I have explained that the more ignorant people thought that with the suppression of the late régime there would be an end of all authority. When they were enlightened on this matter by the Young Turks, and discovered that they would be compelled to pay their taxes as heretofore they felt some disappointment, and this afforded an opportunity to the reactionaries to point out to them that they would be no better off under the Constitution than they had been before, and that, at any rate, Turkey, under the old régime, had been a Mussulman State, whereas under the new order of things the government would be in the hands of bad Mohammedans, Christians, and Jews.

In Arabia and in other parts of Asia the efforts of the friends of the old régime, as might be expected, were attended with some success. The fanatical Arabs, who have never been reconciled to the Turkish rule, were impressed by the preachings of those who in the mosques denounced the Constitution, and declared that the Turks, who had ever been indifferent Mussulmans, had now abandoned the essential doctrines of Islam and were worse than the Christians and Jews with whom they associated.