I have already described the glories of the Soviet Embassy, and that distinguished economist, Camarade Areloff.
The Azerbaijan Ambassador, M. Abiloff, represents the four states of the Caucasian Confederation; whose rather commercial policy is not very popular.
Sultan Ahmed Khan has been representing Afghanistan in Angora for two years. He tells me that any communications with his Government seem almost as difficult as with Persia, whose Ambassador has now returned to his own country.
The personality of Colonel Mougin has done much for the important commercial interests of his country, but he is far too wise to imagine that France is the Power on whom M. Kemal ultimately counts to save Constantinople from the Russians.
Mr. Imbrie, the American commercial attaché, has been entrusted with the double duty of protecting concession-hunters from the States and organising the “American Near East Relief Workers in Anatolia,” administered in Angora by Mr. Compton and his charming wife, who must have stepped out of the frame of a dainty miniature. Mr. Imbrie, by the way, lives in a railway salon, and when his wife arrives we hope that her rugs and cushions and curtains may be as pretty as Mrs. Compton’s.
It is very unfortunate that all relief work has been so wickedly hampered by friends of Armenia in the States. Their ridiculously unjust, anti-Turkish, propaganda must have been inspired by the American version of Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday!
Moreover, Americans never give relief which they cannot themselves administer. Maybe the implied affront to Turkish competency is unintentional, but Kiazim Kara Békir Pasha (who looks after five hundred orphans without a penny from the State, and has established many “professional” schools) has a right to resent it. His compatriots are often tempted to exclaim, “Keep your dollars,” for American charities are always administered with a business manner that scarcely conciliates the recipient; and one must wonder, for example, how the Armenian priest can provide for his flock of seventy on four hundred liras (3,000 francs) a month. They do not evangelise with much tact, and Turkey can hardly be expected not to sense the Armenian behind the missionary.
Nevertheless, America has done a great deal for education, and one sincerely hopes that her colleges will keep out of propaganda. Every Turk will acknowledge the supreme value of the institutions that have produced brilliant pupils like Halidé Edib Hanoum, and they will know very well how much the women of Turkey can gain from them, not to be gained from their own system of education. I admire Turkish women very much, and have enjoyed their company in their own homes, but I am none the less ready to honour the work of their American teachers that has already given them so splendid a start towards real progress and complete freedom.
One must not forget the Imperial Ottoman Bank, now destined, by decree of the Assembly, to become the Bank of Turkey. The fact will, I hope, be freely advertised, so that all over Anatolia its origin may not be forgotten, whilst its increased power becomes well known, and the people may learn to regard it as what the French call a real Maison du bon Dieu.
Already to-day, even in remote places like Angora, you can “inquire within for everything” at its well-organised branches. Whether with or without directions from headquarters, the Bank of Angora is always ready to supplement one’s stores, and supply extra beds or special information, and any traveller in the heart of Asia Minor will know the value of such little courtesies! Of course, its financial backing of Anglo-French capital forms the surest possible passport for universal confidence.