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the Despotism, Hilmi's sympathies were with the cause of the reformers, and he is now trusted by them.

From the beginning, therefore, the Young Turks have placed at the head of the Government, not advanced reformers, not ambitious men out of their own ranks, but experienced men of the old régime, who, so far, have done well, and have been able on occasions to check hasty and ill-considered changes. In other respects, too, the Young Turks have manifested their moderation and wise opportunism. Foreign intervention is the thing that they detest and fear most, for it has worked nothing but ill for the Empire; but these men are free from any anti-European feeling, and while anxious, as soon as possible, to get rid of the Capitulations and other fetters which the Powers have placed upon Ottoman independence, they welcome European assistance to place their house in order. Thus it was at the request of the Turkish Government that France lent Turkey the aid of the great financial authority, M. Laurent, to assist in the reorganisation of the finances of the country and the establishment of less wasteful methods of tax collection, and that England lent the services of Mr. Crawford to conduct the reorganisation of the Customs. Turkey has also asked for, and has obtained, the services of an English admiral and several naval officers to help her recreate the navy which was

destroyed during the Hamidian régime, and Baron von der Goltz, who has already done so much good for the Turkish army, is to be entrusted with powers that will enable him to bring it up to a high state of efficiency. The Young Turks, anxious to develop the great natural resources of their country, have also borrowed from France excellent engineers, to superintend the construction of irrigation works and the execution of other useful projects.

While what is best of the old régime still supplies the higher officialdom, nearly all the men belonging to the lower grades of the Civil Service, as I have already pointed out, had become adherents of the Committee of Union and Progress some time before the outbreak of the revolution. Most of these men, under the corrupt system that then prevailed, had to supplement their miserable pay, generally in arrears, by taking bakshish and by robbing the State in other ways. This general impurity of the officialdom was loathsome to many of those who were compelled to follow the almost universal practice in order to keep themselves and their families alive. Minor officials knew that what was wrung from the people in the form of taxation was not spent for the country's good, but was for the most part appropriated by the Palace gang, and it was but natural that they helped themselves to a share.

But the Turks, in their dealings between man and man, are among the most honest of people, and public sentiment regarding official corruption has been undergoing a remarkable change since the revolution. The newspapers preached public purity, and the servants of the State began to realise that for the future the misappropriation of public moneys would not be at the cost of the Palace gang as heretofore, but at the cost of their beloved country itself, which was in sore need of money to further its regeneration and to strengthen its defences against the formidable enemies that threatened its integrity. I have told the story of the patriotic civil servants in Salonica, who abandoned their claims to arrears of pay in view of their country's necessities; I am assured that the same sense of civic virtue has led to a remarkable diminution of the corrupt practices in the various public departments. I have heard it maintained that the Turks cannot change their nature, and that Turkish administration always has been, and always will be, corrupt, whether the form of government be despotic or constitutional. One might as fairly have argued thus about our administration in India, or in the British Isles themselves, but a few generations ago. A people who, like the Turks, are honest as individuals, and intensely patriotic, are likely to arrive at the right moral sense in a matter like this. The

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