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humoured and happiest election demonstrations one remembers to have seen in any country; there were no party cries or manifestions of party feeling of any sort; all seemed to be thinking of the good of their country alone, and to be rejoicing in its liberation. The Greeks and Armenians had similar processions, also headed by military bands (for these had been lent to all sections of the electorate by the authorities), and here, too, the priestly element was largely represented. At one manifestation which I saw in Stamboul the Turk and Armenian electors joined forces, and there were to be seen in the combined procession Mussulman hodjas and Armenian priests in their full Mohammedan and Christian canonicals, walking hand in hand in amity. For awhile goodfellowship reigned everywhere in this city of rival creeds and races. To judge from appearances it might have been concluded that "Fraternity," which has been the watchword of all revolutions, has for the first time in history been brought about in Turkey, of all countries in the world.

But when the voting commenced it was made manifest that the brotherhood of creeds and races in Turkey had not yet been realised. The Turks, Armenians, Latins, Syrians, and Jews recorded their votes without any difficulties arising, and in many instances voted for the same candidates. But the Greeks, who, according to the Ecumenical Patriarch, number one hundred and fifty

thousand in Constantinople, created a good deal of disturbance, after the manner of their brethren in Athens on similar occasions. In many parts of Turkey the Greeks complained bitterly of the electoral irregularities which, so they alleged, had been committed at their expense, and rioting occurred in Smyrna and elsewhere. So the Greeks in the capital, protesting that they had been very badly treated, organised noisy demonstrations which caused the elections to occupy several more days than had been intended.

The polling opened on a Friday, and it was made evident that the Greeks had come into the

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streets on the look-out for trouble. able that when a man of another race was not permitted to register his vote on account of some irregularity in his papers or other disqualification he went away quietly, whereas the Greeks in like circumstances stayed to protest and bluster until they formed crowds of disappointed voters who blocked the way to the urns, and by so doing considerably delayed the course of the election. On the following morning the Greek leaders hurried about Pera collecting the people, and ordered all the Greek shopkeepers to close their shops, which they promptly did. Others got

into the belfries of the Greek churches and rang the bells violently to summon the crowds, and soon the main streets were packed with excited and clamouring men. Seeing that they practically

all carried revolvers and knives it is wonderful that but few accidents occurred throughout the demonstration. The authorities took due precautions. Certain points were occupied by troops, and bodies of cavalry and infantry patrolled the streets, in no way interfering with the demonstration, but awing the demonstrators by their very presence, for the inhabitants of Constantinople knew of what stuff are made these soldiers who trooped slowly by, silent, stolid, apparently indifferent to all that was going on around them, in striking contrast to the noisy rabble which gave way before them. On the Sunday the church bells again rang out their appeal, and thirty thousand Greeks having assembled in Pera marched through Galata, crossed the Golden Horn by the bridge of boats and came to the Sublime Porte, where they insisted that the Grand Vizier himself, Kiamil Pasha, should come out to speak to them. When that aged statesmen did appear to explain that full justice would be done to them by Parliament should they be able to show that the alleged irregularities had occurred, these people, who but a few months before were afraid to open their mouths if any representative of the dreaded Government was near, insulted Kiami Pasha by shouting out to him that his verbal assurances would not suffice for them, and that they must have his undertaking in writing. This attitude, of course, brought the conference to

an end, and the Grand Vizier retired. It became necessary later to employ the cavalry to clear the streets, but, wonderful to say, only two casualties, and these slight ones, were reported for this day. The troops displayed a great forbearance and behaved admirably under conditions calculated to try their temper.

Observing the indignation and distress of the Greeks, one would have supposed that they had been very badly treated. As a matter of fact their clamour was chiefly caused by disappointment at the failure of their scheme to obtain a much larger representation in Parliament than their numbers warranted. Their point of view was that the Greek element of the Turkish population, being the most civilised and cultured, was the best fitted to undertake the government of the country, and, being Greeks, they considered that any means were fair which could forward their aim. The Greeks are the only people in Turkey who understand election trickery, and they were assisted in their last autumn's campaign by clever and, of course, absolutely unscrupulous electioneering experts from Athens. Taking advantage of the ignorance of the lower class Moslems they obtained votes by various fraudulent devices and misrepresentation. The Greeks flocked to the polls whether they were entitled to a vote or not. Impersonation both of the living and the dead was largely practised. In Turkey,

each voter, on coming up to the voting place, has to show his hamidieh-the official paper testifying to Ottoman nationality and date of birth. It was discovered that Greeks not entitled to the vote had been provided with the hamidiehs of dead men and of people who had left the country. In some cases, too, the stamps which are impressed upon the hamidiehs to show that the vote has been registered had been erased, thus enabling an hamidieh to be used by a succession of wouldbe voters.

The Greeks would now be represented by a powerful party in the Turkish Parliament had not the Committee of Union and Progress kept a close watch on them during the elections. The Greeks have themselves to blame for the underrepresentation of which they now complain. They compelled the Committee to exercise an influence in the elections which, though technically unfair, was fully justified by the circumstances. The liberty so recently won had to be safeguarded by the return of a solid majority of patriotic Turks to the Chamber of Deputies.

The Greeks, gifted as they are with administrative capacity, held high appointments under the old régime, and will no doubt do so to a greater extent under a constitutional Government; but as a people they have yet to prove themselves loyal Ottomans. During the elections their one thought was for the interests of their own race. Headed

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