CHAPTER XVIII The Committee prepares the country for self rule-The Committee's Congress in Salonica-Reasons for its continued existence-Election of the secret Central CommitteeThe Greek ideal-Importance of Moslem supremacyThe Committee's election campaign-Propagandism in the theatre. DURING the interregnum the most important task that had to be undertaken by the Committee of Union and Progress, and one that caused it a good deal of anxiety for a while, was the preparation of the country for the coming general election of the members of Turkey's new Parliament. It could not but be a dangerous experiment thus suddenly to give self-governing institutions to the ignorant Ottoman masses, who had endured thirty years of the worst of despotisms. It would naturally take long to make the peasantry understand that under the new order of things taxation would not be as it was under the old, that the money supplied by the people would be spent in reorganising and developing the country to their own great benefit. All that they knew of taxation was that it had been wrung from them to enrich the ruling clique, that Constantinople swallowed up the huge sums which were collected |