selves better even than their adversaries; but the PanTurkish authorities forbade them. Every effort of the Christian nationalities in this direction was frustrated; and the dissentient Turks who might have bound themselves together were sluggish. Over and over again I had received from Colonel Sadik Bey, from Lutfi Fikri Bey, and from other prominent patriots in Constantinople, the assurance that they were working at the problem, and that they and their friends would soon appear as a political entity with all the organs essential to vigorous party life and spirited action. But somehow the achievement, for which the date had more than once been fixed, failed to redeem the promise. At last the unexpected happened. On November 27, Damad Ferid Pasha obtained from his brother-in-law, the Sultan, permission to accept the presidency of the new Opposition, whose vice-president is the celebrated Sadik Bey. And on his return from the Dolma Baghtshe palace, the Pasha unfolded to me at length, in words of praiseworthy moderation, the patriotic aims of the new party and the legitimate means by which they intend to pursue them.

Meanwhile the men of the Secret Committee continue to give a distinctly Hamidian savour to the revolting absolutism which has grown up and thriven under their shadow. Of the abhorrent methods of this régime, which is unique in constitutional history, the western reader, for lack of trustworthy data, cannot form an adequate idea. Secrecy veils the origins of the most nefarious designs; and a cloud of factitious circumstance effectually hides or obscures the accompaniments of their execution. It has been credibly asserted that the Committee, misnamed of Union and Progress,' whose professed aim is the furtherance of fraternal relations among the warring elements of the population, actually compassed the extermination of culture-bearing sections of the Greeks, the Bulgarians and other nationalities. Men of honour claim to have been present at the time when these resolutions were adopted by the Committee. Winged words and historic phrases uttered by some of the speakers are textually quoted. That is one part of the evidence. In assassination and persecution we are told to seek the other. Not once, but on several occasions the ways and means of carrying out these

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es; but nefarious designs are credibly affirmed to have been ry effor discussed in council. At first wholesale massacre, after was fre the manner of Abdul Hamid, was planned; and more we bou Armenians were slaughtered at Adana under the shadow dover of the Committee than at Moush, Bitlis or Constanti-om L nople under that of the 'red Sultan.' But it was soon Consta perceived that European public opinion would not brook e pro these exhibitions of sickening carnage, whereupon quasiapper private assassination by hired desperadoes was resorted al to to. The Metropolitan Archbishop of Grevena and one of the his deacons were thus put to death and shockingly ce be mutilated a couple of months ago. Long lists of Greeks, eue Bulgarians, Armenians, waylaid and slain by unseen Ferid hands,' have been presented to me by the heads of the . per Christian communities in the Empire; here four initicdividuals laid low, there three or two, at another place one. The dagger and the revolver had no rest night or day; and the assassins invariably made good their escape. Some of them carried hardness of heart so far as to challenge the men whom they had designed as their future victims to complain to the Minister of the

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Interior!

Nor are the Christians the only victims of these de political assassins. The Turks themselves, whenever me they dared to protest against this outrageous policy, were done to death without scruple or remorse. Examples are so numerous that selection is difficult. One day a friend of mine, a well-known member of the Committee of Union and Progress, was presiding at one of its secret meetings when the life of Prince Sabah Eddine was demanded. That young and generous Prince, the Sultan's nephew, had incurred the wrath of the Vehmgericht by preaching equality for all races and creeds, and exhorting the Government and its reckless patrons to abandon a line of action which was manifestly pregnant with national disaster. My friend, resolved to frustrate the scheme, protracted the debate throughout the night and finally, before the resolution could be put to the vote, adjourned the sitting. Subsequently Prince Sabah Eddine quitted his country, and is now residing in Paris until the reign of terror is over.

The tragic death of the intrepid Turkish journalists, Zekki Bey and Samim Bey, and the escape of Mouhtar

Bey, will one day form instructive and unedifying chapter of the history of the Turkish revolution. All these and other public workers whose names were in the list of the proscribed, received warnings of their approaching end Take one case as typical. The narrative was told to m by the best friend of the murdered publicist. Samim Bey, a man whose probity and civic virtue, aided by the marvellous power he had of drawing men towards him, gave dignity and weight to the efforts of Turkish patriots to establish good government, received the warning for the first time one afternoon as he was on his way to Kandili, a village on the Bosphorus about and hour from Constantinople. He was seated at a table in a restaurant when an officer, whose name I possess, rose and said: 'Samim Bey, you won our hearts by the sterling services you rendered our cause in bringing about the deposition of Abdul Hamid. You have a lion's heart. And now I have weighty tidings to give you. Your journal ("Sedai Milet") is the organ of the Greek patriarch. You are conducting a campaign in it against the Committee. Unless you cease from that campaign and quit that journal, the executive of the Committee has resolved that you shall die. But it has also decided to give you a warning and a reasonable time to make; your choice."

6

Samim Bey made answer: By advocating friendship between Turks and Greeks, Moslems and Christians, I believe I am furthering the vital interests of my country. Therefore your threat will have no effect upon my action. as you shall see. That is my answer to the Committee.' 'Your words pain me,' exclaimed the Committee's delegate, for they entail your death.'

That scene was enacted thirty-one days before the murder. A fortnight later, another delegate of the Committee, whose name I also possess, delivered the same message to Samim Bey in the restaurant of Yani in Pera, the only difference being that he twice took an oath saying: 'I swear, Samim Bey, that this is no empty threat. It is grim earnest.' These words were uttered in the presence of Shefket Bey Kibrizli, grandson of a

* "The Way of the People.'

This was a falsehood; but whoever is not with the Committee is labelled a traitor and is generally accused of being in the pay of the Greeks.

famous Grand Vizier and of Shahab Eddin Suleiman Bey, the well-known publicist. And the threat was carried out. One afternoon a fortnight later, Samim Bey, who had just quitted his friend, Mouhtar Bey, was shot dead in Stamboul. He was only twenty-six years old, and he left a widow and four children. The juge d'instruction, whose function it is to hear the evidence and say whether there is a prima facie case against anyone, heard the witnesses but refused to prosecute. The officer, XBey, was promoted; he now occupies an enviable position near the person of the Sultan.

Under such conditions it is natural that the Committee should carry its eagerness for the retention of power to the extreme point of readiness to fight, and fight hard for it. The cardinal fact for Turkey, and indeed for Europe, is this resolve of the Committee to resist, by foul means or fair, every attempt, constitutional or other, to wrest the reins of power from their hands. Said Pasha is the Grand Vizier whom they have chosen as their champion; and his recent attempt to alter the Constitution is a ignificant strategical move. It closes the legal door to the redress of intolerable grievances. The interest of Europe is accordingly centred at its highest pitch in the truggle which is now impending, and in which there is is yet no protagonist. It is well to remember that this contest is but the culminating point of a slow process which is radically changing Turkey's status for the present and permanently altering her direction in the future. As 300n as a treaty terminates the war and responsibilities are fixed, the chassez-croisez of the ins and outs' will begin; and, unless Damad Ferid Pasha, Sadik Bey, and their political friends come forward quickly and apply drastic remedies unstintingly, the 'sick man' will be well launched on the second phase of his lingering illness, and the interested Great Powers will discern their way more clearly towards the last political Eldorado.

Art. 12.-THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE AND THE LIBERAL UNIONISTS.

1. The Life of Spencer Compton, Eighth Duke of Devon shire. By Bernard Holland, C.B. Two vols. London: Longmans, 1911.

2. The Life of George Joachim Goschen, First Viscount Goschen. By the Hon. Arthur D. Elliot. Two vols. London: Longmans, 1911.

THE death of the Duke of Devonshire in 1907 was the turning of the last page in the longest, and in some respects the greatest, chapter in English political history. It was the end of the Whigs. The Whig party had, indeed, as Mr Holland points out, ceased to exist some years earlier. It lasted almost exactly two centuries, from the Revolution of 1688 to the Liberal Unionist acceptance of office in the Conservative Ministry of 1895. But, so long as the Duke of Devonshire lived, the Whig spirit was still visibly a great power in the political life of the nation. Perhaps no one in all the course of these two centuries embodied it quite so perfectly as he in whom it died.

What is a Whig? No word has suffered more from the looseness of definition which has always been characteristic of politicians. Throughout the eighteenth century almost every statesman, Harley as well as Somers, Chatham as well as Walpole, Burke as well as Fox, called himself a Whig. But Chatham and Burke, at least, were men of ideas; and, as we look back and watch the essence of Whiggism gradually solidifying, gradually taking its proper and definite shape, we see that no man of ideas can really be a Whig. The beginning of Whiggism is the Great Revolution, the most useful, the most sensible, the most legal of Revolutions, but also the least glorious, the least imaginative, the least connected, either as child or parent, with ideas. The Whigs who made it might talk of such theories as the original contract; but what they had in hand was for them, as all subsequent questions were for their true descendants, a matter of business and of common sense. Their whole turn of mind was equally far removed from the principle of the Divine Right of kings as taught by