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and the consequent complete alteration of their attire. This movement, which was squashed after the revolution of 1908 and took serious shape during the war, is now widespread, at any rate in the larger cities, where the more modern ladies have discarded even the tcharshaf and, dressed in the latest fashions, mingle in the streets and in society almost as in any Western country. Such a change, accompanied as it is by the right of civil marriage, by the abolition of polygamy, by the equality of husband and wife in the matter of divorce, and by the permissibility of marriage between men and women of any religion, means that the position of women has been completely revolutionised by the present regime.

The attitude of Turkey towards the rest of the world is governed partially by her internal policy of extreme nationalism which interferes with the work and activities of all foreigners and makes the importation of foreign goods difficult and expensive. On the other hand, the events of the last few years have proved that Mustapha Kemal never possessed and does not possess any external aspirations beyond those defined in the National Pact, and that he has cultivated friends and been on the point of going to war entirely with that object in view. The earlier and already mentioned agreements with Russia and France were highly advantageous when the Nationalists were badly in need of support, but it was always clear that there was not and could not be any lasting sympathy between Angora and Moscow. This made itself apparent at the Lausanne Conference when the three Allied Powers favoured the opening of the Straits to a limited number of warships, the Bolshevik delegates claiming that they should be closed to such vessels.* With the pre-war policies of Russia and of Great Britain thus reversed, the Turks, having hesitated between their new Allies and their former enemies, finally gave their support to Great Britain. Lord Curzon and Ismet Pasha came to an agreement during the first part of the Conference, and, in spite of M. Chicherin's endeavours, this agreement formed the Straits Convention. The Turks stood aside from the conflict between the Western Powers and Soviet Russia, and there was no open breach between the Bolsheviks and the Nationalists. Nevertheless, the facts that the Russians refused to sign the Convention during the Conference and that they only accepted it under protest at Rome, in August 1923, are sufficient to prove that, for the moment, the relations between the new and unnatural friends had become less cordial than those prevailing during the preceding few years.

* For details, see 'Survey of International Affairs, 1920-1923,' pp. 374-376.

The Mosul Question, finally settled in June 1926, is worthy of consideration from two standpoints. Firstly, the attitude of the Nationalists depended partly upon their fear that the Turkish Kurds would grow to desire union with their Iraq co-nationals and partly upon the contention that, as a great deal of the disputed area, including the town of Mosul, was not in Allied hands at the time of the Mudros Armistice, it came within the territories claimed by the Angora Government under the National Pact. Secondly, the adverse decision of the Council of the League upon this problem in December 1925, had the immediate effect of throwing Turkey back into the arms of Russia, who was only too anxious to retrieve her set-back of 1923. Thus on the day following the League's award, Tewfik Rushdi Bey, the Foreign Minister of the Angora Government, signed a new treaty with M. Chicherin in Paris. This treaty, binding each of the parties to neutrality in case the other were attacked by a third Power, is possessed of significance because it was the first of the Treaties of Neutrality and non-Aggression made by the Bolsheviks, and because it showed that, as in previous years, Turkey was still prepared to turn towards the East in times of need.

The present international position as seen from Angora appears to be somewhat as follows. The Nationalists, whose earlier hostility towards us depended upon the pro-Greek policy of the Coalition Government and upon the Mosul Question, are certainly not now anxious to antagonise Great Britain. France was their first Western friend, and this, coupled with an agreement * made in February 1926 and with the possibility of a settlement of the debt and other financial questions, is likely to lead to a closer understanding between

* This agreement made minor modifications in the frontier and regulated the use of the Syrian section of the Baghdad Railway.

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the two countries. The policy of the Italian Govern-
ment, decidedly not hostile to the earlier claims of the
Angora patriots, is now suspected by the Nationalists,
and the danger of Fascist aspirations in Southern
Anatolia is one of their greatest anxieties. On the
other hand, after years of delay, the United States and
Turkey arrived at an agreement, in February 1927, pro-
viding for the establishment of diplomatic and consular
relations and for tariff arrangements on the 'most-
favoured-nation'
Consequently, from every
standpoint the key to the situation lies in the uncertain
orientation of Turkey towards the West or the East.
The Nationalists might seek safety from the Italian
or other dangers by entering the League, but, in view of
the aloofness so far shown by Angora, the Government
is likely to endeavour to secure safeguards before adopt-
ing such a course. Nevertheless, whereas the sending
of Turkish Delegates to Geneva as Members of the Pre-
paratory Commission for the Disarmament Conference
should not be taken as indicating a definite policy on
the subject, it suggests that Turkey is not averse to the
efforts of the League in this direction, and may be
prepared to apply for membership earlier than at
one time was anticipated. Alternatively the rulers of
Angora may endeavour to secure themselves against
future risk from the West by the maintenance of re-
lations which furthered their earlier objects-relations
already shown to have been consolidated just over
two years ago. Moreover, in this connexion it is
well to remember that a Turco-Soviet Commercial
Treaty was concluded in February 1927, and that three
months earlier (November 1926) mysterious conferences
were held at Angora, followed by an apparently im-
portant meeting between Tewfik Rushdi Bey and
M. Chicherin at Odessa. This meeting, the details of
which have not become known, clearly suggests that
Turkey was desirous of discovering the willingness or
ability of Russia to be of use in case of need. Her
attitude towards the East and the West will depend far
more upon the nature of the information obtainable
upon this point, than upon any sympathy for a system
widely opposed to that now emanating from Angora.

The prudent spectator of conditions in Turkey is always wise to refrain from prophecies because, even should such forecasts come true, things in the East are so uncertain that this will result from good chance rather than from sound judgment. Nevertheless, certain factors may be taken as a guide to the possible future. The Turk of all classes is very difficult to change, religion and the religious teachers will continue to have their influence even if this influence is now less open than heretofore, and the shortage of good officials, coupled with the ignorance of the general mass of the people, is bound to stand in the way of an early and complete purification of the administration. Moreover, the fact that Turkey is poor and that the Nationalists seem disinclined to borrow in the international market, must have the effect of delaying the introduction of many profitable improvements, and, therefore, of leaving the Government without the funds necessary for the adequate payment of their employees. On the other hand, after over five years of supposed civic Government, Mustapha Kemal Pasha and his colleagues have proved sufficiently strong to quash all avowed opposition and have attained a position in which only a far-reaching revolutionary movement could remove them from power. Unless Italy takes matters into her own hands or Russia reverts openly to her pre-war attitude towards Constantinople, of which Mr George Young provides such an interesting account, nothing in the external situation seems likely to lead to such a revolution. From the internal standpoint, the Kurdish insurrection appears to have been quelled, countless far-reaching changes have been introduced without serious conflict, and a new atmosphere undoubtedly prevails at least amongst those who took an active part in and realise the meaning of the Nationalist triumph. Furthermore, the reputation of the Ghazi, made in the European War, greatly increased during the campaigns against the Greeks, and still further augmented since the Treaty of Lauzanne, is an asset which has not existed in Turkey for many generations. Consequently, whereas the unforeseen may always occur, the future probably depends very largely upon the life of the President and the attitude of the Army, which now, as for many years, is the all-important element in Turkey. H. CHARLES WOODS.

20

385)

Art. 12.-YELLOW ASIA.

Asia Gialla. By Mario Appelius. Milan: Casa Editrice
Alpes, 1926.

THE international situation in the Far East has under-
gone a complete transformation in the last thirty years.
Japan's entry upon the stage as a world-power and
her crushing defeat of Russia at the beginning of the
century; the catastrophe of the Great War and the
consequent weakening of European prestige among
the Asiatic races; the Russian upheaval, and the attempt
of the Bolshevik Government to engineer the world-
revolution in Asia; and, finally, the disruption of the
old theocratic Chinese Empire, have altered the whole
psychology of the situation and given to the problem of
Western relations with the Far East an entirely new
orientation. China, however, remains as heretofore, the
centre of gravity, owing to her great size and population,
and her immense potentialities; and the importance to
the Western world, and to Great Britain especially, of
the recent happenings in that vast empire, cannot be
over-estimated. With the break-up of the old order in
China has collapsed the whole artificial fabric of treaties,
rights, and concessions so carefully built up by Western
diplomacy during the 19th century. The day has indeed
passed when China's weakness was Europe's opportunity;
when the problem that faced the Powers in the Far
East was merely one of adjusting their rival claims to
exploit the commercial and economic possibilities of a
huge undeveloped empire, whose body politic had long
ceased to function as an organism, whose thousand-year-
old cultural order had been rotting away for over a
century in the stagnant backwaters of a dead tradition,
and whose conglomerate of peoples had never in all their
history achieved the unity of a national consciousness.
The problem of the future will not be the exploitation
by the White Race of China's 'arrested development.'
Rather will it assume the aspect of a more or less con-
scious struggle for dominion between two rival and
mutually incompatible civilisations, the ultimate issue
of which may well be a war à outrance between the
Vol. 250.-No. 496.

2 c

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