Evening star., 1923-08-29
Modern Turkey Developing
Into a Republic in Fact
By THE MARaUIsE DE FoxTENoY

BY THE MARQUISE DE FONTENOY.
Turkey is rapidly developing into
republic. and the newly elected grand
national assembly, which met last
week and which Is engaged in the
task of modifying the constitution.
has practically decided upon the prin-
ciple of collective cabinet RESPONSE
bility to the so-called bash-vekil. or
president OF the council of commits
saries, and to parliament. The bash
vekil is no other than Mustapha
Kemal Pasha. who has been endowed
by his countrymen with the additional
title of "Ghazi," that is to say, THE
Victorious and who is assuming a
position which. save IN name. is that
similar to the president of a republic
and who is finding in the premier
designate, Fethi Pasha, an obedient
tool.
The present occupant of the throne
at Stamboul has been restricted to a
purely ecclesiastical role as caliph,
and has no voice whatsoever in the
policies or temporal administration of
the country, while the grand national
assembly has just resolved upon a
constitutional measure vigorously eX-
cluding all members of the former
| imperial family" (sic) from every
civil. military or naval office and from
election as deputies of the assembly
or as municipal diGnitarfes. There
are a very large number OF these
princes, who, until the overthrow OF
the de jures sultan. Mehmed VI, and
Ithirty-seventh sovereign of the Osman
dynasty, occupied high and we'll paid
offices in the army and in the navy,
and who We're, moreover, in the en-
joyment of fat civil list allowances
from the imperial treasury, all of
which have ceased. They will now
be forced to seek means of livelihood
| in foreign countries, and Prince Zla,
heir presumptive to the caliphate, de-
prived of his rank and pay as gen
eral of the Ottoman army. Will be
reduced to earning his daily bread
as dermatologist, being a very
clever physician who has specialized
| in diseases of the skin.
X X X y
Tho actual caliph, whose office is
an anomaly since it has been deprived
| by the present Turkish regime of its
temporal sovereignty, and the re-
ligious validity of which had always
been questioned by the orthodox on
the ground that the caliphate is, by
canon law, restricted to direct or col
lateral descendants OF the prophet, ana
~'~~~
any relation with his family in an
cient or modern times, but is de-
scended from tribe that were
among the bitterest enemies OF the
founder of Islam. is liable at any mo-
ment to be given his walking papers
! by the new republic and sent to fol-
low his elder brother, Sultan Mehmed
! VI. into his Swiss exile. If so, he may
be able to earn modest income as
| a professional pianist. painter, or as
ncfn
lures having been accorded the honor
| of exhibition at the Paris annual
Salons. Whether his artistic. efforts
would receive equally fattering ap-
probation from the Salon authorlties
when he is no longer prince In the
immediate line of succession to the
Ottoman throne. but merely mem
ber of a dethroned dynasty, working
| for a living, is quite problematical.
x X X X
Moy Hall, in Invernesshire. where
King George is spending the present
week for the shooting. as a guest of
Macintosh, chieftain of the historic
Clan Chattan and head Of all the Mac
Kintoshes as we'll as one Of the
greatest land owners in Scotland, is
| a. grand old place where Prince
Charles Stuart, the young pretender,
| sought refuge after his defeat at the
| battle of Culloden in 1746. Bent on his
| capture, Lord Loudoun set out from
| Inverness at the head of a body of
| royal troops. But the young prince
got clear away through the stratagem
| of the chieftain's wife. She INSTRUCTED d
! one of her few remaining retainers
| to gather every available man and to
post them in the woods through
which the road from Inverness to Moy
Hall passed. These men, by firing
| cries of the various Jacobite clans.
lied Lord Loudppn into believing that