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or in China. Nor if it choose of Commons that few in the to destroy our Empire is there country knew of its passage, any hindrance that can be set and it now threatens the peace in its way. and comfort of England.

The politicians have, indeed, followed their usual practice of putting the cart before the horse. They find this method of equipage the easier. Had they wanted an educated electorate they might have had it. There are more ways than one of ensuring that none shall vote who is wholly without knowledge and understanding. They did not ensure it. They made up their minds "to trust the people." Their resolution seemed to them, no doubt, simple and generous. The two Parties vied with one another in the desire to confer so profitable a boon upon the people; and at last, that neither should get the sole benefit of it, a Speaker's Conference took place -always a herald of destruction, and Mr Lloyd George's ruinous Coalition did the rest. By a stroke of irony, Mr Lloyd George entrusted the ungrateful task of endangering the country to two politicians who had hitherto been known as stout Conservatives, and the country faced destruction before it knew that it was threatened. We

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As there was no chatter of "the sacred principles" of democracy while the Franchise Bill was being passed, so very little pride in those principles has since been expressed. Now that the harm has been done, we have heard on all sides that democracy has failed, that as a gospel it has no finality, that if it does not do its work properly, it must be thrust ruthlessly aside. The tired world pines for authority. It cries aloud that it wants to be governed. Mussolini is hailed as a hero far beyond the boundaries of Italy. And at the very moment that democracy lies in discredit, there is talk in England of adding more voters to the electoral roll. The politicians look about them for fresh corners in which possible voters might be concealed. And they detect in many a sheltered home, in many factory, in many an office, in every theatre, girls of twentyone who still are unenfranchised. Here is fine material to work upon. If diligence be exercised, some millions may be discovered willing to mark their voting-papers. The thing is as good as done. Only one question is asked, and that wholly irrelevant: if men have the vote at twenty-one, why should not women?

The argument for similarity of age and sex rests upon two gross assumptions. It assumes,

in the first place, that men and Though it is wholly irrelevant women are equal, that they to the argument whether the want and should have the young women of England desire same things. This is nonsense. to vote or not, it might be We do not attempt to de- pointed out that they themcide which is the greater, the selves have not expressed a male or the female sex. We wish to possess that doubtful sure that they are not privilege. Whatever claim that the same. Nor do they want is made for them is made the same things. On the one by interested politicians, by hand, a woman is content with spinsters of full age, or by idle scantier clothing than the man; married women, who would, if on the other, she has a keener they could, recapture the old love of hats. A man may do wild madness of the suffragette. very well all the year round Nor can it be said that the vote with one hat. We do not sup- of the young women will do any pose that at the age of twenty- service to the State. Governone either man or woman de- ment has long ceased to be ar sires a vote. But, say the art or a science, and has become wiseacres, a man of twenty- a gamble. Every thousand one has a vote, so a woman of newly enfranchised voters of twenty-one must have one also. Which is absurd. In the second place, it assumes that a vote is a right, which it emphatically is not. Nobody, man or woman, is born to vote. We are not, by nature, voting animals. The State may confer the power of voting as a privilege upon any class in the community which it chooses thus to honour or degrade. But none is entitled to complain if he or she be debarred from dropping a voting-paper into a ballot-box.

does but increase the gamble. The politicians are influenced by one hope only: that if they give the votes to the young women they will be rewarded at the polls. History should have taught them that they will not, but they are still sanguine, as we are not, and we fear that before the death of the present Parliament another load of several millions of voters will be laid upon the bent back of democracy, already tottering under its unwieldy load.

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My office bell rang. Through empire which extended from the speaking-tube the manager told me that he had sold some bales of cotton prints to an Arab of Mecca. He added

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the Danube to the Indian Ocean, from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea.

We had to know the race and the religion of each district, its national peculiarities and characteristics, the requirements of each market, even the niceties of greeting, for the manner and form of salutation differed according to belief. A mistake would in all likelihood be met with the remark

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or orthodox. It needed con- led to his downfall. Not only stant watching and experience were his own subjects watched to enable us to identify each in Turkey, but his spies in race at a glance. Language, Paris, Geneva, and other places features, style of dress, and in Europe reported the movehead-gear helped us. Our staff ments of any who were assowere experts, but even they ciated in any way with Turkey were at times mistaken. My or the politics of the country. story concerns one such error.

The manager's advice to be cautious needs some explanation.

Even his own Ambassadors in Europe were watched and their daily doings reported. The Consulates and Embassies in Constantinople were under continual observance, and it became dangerous for any native to visit them.

Thousands of innocent people were imprisoned, and many met with an untimely end. Officials who showed any Liberal tendencies were transferred to some remote spot of the Empire. It meant exile. Conversation on any political question was reported, and one had to be extremely careful, for his spies were drawn from all ranks of society, Turkish or European.

The reform party, who had been instrumental in placing Abdul Hamid on the throne, soon discovered that he did not intend to govern the country constitutionally. Their leaders were exiled, the Cabinet dismissed, Parliamentary control abolished. Abdul appointed his own Cabinet Ministers, and retained them just so long as it pleased him. Gradually his control extended to every department of State. Governor-Generals and staff were dismissed on the slightest pretext; new officials appointed by him were as speedily removed if they did not submit to his will. The appointments were usually made on the the recommendation of what was called the palace clique, and were often made to the highest bidder. Insecurity of life and discontent led to the formation of secret societies everywhere; they were not only formed by the Moslem, but by Greeks, Kurds, Arabs, and Armenians. Abdul Hamid's method to check them was a system of spying and counter - spying, which became the curse of the country, and eventually pliment; it was one which in

I realised that the manager's advice to be cautious referred to the probability of my Arab guest being a spy. With this in mind I called down the tube

"Tell him I shall be glad to see him."

I greeted him in the orthodox way. He salaamed with his hand over his heart, and took the seat I offered him. In reply to the customary second greeting, he bowed and returned my salute from the ground upward to the head. I was surprised by this com

those days was paid only to a as precise as his dress, yet superior, and quite unusually there was something in his to an unbeliever. features which showed traces of another race.

He was a man of over thirty, well groomed, with clear-cut features. I recollect comparing him mentally with a black marble statue of Apollo which we had at home, though why I should have thought of black I could not say at first, for, though dark, he was no negro. And then I realised why it was his eyes-they were the blackest that I had ever seen.

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With the exception of a soft collarless white linen shirt, buttoned closely at the neck and wrist, all his garments were loose. His trousers, of many folds, were of a light fawncoloured cloth. His " "shilté "

or inner coat was made of a white cashmere shawl. His sash was of the same material. Its fringed end was arranged to cover a fold in which there was a suspicion of something bulkier and heavier than a watch or purse. A long cloak of yellow and white striped Damascus silk covered him to his ankles. The finishing touch to this immaculate costume was

turban of spotless white muslin, pleated in many regular folds, its end trimmed with a narrow fringe, which fell coquettishly over his left ear. This, too, was a surprise, for I had always understood that the fringed edge was worn only by descendants of the Prophet. He wore a single emerald ring on his little finger. The pitch of his voice and his accent were those of an Arab, his speech

It takes time to get to business with Orientals; the customary cup of coffee has to be sipped in peace, the cigarette smoked. On no account must one press for the object of the visit. That has to come at the psychological moment. It was long in coming.

"Are you in good health?" he asked.

"Thank you, yes," said I.

"The Lord be praised," he answered. "Are you married, and have you any children ? " Four," said I.

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"The Lord bless them," he answered. Have you traded long in Turkey?"

"Yes, for nearly forty years." "The Lord be merciful," he answered. This exhortation I thought well deserved.

It was pleasing to hear his appreciation of the excellence of English goods, which he confirmed by showing me his London - made gold watch.

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