wer' is not, however, to say
that he has an aptitude for government. He wishes to govern others; his
will to do so imposes itself on peoples who have not the same will; they
give way to him and he governs them indifferently, though often better
than they can govern themselves. For example, bad as, according to our
standards, Turkish government is, native Arab government, when not in
tutelage to Europeans, has generally proved itself worse, when tried in
the Ottoman area in modern times. Where it is of a purely Bedawi barbaric
type, as in the emirates of central Arabia, it does well enough; but if
the population be contaminated ever so little with non-Arab elements,
practices, or ideas, Arab administration seems incapable of producing
effective government. It has had chances in the Holy Cities at intervals,
and for longer periods in the Yemen. But a European, long resident in the
latter country, who has groaned under Turkish administration, where it has
always been most oppressive, bore witness that the rule of the native Imam
only served to replace oppressive government by oppressive anarchy.

As for the Osmanli's courage as a fighting man, that has often been
exemplified, and never better than in the Gallipoli peninsula. It is
admitted. The European and Anatolian Osmanlis yield little one to the
other in this virtue; but the palm, if awarded at all, must be given to
the levies from northern and central Asia Minor.

* * * * *

If Constantinople should be lost, the Arab-speaking parts of the empire
would in all likelihood break away, carrying the Holy Cities with them.
When the constant risk of this consummation, with the cataclysmic nature
of its consequences is considered, one marvels why the Committee, which
has shown no mean understanding of some conditions essential to Osmanli
empire, should have done so little hitherto to conciliate Arab
susceptibilities. Neither in the constitution of the parliament nor in the
higher commands of the army have the Arab-speaking peoples been given
anything like their fair share; and loudly and insistently have they
protested. Perhaps the Committee, whose leading members are of a markedly
Europeanized type, understands Asia less well than Europe. Certainly its
programme of Ottomanization, elaborated by military ex-attaches, by Jew
bankers and officials from Salonika, and by doctors, lawyers, and other
_intellectuels_ fresh from Paris, was conceived on