n6o TURKEY 



brought before the Chamber a proposal to alter Article 35 of the Constitution, and 

 restore to the Sultan the power of dissolving the Chamber without the simultaneous 



assent of the Senate. If the proposal were adopted, it meant a dissolution, 

 Dissolution f or thg g ran( j vizier felt sure of the sovereign; thrown out, it still meant 

 Chamber. dissolution, for after a Government defeat the party of Union and Progress 



had a majority in the Senate, and under the existing constitution the assent 

 of the Senate was necessary if the sovereign were to dissolve parliament. The Opposi- 

 tion, hardly feeling ready for a general election, took fright accordingly and formed a 

 bloc, Arab, Albanian, Greek and Bulgar deputies joining forces with the Mahommedan 

 clericals and some few malcontents, the Turkish nucleus of the party of Liberty and 

 Understanding. But their efforts were vain. After some incredibly stormy scenes in 



the Chamber and a last attempt to obstruct by abstention, the Sultan, 

 Reconstnic- w j t jj tne assen t o f t ne Senate, dissolved parliament on the loth of January 



tionofthe K . . . ^ J " 



ministry. IQI2, and on the 22nd a new purely Unionist Cabinet was formed under 

 Said Pasha. Djavid Bey returned to the Public Works department, 

 Talaat Bey to the Posts and Telegraph, Mahmud Shevket Pasha remaining at the War 

 Office, and Prince Said Halim, the Khedive's cousin, President of the Union and Prog- 

 ress group in the Senate, taking the Presidency of the Council of State. 



Said Pasha's manifesto in the Daily Telegraph (London) of January 21, 1912, which 

 attracted a great deal of attention, set forth the programme of the new Cabinet; immedi- 

 ate reforms were promised with the collaboration of foreign advisers, and 

 Destruction no official pressure was to be brought to bear upon the elections. Un- 

 fortunately this was only on paper. Except for a long tour of inspection 



la 

 parliament, among the vilayets of Macedonia and Albania, made in February by Hadji 



Adil Bey, minister of the Interior, accompanied by a former British consul- 

 general, Mr. Graves, who was a member of the Reform Committee of the Finance 

 Ministry, nothing was done in the way of reforms. As for the elections, they were worked 

 on the lines known in France under the Second Empire as the " official candidature 

 system." Under pressure from civil (and occasionally military) officials, opposition 

 candidates were almost completely eliminated. It was found, when the new Chamber 

 opened on April 18, 1912, that there were hardly ten Opposition members, and among 

 them not one of the principal speakers of the previous parliament. 



Albania felt the consequences almost at once. On December i, 1911 Hassan Bey, 

 then Albanian deputy for Prishtina, had said openly that if he were not satisfied with 



the elections he should raise an insurrection. This he did. On May 9, 

 F f h . 1912 the news reached Constantinople that Hassan Bey was heading a 



risings In 7 . . ,-,,-. . i- i-i-r, -r\ / 



Albania. rising in the Ipek and Mitrovitza districts, while Basri Bey (a member not 



re-elected) with a band of insurgents had taken to the mountains at Dibra. 



Disturbances at home added complications to troubles abroad. The very day that 



parliament opened, Italy bombarded the Dardanelles. The Porte temporarily closed 



the Straits and so gave umbrage to Russia, who, ceasing to believe in the 

 Ita ! y ' s , Young Turkish revolution, had replaced M. Charikoff, so friendly to their 



of the war. cause, by M. de Giers, a much less whole-hearted supporter. The Italians 



next occupied the southern Sporades, and on May 6th landed at Rhodes. 

 But serious as these events might be, their importance was but relative compared 

 with what was passing in Albania. The whole district between Djakova, Ipek and 



Mitrovitza was in open revolt; Young Turkish officers and officials were 

 Disasters driven out or murdered, and the movement, although obviously a political 

 Turkey 1 ." ne > was also directed towards autonomy, the insurgents demanding (i) 



the return of the fire-arms taken from them by the Djavid Bey and Torgut 

 Pasha expeditions, (2) official recognition for the Albanian language, (3) localised mili- 

 tary service, and (4) Albanian officials for Albania, at the same time as the resignation 

 of the Said Cabinet, another general election, and the trial of the Hakki Cabinet for 

 high treason before the High Court. On May 22nd the Government decided to send 

 as reinforcements the first or Constantinople division. This step was not merely use- 



