Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/214

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civilian administration which the country possessed.

This is the theory to which it was built: Under the Ottoman Constitution, as revived by the 1908 Revolution, the powers of declaring war and peace, of dissolving Parliament, of receiving diplomatic representatives of foreign States, and of appointing the Cabinet and the Senate, had been vested in the Sultan. In the creation of the Grand National Assembly, the Sultan was deposed and his prerogatives were re-distributed. The Assembly itself became the seat of authority and since its sessions were fixed by its fundamental law at two years' duration, no right of dissolving it was admitted. The power of receiving diplomatic representatives of foreign States was delegated to the President of the Assembly. The power of appointing the Cabinet was taken by the Assembly and since its Ministers were made individually responsible to the Assembly, both the executive and the legislative functions of government were retained in its hands. The Senate disappeared with the Sultan and the Government of the Grand National Assembly became radically republican in structure. Differences of opinion existed in the Nationalist Party respecting its permanent structure, a small school of monarchist opinion holding that a form of government so unreservedly republican would not show itself suited to the country's peace-time needs, but for the time being domestic controversies were buried deeply beneath the urgencies of the military situation. No differences of opinion have existed among Westerners who know the East, however. It has long been a belief in the West that the East can only be ruled by Sultans. We West-