Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/259

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to appease petty yearnings and personal ambitions. Comrades, if one examines closely the reigns of Mohammed II, of Selim and of Suleiman, one finds that these great and powerful monarchs based their foreign policy on their desires to satiate their personal leanings and ambitions. They had thus to regulate their internal organization in accordance with their foreign policy. Now foreign policy ought to be, on the contrary, subordinated to the internal organization—that is to say, foreign policy should be dominated by the internal economic situation."

Kemal Pasha went on to explain that the monarchical policy of subordinating internal organization to foreign policy, had led to the necessity of allowing conquered elements to retain their national organizations in which they devoted themselves peacefully to economic pursuits while the "essential element" protected them, wielding the sword against their enemies on every frontier of the Empire. "Gentlemen, those who effect conquests by the sword finish by being beaten by those who employ as their arm the plow, and by ceding their place to them. In the struggle between the sword and the plow, it is always the plow which comes out on top."

As soon as Rauf Bey returned from Malta, he was given the Ministry of Public Works at Angora, where the elaboration of a scheme of railway development was given immediate attention. Negotiations ensued with the representatives of the Ottoman-American Development Company, backed by Rear Admiral Colby M. Chester, U. S. N. (retired), who had been in previous negotiation with the old Ottoman Government in Constantinople. On April 11, 1923, the development scheme