[Footnote 2:  The army rations have lately been reduced, each Turkish soldier receiving daily an oke of bread and a dried mackerel.]

And should anybody doubt the efficiency of German control in Turkey, and be disposed to be optimistic about the imminence of Turkey’s detachment, he might do well to ponder that story.

Meantime the efficacy of our naval blockade is largely discounted by Germany’s new source of supply.  Possibly in the ensuing winter of 1917-18 conditions may get unbearable, but if the Turkish Government only two years ago massacred more than a million of its subjects, it would be absurd to expect that the starving of a million more would produce much effect on the Ministers of the Turkish God of Love.[1] The people are, of course, told, with suitable statistics, how famine is decimating England and France, and how the total starvation of those unfortunate countries is imminent.  Indeed, of all the signs of want of confidence in their German overlords, by far the most promising are the facts that Talaat and Enver have sent their money out of the country, and that Jemal the Great has a swelled head.  On these facts there is a certain justifiable optimism to be based.  It will do no good to consider them academically in London; but are there not practical channels to reach the instincts of the Turkish triumvirate that might be navigated?

[Footnote 1:  The following list of prices in Constantinople is of interest:—­

July 1914.     July 1917. 
Rice, per lb.        2-1/4 d.      3s. 4d. 
Milk, per quart       5d.          2s. 
Flour, per lb.        3d.          2s. 6d. 
Petroleum, per lb.    1d.          4s. 6d. 
Pair of boots         L1           L8.    ]

We need not trouble ourselves with considering what the Allies will have to do with the Turkish army when once the end of the war comes, for the collapse of the military party in Turkey, which owes its whole vitality to Germany, will be perfect and complete.  But the economical future of Turkey is not so plain:  at the present moment its bankruptcy is total.  Early in the war Germany drained it of such bullion as it had, and has since then advanced it about L150,000,000, which, as far as I can trace, is entirely in German paper, and must be redeemed in gold at some period (chiefly two years) after the end of the war.  That is wonderful finance, and one marvels that Turkey could have been so far blinded as to accept it.  But I expect that the swallowing of the first loan was sweetened by a spoonful of jam of this kind.  Germany pointed out that, though England was quite certainly going to lose the war, she had issued an immense paper coinage which had all the purchasing power of gold.  Germany, on the other hand, with her dear Ally to help her, was just as certainly going to win the war.  How, then, could there be the slightest risk of the German paper money depreciating a single piastre in value?  That sounded very good sense to Turkey, who was equally convinced that