Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/258

 in the building up of an economic tradition to which the Turks have heretofore been strangers, Turkish nationalism confronts its real problem.

On Feb. 17, 1923, Mustapha Kemal Pasha opened the country's first economic congress at Smyrna. More than 500 delegates were present. Farmers and producers were given the center block of seats, traders and business men the right block, and skilled workmen the left block, with a special section of the hall given over to an exhibition of agricultural machinery, most of it from the United States. It was a unique event in Turkish history, and its significance may be gathered from Kemal Pasha's opening address, which merits quotation in part:

"Gentlemen, when history applies itself to searching the causes of the grandeur and of the decadence of a people, it invokes political, military and social reasons. It is evident that ultimately all the reasons spring from social conditions but that which is in closest bearing to the existence, the prosperity and the decadence of a people is its economics. This historical truth is confirmed in our existence and our national history. In fact, if one examines the history of the Turkish people, one will see that her grandeur and her decadence are merely corollaries of her economic life. So in order to raise the new Turkey to the desired level, it is necessary, cost what it may, to accord all our solicitude to the questions which concern her economics.

"In the course of Ottoman history, all the efforts employed, all the activities of her statesmen, have had as their aim, not to satisfy the desires of the people nor to realize their aspirations, but rather