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Show Profiteering Is Real Cause of Thousands of Deaths in Turkey, Dr. W. T. Ellis Says 300,000 Syrians Sacrificed to Greed in the Lebanon, Leb-anon, He Declares; No Lack of Foodstuffs ; and Not One Pound Needed From U. S. ! CONSTANTINOPLE, July 1 - (by courier.) Profiteering was the real cause of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of persons, Armenians, Syrians, Greeks, Turks and other nationalities in Turkey, during the last five ye.'ijTS. Tliere is not now, and has not been throughout, any lack of foodstuffs. Profiteers Prof-iteers Jiave cornered the supply and have callously watched myriads die without lowering prices. Turkey today does not need a pound of food from America. Recently one American Ameri-can shipload of flour was taken to a supposedly sup-posedly destitute hilaek sea port, to he sold at 10 cents a pound, and upon its arrival the local food trust dumped on the market greater quantities of flour at S cents a pound, and the Americans had their trouble for their pains. Major Arnold, who is the executive head of Armenian relief here. Is my an thority for the foregoing incident. I was present at a conference between Major Arnold and a representative of the allied economic commission, concerning ways of getting on to the mai'fcet the huge stores of grain which cumber Turkish warehouses needed for other purposes. J.arge quantities of grain are constantly in process of being spoiled. Profiteers Watch Victims Die. Major Nlchol of Beirut, local head of American relief work, told me that there was no need that any one of the 300,000 Syrians in tho Lebanon who starved to death should have perished. All the ghastly scenes of bodies on the streets, and even of cannibalism, are on the heads of a few native profiteers. The foremost of these financial ghouls has been at pains, since the war, to pet into the good graces of the foreign authorities. au-thorities. When the French ammunition dump in Beirut exploded a few weeks ago, this man and his family, thinking a revolution had broken out and that they would be the first victims, rushed into high-powered automobiles and fled, never stopping until they reached Kidon. Of the five men who were the food control con-trol ring in Aleppo, two were Turkish officials, one was an Italian, one a Greek and one a Syrian. In Constantinople some Armenians became millionaires during dur-ing the war. On a small and large scale, food profiteering continues, although the Americans have done much to break prices. At practically every station on the Bagdad railway between Adana and Constantinople I saw mountainous heaps of grain. Throughout Palestine, Syria and Asia Minor the harvests seem unusually un-usually bountiful. ! America may be interested in a general 1 statement of the condition of the Armenians Arme-nians a nil Syrians and Jews, concerning whose suffering so much has been written. writ-ten. Indignation has been caused among relief workers by the persistent circulation circula-tion of reports in America that the terrible terri-ble conditions of two and three years ago stid continue. There is today no destitution anywhere In Palestine; the people are more pros-' perous than before the war. The American Ameri-can Red Cross has left the land, and, aside from various Zionist philanthropies; there is no American relief work except the maintenance of the famous German orphanage, ith about 400 children. In the larger Syria, which includes Palestine, Pal-estine, the same condition is true. The British military authorities have done a comprehensive relief work there which surpasses anything attempted by American Ameri-can agencies. There are no starving people peo-ple in Syria. At Aleppo, Armenian orphans or-phans and refugees have been collected and cared for by the Joint efforts of British Brit-ish and Americans, and they are being sent to their old homes as rapidly as possible. pos-sible. In Central Turkey, there is no abnormal ab-normal destitution, except in the Black sea regions. In the Caucasus, where there was a great concentration of Armenian refugees, there has been and still Is terrible suffering, suffer-ing, owing to lack of transportation and political difficulties. The British military are remaining in the Caucasus to facilitate facili-tate the work of relief, which has now been put under the sole direction of Colonel Colo-nel Haskell, who will represent the American Ameri-can committee, the food commission and the Paris conference in the Caucasus. Noose as a Relief Measure. As soon as a strong hand takes hold of the Ottoman empire, and punishes profiteers, profi-teers, the food situation will become normal. nor-mal. Then the various new governments concerned, such as Armenia and Syria, may assume the responsibility for relief, repatriation and orphan support. There are from sixty to a hundred thousand. Armenian Ar-menian and Syrian orphans to be maintained main-tained and educated. Obviously, these larger phases of the restoration of norma! life to this smitten region can scarcely be maintained by private pri-vate philanthropy; they are the work of government. In them is found a pressing argument for the speedy determination of the political status of Turkey. The magnificent mag-nificent relief and reconstruction measures mea-sures already adopted by the British at their own charges would be continued and made even more general by whatever power is assigned control here. The first and most important measure of relief for the peoples of this region is the establishment of a stable, efficient and impartial government. |