Arabs Want Home Rule.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 4, 1913:
Entering Wedge Which May End Turkey Altogether.
    CONSTANTINOPLE, April 21.— With the loss of the European vilayets and the consequent loss of representatives in Parliament, the Turkish Government is wondering how to deal with the Arabian question which is identical with the fate of Turkey in Asia. A new law has just been promulgated which gives to the Asiatic vilayets the power to draft their own budgets for certain services, such as education and public works, the right being given them to vote "centimes" to be added to the principal of the State contributions. They also have the right to nominate certain officials under the valls, who, as formerly, will be appointed from Constantinople.
    Apropos of the progressive Turkish idea of the subject may be quoted a statement made by Hussein Djahid Bey, formerly Deputy for Constantinople, and well-known as the editor-in-chief of Tanin:
    "We have no illusions. We shall not satisfy the Arabs, and especially the Arabs of Syria, by the offer of such an old remedy as the promulgation of a general law of the vilayets. The Arabs will carry on their opposition until they have obtained for themselves administration in their own language by functionaries of their own choice, and if they are resisted the danger may be very serious, for the Kiamilist opposition, which can no longer count upon the votes of the Albanians, Greeks, and Bulgars — Turkey in Europe being now lost — will not hesitate to support itself upon the votes of the Arabs in order to climb once to power, and it will work with a view to bringing about new obstruction and worse disorders in Parliament, and division in the army, which may easily cause the final ruin of the Ottoman Empire in its last refuge in Asia.
    "This being the position, we consider that it is only wise not to leave this platform to the Kiamilist opposition, which has already carried on active intrigues in Egypt, and to come to an understanding with the Arabs, taking into consideration all their demands, and only maintaining between them and ourselves that close and ancient tie which, in matters where there is an evident community of Arab and Turkish interest, determines the necessary basis for unity of governmental action.
    "This basis is naturally to be found in the idea that it is as much the interest of the Arabs as of the Turks to be independent and governed by the Caliph, rather than to become the subjects of a foreign, non-Mussulman sovereign. Hence arises the necessity for dynastic unity and common administration in such matters as foreign affairs, war, the navy, and economic legislation.
    "We are of opinion that once this reasoning is accepted there will be no need to stop at half measures, and the Arabs demand for the discussion and regulation of their special interests at Damascus or Beirut the constitution of a special Diet, Landtag, Parliament, or whatever they may choose to call their assembly, we shall have to grant it, arranging, however, a common mode of discussion for common affairs, foreign policy, the army and navy, and economic and fiscal questions of imperial interest.
    "In a word, taking into consideration the totally different qualities of the Arabs and Turks — the latter being more warlike and steadier, and the former more intellectual and subtle — considering also the apparent identity of their interest in safeguarding the independence of the last Mussulman Empire as against Christian Europe, we are of opinion that our relations with the Arabs can, and should, be regulated on a basis similar to that of the famous Austro-Hungarian ausgleich of 1867, that is to say a political system comprising a common dynasty, diplomacy, army and navy, and, for the reset, the widest faculty for self-government."