The Ottoman Government could not understand how members of Parliament could be imprisoned, especially by the English, the founders of the parliamentary system. The deputy Jelal Noury Bey, who is neither a Nationalist nor a Unionist, was apprehended, merely because he opposed Ferid Pasha’s policy. England, to enhance her influence over public opinion, got control over the chief newspapers which were not friendly to her. Jelal Noury Bey, the director of the _Ileri_, a radical newspaper, and Ahmed Emin Bey, the director of the _Vakit_, were deported. The _Alemdar_, the _Peyam Sabah_, the _Stambul_, edited by Refi Jevad, Ali Kemal, and Said Mollah, which, since the first days of the armistice, had praised the English policy, fell into English hands; which accounts for the varying attitudes successively assumed by those journals in their comments on current events. Their editors were mostly members of the “Club of the Friends of England,” and sought in every possible way to increase the number of the adherents of that committee, which was subsidised by the British High Commissioner, and whose chief aim was that the Turkish mandate should be given to England. On March 21, 1920, the British at Skutari requisitioned the police courts, the law courts, the police station, the town hall, and the prison, thus almost completely disorganising the administration of the town. In the note signed by the High Commissioners, this occupation was described as a measure of guarantee, with a view to the execution of the treaty that was going to be forced on Turkey. Yet it seemed rather strange that such measures should be taken before the treaty was concluded—or was it because the English, being aware the treaty was unacceptable, thought it necessary to gag the Turks beforehand, or even sought to exasperate them?—for if the Turks offered resistance, then the English would have a right to intervene very sternly, and thus could justify the most unjustifiable measures of repression. What would England and the United States have answered if France had proposed such coercive measures against Germany in addition to those of the armistice? It was stated in this note that the occupation would not last long, and was no infringement upon the Sultan’s sovereignty, that it aimed at rallying the Turks in a common endeavour to restore prosperity to Turkey in accordance with the Sultan’s orders; but it also threatened that, should disorder last longer in Asia Minor, the occupation might be extended and the provisions of the treaty might be made harder, in which case Constantinople would be severed from Turkey. The _Daily Telegraph_ said about that time: “The political situation, which has evolved so rapidly, plainly shows it is not enough for the Americans to keep aloof from the present events. Their national honour is at stake.