The Committee’s next step was to approach the Inspector-General, Hilmi Pasha (who was made Grand Vizier in February last), and to call upon him, as the highest Government official in Macedonia, to proclaim the Constitution to the people. Hilmi had been a good servant of the Sultan, but at heart he hated the corrupt Palace and its ways, and recognised the justice of the Young Turkey cause which he had been instructed to persecute, but had persecuted so half-heartedly that he had drawn upon himself the rebukes of the Grand Vizier, Ferid Pasha. Hilmi’s attitude was now correct and courageous. He told the Committee that though his sympathies were with the Young Turkey party, he was still the servant of the Sultan, and consequently could not proclaim the Constitution unless ordered to do so by his sovereign. Upon this the Committee informed him that unless he proclaimed the Constitution within twenty-four hours he would have to suffer the penalty—that is, to be put to death—that the telegraph lines were at his disposal and it behooved him, within the given time, to persuade the Sultan that resistance to the will of the people would be of no avail, and that His Majesty could only retain his position on the throne by the immediate restoration of the Constitution. So Hilmi Pasha now sent telegram after telegram to the Palace to explain the exact state of affairs. He exposed the absolute hopelessness of the cause of the old _régime_—the two Pashas on whom the Sultan had relied to destroy the Committee of Union and Progress, Hilmi and Osman, were the prisoners of the Committee; the Anatolian troops that were to have stamped out the rebellion had become the sworn adherents of the Committee; the Second and Third Army Corps now formed the army of the Committee; of the First Army Corps in Constantinople itself the Palace Guards alone were above suspicion; there was no time to arouse the fanaticism of the Arabs and other Asiatics against the Young Turks; the action of the Anatolian regiments that had been brought to Salonica had proved that the Army Corps in Asia Minor had also been brought round to the side of the reformers; and lastly, from all over the Empire the news was coming in that Valis of provinces and other high officials had deserted the Palace Camarilla for the constitutional party.