It was recognised that, far from losing its _raison d’être_ with the opening of Parliament, the Young Turk organisation would be needed more than ever for the protection of the country, and would have to continue its existence, with the army behind it as heretofore, for a long while to come. The Committee of Union and Progress therefore held a Congress in Salonica in October, at which measures were taken to strengthen and effect the closer knitting together of the Young Turk party. It was arranged that all the Deputies in the Turkish Parliament who were nominees of the Committee should pledge themselves to support in its entirety the programme laid down by the Committee. Arrangements were made for the establishment of close relations between the Committee and the Army. The secret Central Committee, the names of whose members are unknown to the outer world, was re-elected at the Congress, but it was decided that it should no longer have its head-quarters in Salonica and that it should not hold its meetings in Constantinople. It was to have no known or fixed habitation. The Young Turks, therefore, apparently deemed it more necessary than ever that strict secrecy should be observed as to who their real leaders were. By this time the Committee had largely extended its membership, its sworn associates numbering about seventy thousand—all that was best of the Ottoman manhood. As the result of the electoral campaign conducted by the Committee of Union and Progress their nominees are in an overwhelming majority in the Turkish House of Commons, voting as one man on all important questions. The Constitution arranged for the creation of a Senate, or Second Chamber, composed of notables selected by the Sultan. The Committee saw to it that the Senate should not become the head-quarters of reaction. It presented a list of names to the Sultan, who was pleased to appoint as Senators the persons thus suggested to him. A parliament, the bulk of whose members are sworn to obey the bidding of a secret society, may not be an ideal form of government; but there can be little doubt that it was the best possible one for Turkey during the early days of the new _régime_, when it was necessary for the very existence of the Empire that one strong and patriotic party should dominate the House and present a united front to foreign foe and home reactionary. It was no time for parliamentary dissensions, for the raising of delicate questions concerning the future position of the various races, with their conflicting aspirations, or for the discussion of the schemes of thorough-going decentralisation advocated by the too broad-minded theorists who would grant home rule all round to Turkey’s various peoples.