Could Not Walt

At Berne scholars are translating into Turkish 1,800 articles culled from the Swiss Civil Code. At Berlin 700 articles of the German Commercial Code are being similarly translated. At Rome 700 excerpts from the Italian Penal Code are passing into curlicues unintelligible to most Occidentals.

Mustapha Kemal Pasha, President of the Turkish Republic, announced last week that these fragments of admittedly highly advanced European legislation are to be assembled into a Turkish Code, which will supplant the wildly jumbled legal system, based upon interpretations of the Koran, with which the Turks have been immemorially content.

Kemal Pasha said: "When the Republic of Turkey was first proclaimed, it was intended to codify the Turkish law as it then stood.... Experts, however, estimated that 50 jurists working ten hours a day for a century could not complete the task.... We 'Young Turks' could not wait so long...."